BC Blog

Adobe Camp Boston - Scott B. Reynolds will be there!

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Adobe Camp Boston is an all-day learning and networking conference highlighting Adobe software. Staying current isn’t easy, so each year the Adobe Camp Boston showcases some of the latest updates to Adobe software while giving an overview of best practices.

Scott B. Reynolds from Thrise is presenting on Adobe Business Catalyst, the all-in-one website and marketing solution. He will go over both the basics and practical uses for using Business Catalyst. Find out why Adobe says “Say goodbye to 5+ systems. Say hello to Business Catalyst”. Scott is an Adobe Community Professional, an Adobe User Group Manager and an organizer of BC Sandpile.

Announcing our May 2013 system update

Tue, 21 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

We're excited to announce the details of our upcoming system update, scheduled to go live May 28, 2013. With this update we focused on answering a range of key requests from our Partner community, including changes to plan limits, a streamlined DNS interface, and more.

For a more detailed breakdown including bugs addressed in this update, please refer to the official release notes post on the community forums.

Update highlights

Increased plan limits

Based on your feedback, we've adjusted our plan usage limits across the board to better suit your client needs:

All site plans now include 3 Admin users, as opposed to just 1
The webMarketing plan now includes a more generous 5,000 newsletter credits each month, previously 1,000
webBasics now has the same storage and bandwidth limits as our webBasics+ (1GB storage / 1TB monthly bandwidth)
File upload size limit has been increased to 250MB

Simplified DNS interface

In line with our upcoming migration, we've focused on making DNS inside Business Catalyst even easier to configure with a streamlined and simplified management interface:

Advanced options are now displayed under a dedicated “Advanced” section
Fields such as country, culture and start page are pre-filled based on your system domain settings, to speed up the process of adding new domains
Options that don’t apply to a particular plan have been removed from the UI (eg. "Use this service for email" is not applicable for webBasics plans)

Other enhancements

You can now select "Product Code" as a field in Custom Reports
The new InContext Editor (beta) now supports editing from iPads
When upgrading a Creative Cloud webBasics site to a higher plan, you’ll receive a pre-filled 10% discount code on hosting fees

We hope you enjoy this system update, stay tuned for more features and enhancements in coming releases.
The Adobe Business Catalyst Team

DNS migration status page - check your websites

Sun, 19 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Hi everybody,

We have received several requests from partners both here in the comments and also in the forums, for some tools that would help them check the status of their migrated websites. We are happy to announce a newly launched page in the Partner Portal that will help you check the status of your pages.

Please note: All items in this blog are located in the Partner Portal, and as such are available only once you are logged in.

Once logged in to your Partner Portal you will notice on the left menu a new entry, called Migration Status. This is where you need to enter to get all your detailed migration information.

Once you access the page you will see a list of your sites split by datacenters, and you can check each domain by pressing the "Check" button on it's right.

Once you check the domains, you will see an updated page with different color flags. This will allow you to see which domains need your attention and which do not need anything done.

The flags also have a description once you hover your mouse cursor over them, but the meaning is as follows:

A red flag appears when a domain still points to the old datacenters and needs to be updated according to the instructions on the migration website.
"N / A" will appear when either is a domain that no longer exists, one that has been unreachable to our tools, or that is no longer hosted on BC but has remained so in our system.

Once you update your DNS and, if needed, your SPF(TXT) records, the page will have a different look yet again.

Green flags are sites where no further action needs to be taken. The domains marked with "N/A" will move to a section called Deprecated Domains, from where you can further investigate what is happening with those particular sites. If they are still active and you want to configure them to point to the new datacenters they will move in the top section once updated to the new DNS settings.

Your ideal goal is to have an all green on the non-deprecated sites.

Hopefully this page will help you better identify and act upon your sites, but if you require further assistance from our side please do not hesitate to reach out to us through support or forums.

The Business Catalyst team

Our new Sydney datacenter is now live on Amazon!

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:23:00 GMT

Hi everybody,

We are progressing steadily with our Amazon migration, and today we have reached one of our most important milestones.

Our new Sydney Datacenter is now live!

What does this mean for the regular BC partner?

All new sites that you create from now on in the Sydney Datacenter are going to be created on the new infrastructure. This means that for these new sites, created from now on the new datacenter, you won't worry about changing the DNS settings, or updating your SPF and TXT records. (Please note that you still need to update your old websites and their DNS settings. For more details about this check out our migration website.)

These new sites also will give you an opportunity to test our new datacenter and let us know how you find the new Amazon Web Services hosting.

What are the next steps?

We are working towards a final migration in June, so as part of our next actions you will see that we open up a new European Datacenter and a new North American Datacenter in the next few weeks. This will allow our partners in other geographies to test and deploy their websites on the new infrastructure.

What action do you need to take about your old sites?

If your domain has been redelegated to BC then no action is needed on your side. However, if your site has the DNS records with another provider, please follow the instructions on the migration site to help you keep your site available to customers through this migration. <.p>

If you are not able to change the DNS and SPF(TXT) records by middle of June we cannot guarantee the availability of your websites for the public.

If you change your DNS records within the next 5 days you can benefit from our 15% discount code for new websites built on Business Catalyst. Read here more about this special Business Catalyst discount.

Updating your DNS settings - one more week for discount

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:27:00 GMT

Hi everyone,

We are one week into the transition process to our new datacenters, and wanted to give you a brief reminder that you have less than 7 days to make the switch and receive our special 15% discount.

By updating your domain settings within the next 7 days you will receive a 15% coupon for any new site you want to bring to Business Catalyst until beginning of September. The coupon will be e-mailed to all partners who have successfully updated all their websites by the end of next week, and can be used on any website or websites you want to build in the next 3 months. To see what needs to be done for a successful migration on your part see more details about the migration below.

Actions required to keep your sites online

To ensure a painless migration, we've built a reverse proxy that allows you to start routing your client sites through the new infrastructure starting today. This means that you can begin updating your DNS to route through AWS right away, and avoid a last minute rush. We're allowing a 30 day migration window to ensure that all customers have time to update their sites.

If by June 20th, 2013 your websites are not updated as per the instructions below, we can not guarantee a seamless migration, and your sites and hosted email services will no longer function.

Sites using Business Catalyst's nameservers

For customers that have redelegated their domain to Business Catalyst the team has worked on a solution that requires no action on your side at this time. Should action be required at some point in the future you will receive a dedicated e-mail.

Sites using DNS hosted externally with a 3rd party registrar

Sites with DNS hosted on a 3rd party domain registrar (e.g. GoDaddy) must update their DNS records to point to one of the the new data center IP addresses. The legacy data center IP address will be decommissioned on June 20th, at which time if you have not updated your DNS records, your sites and hosted email will no longer function. Please update your 3rd party registrar info to our new IP addresses and create SPF records for each domain - you can use either of the two new IP addresses for your region when changing your DNS records:

Europe

54.246.209.120
or
54.246.209.119

United States

54.236.190.114
or
54.236.189.64

Australia

54.252.148.183
or
54.252.148.191

For detailed instructions please refer to this page on the official migration website.

Update your SPF (TXT) records

If your DNS is hosted externally, you are also required to update your Sender Policy Framework (SPF) TXT setup, to make sure emails are reaching customers inboxes. There are two options in this case:

If the domain has no SPF or TXT record defined, you should add one with the following value: "v=spf1 mx include:worldsecuresystems.com ~all"
If the domain already has an SPF record, you need to include the following value: "include:worldsecuresystems.com"

For detailed instructions about SPF and TXT records, please read this article. If you are unable to find the necessary tool to do so, please contact your domain registrar.

Visit our dedicated migration website

To make this migration as seamless as possible, we've created a dedicated migration websitethat includes:

Detailed technical instructions for updating your DNS records
White-label email notifications for contacting your customers
Answers to frequently asked questions
A list of services unavailable during the actual migration

This site will be our main channel of communication for migration-specific details moving forward, so make sure you bookmark it now.

We'd like to thank you for your understanding and patience during this migration period, and are hoping to make the switch as painless as possible. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch in the comments section below.
The Adobe Business Catalyst Team

BC @ MAX 2013 Recap: Watch the video recordings!

Thu, 16 May 2013 01:36:00 GMT

We'd like to thank everyone who was able to make it out to Los Angeles this year for Adobe MAX 2013. We had around 50 Partners in attendance, and a fantastic week of sessions, labs and social events.

Check out our BC @ MAX 2013 Facebook photo album to see the BC community out in force.

Watch the session video recordings

If you weren't able to attend, don't fear - we've got you covered with full video recordings of our Business Catalyst sessions presented by leading Partners.

Digital Marketing Best Practices with Business Catalyst with Brett Stockley from Pretty

Learn how to develop and execute an effective online marketing plan for your client's online business. Join Brett Stockley from the agency Pretty to:

Learn best practices deployed by Pretty Pollution across search, social networks, and more
Discover how Pretty Pollution utilizes Adobe Business Catalyst to offer clients complete online marketing solutions
See how you too can put these best practices in place to help your clients

Watch the recording on Adobe TV

Measuring and Optimizing your eCommerce Checkout Experience with Karim Ardalan from Dashbee

Learn how to test, measure, and optimize the online shopping experience for your e-commerce projects. Join Adobe Business Catalyst partner dashbee to glean best practices based on real-world use cases. Join Karim Ardalan, founder of dashbee, to:

Learn how to identify fallout points and areas for improvement during the purchase experience
Hear best practices for optimizing and measuring the impact of changes to your checkout process
See real-world case studies of these practices in action

Watch the recording on Adobe TV

Developing an Effective Sales Strategy for Your Web Agency with Tim Gentle from Design Experts

Learn how to develop and implement an effective sales and retention process for your web agency. If selling solutions is something you need to brush up on, you don't want to miss this session. Join Tim Gentle from the agency Design Experts as he:

Uncovers the importance of documentation in the sales process, from the phone ringing to closing the deal
Provides tips on identifying and qualifying customers
Outlines methods of scoping out the specific requirements of a project
Defines how to create and deliver profitable sales proposals

Watch the recording on Adobe TV

Zero to Hero: The Business Catalyst Partner Journey with Brent Weaver from BC Gurus

Join Brent Weaver, CEO of BC Gurus, to glean insights from his impressive career, which has included launching hundreds of sites; consulting with many partners; and maintaining the popular education, tool, and template site BCGurus.com. Leveraging his experience with Adobe Business Catalyst, Weaver will:

Take you on a journey through Business Catalyst partner stories from around the world
Outline simple concepts that Business Catalyst partners can use to compete and grow their web business

Watch the recording on Adobe TV

We hope you enjoy the recordings, and thanks again to everyone who was able to make it!

Until next time,
The Adobe Business Catalyst Team.

May 15th 2013 Partner Orientation Webinar recording

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Thanks to those of you who attended our orientation webinars yesterday.

If you were unable to join us live, you can access the recordings below:

Developing an Effective Sales Strategy for Your Web Agency - with Tim Gentle from Design Experts

Dreamweaver & Business Catalyst integration - with Adam Broadway (Download presentation deck)

Business Catalyst integration with Muse - with Daniele Beaumont and Chris Kellet

Also, don't forget to register for our two upcoming webinars:

Wed, June 12th: Online Marketing with Brett Stockley from PrettyPollution

Australian/EU session (17.00 EST / 09.00 CEST)

US/EU session (09.00 PDT / 18.00 CEST)

Wed, July 10th: Learn how BC Gurus leverages Web Apps to power their popular Business Catalyst community website with Brent Weaver from BC Gurus

Australian/EU session (17.00 EST / 09.00 CEST)

US/EU session (09.00 PDT / 18.00 CEST)

To help you put your learning into practice, webinar participants will be receive a 15% discount on their next website. (*Some conditions apply, see below)

If you have any questions or suggestions please do not hesitate to send them over to BCPartner-Team@adobe.com. We will be happy to answer all your inquiries.

Thank you and hope to see you in next month’s webinar.

*15% discount coupon applies for new site upgrades on any yearly/biyearly desired plan. Coupon validity: 31-Jul-2013, only available for the webinars’ attendees.

Business Catalyst Scheduled maintenance

Mon, 13 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

To ensure the highest security and performance levels for our services, we're applying a hardware and software update on servers located in our Dublin, New Jersey and Sydney datacenters. To minimize the customer impact, the updates are scheduled at the most convenient hours for the region and will take up to eight hours to complete.
During the maintenance procedure the Admin Console Access, Partner Portal, FTP, Dreamweaver extension, Muse, Business Catalyst APIs, Partner registration and Trial site creation will experience 2 service interruptions of up to 30 minutes each (first one at the beginning and the second at the end), impacting sites on ALL datacenters.
Additionally, throughout the maintenance procedure, website front-ends for sites located in the respective Datacenter that have heavy database usage my experience service interruptions of maximum 5 minutes.
Please find below the maintenance schedule and the list of affected services:

Start of maintenance	Duration	Datacenter	Customer impact
May 18th , 2013, 02:00 – 12:00 PST (12:00 GMT+02)	10 hours	New Jersey & Dublin	2 x 30 minutes service interruptions for Admin Console Access, Partner Portal, FTP, Dreamweaver extension, Muse, Business Catalyst APIs, Partner registration, Trial site creation; this will impact sites on all datacenters • Several intermittent website front-end interruptions for some sites on New Jersey datacenter
May 25th, 2013, 02:00 – 10:00 PST	8 hours	Sydney	2 x 30 minutes service interruptions for Admin Console Access, Partner Portal, FTP, Dreamweaver extension, Muse, Business Catalyst APIs, Partner registration, Trial site creation; this will impact sites on all datacenters • Several intermittent website front-end interruptions for some sites on Dublin datacenter

For up to date information about system status, check the Business Catalyst System Status page.
We apologize for any inconveniences generated by these service interruptions. Please make sure that your customers and team members are aware of these important updates.
Thank you for your understanding and support,
The Adobe Business Catalyst Team

Don't miss out on our exciting upcoming Partner webinars – Important Update

Sun, 12 May 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Thanks to all of you who have registered to our webinars so far.

We need to announce a last minute update regarding the webinar scheduled for this Wednesday, May 15th - Brendon O'Sullivan’s session on adding value to clients by upselling products & services had to be rescheduled.

The topic and presenter for this webinar session has been replaced with our experienced BC Partner Tim Gentle from Design Experts on Wed, May 15th for a business session, where you will learn how to Develop an Effective Sales Strategy for Your Web Agency.

Wed, May 15th: Developing an Effective Sales Strategy for Your Web Agency with Tim Gentle from Design Experts

To help you put your learning into practice, webinar participants will be receive a 15% discount on their next website. (*Some conditions apply, see below)

The series continues in June and July with presentations from two of our trusted Partners, Brett Stockley and Brent Weaver, who will teach you how to grow your business into the future. Registrations are now open for those instances as well, and we will be sending out a reminder as we move closer to the presentation dates.

Wed, June 12th: Online Marketing with Brett Stockley from Pretty Pollution

Wed, July 10th: Learn how BC Gurus leverages Web Apps to power their popular Business Catalyst community website with Brent Weaver from BC Gurus

If you could not join us live, you can click the links below to access recordings of our past webinars:

Dreamweaver & Business Catalyst integration - with Adam Broadway (Download presentation deck)
Business Catalyst integration with Muse - with Daniele Beaumont and Chris Kellet

If you have any questions or suggestions please do not hesitate to send them over to BCPartner-Team@adobe.com. We will be happy to answer all your inquiries.

*15% discount coupon applies for new site upgrades on any yearly/biyearly desired plan. Coupon validity: 31-Jul-2013, only available for the webinars’ attendees.

Important: Updating your DNS settings for the Amazon Web Services migration

Wed, 08 May 2013 08:43:00 GMT

As previously announced, we're transitioning Business Catalyst from its existing data centers to a new cloud infrastructure, based on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing platform. This is part of our on-going effort to improve our infrastructure and deliver the highest quality service to our Partners.

Our team has been working hard behind the scenes to make all the necessary preparations, however there is now action required on your behalf.

Actions required to keep your sites online

If by June 20th, 2013 your websites are not updated as per the instructions below, we can not guarantee a seamless migration, and your sites and hosted email services will no longer function.

By updating your domain settings within the next 2 weeks you will receive a 15% coupon for any new site you want to bring to Business Catalyst until beginning of September.

Sites using DNS hosted externally with a 3rd party registrar

Europe

54.246.209.120
or
54.246.209.119

United States

54.236.190.114
or
54.236.189.64

Australia

54.252.148.183
or
54.252.148.191

For detailed instructions please refer to this page on the official migration website.

Update your SPF (TXT) records

If your DNS is hosted externally, you are also required to update your Sender Policy Framework (SPF) TXT setup, to make sure emails are reaching customers inboxes. There are two options in this case:

If the domain has no SPF or TXT record defined, you should add one with the following value: "v=spf1 mx include:worldsecuresystems.com ~all"
If the domain already has an SPF record, you need to include the following value: "include:worldsecuresystems.com"

For detailed instructions about SPF and TXT records, please read this article. If you are unable to find the necessary tool to do so, please contact your domain registrar.

Sites using Business Catalyst's nameservers

Visit our dedicated migration website

To make this migration as seamless as possible, we've created a dedicated migration website that includes:

Detailed technical instructions for updating your DNS records
White-label email notifications for contacting your customers
Answers to frequently asked questions
A list of services unavailable during the actual migration

This site will be our main channel of communication for migration-specific details moving forward, so make sure you bookmark it now.

Analytics sites affected for Apr 26-30

Thu, 02 May 2013 11:48:00 GMT

As some of you may have noted, some of the websites hosted with BC have been showing a downward curve for the analytics section in the timeframe of April 26th to April 30th. Upon reporting from some of our Partner Advisory Board members, the engineering team has investigated this issue and discovered that due to our proxy system put in place for our planned move to Amazon Web Services, some of the analytics calculations were not performed and displayed correctly.

This issue has now been resolved, and the calculations and reporting have been fixed.

However, the data from Apr 26 to Apr 30 is irretrievably lost and unfortunately cannot be reinstated.

We apologize for this incident and will do our best to prevent any such occurrences in the future, as we continue our move to the cloud. Also, we would like to thank our PAB for the help in noticing this particular incident, and promptly raising the status of the tickets submitted through support.

The BC Team.

Fresh Zero To Hero Updates!

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:00:00 GMT

The team over at BC Gurus have been busy updating their already extensive library of Zero to Hero video training courses. They've also added great new content that will help familiarize you and your team with how DNS works inside Business Catalyst.

New DNS course
Just in time for our upcoming infrastructure migration, Zero to Hero now also includes an in-depth series on setting up DNS with Business Catalyst. Make sure you review this great course ahead of our AWS migration next month so that you're up to speed with managing your DNS records:

Updated getting started videos
In line with our recent Partner Portal updates, the getting started series has been updated and you can check it out at the link below:

How to use the Business Catalyst Partner Portal

Head on over to Zero to Hero to check out the new and updated courses today.

Register now for our series of upcoming exciting webinars!

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:29:00 GMT

Join our experienced BC Partner Brendon O'Sullivan from Bosweb on Wed, May 15th for a business session, where you will learn how to add value to clients by upselling products & services.

Wed, May 15th: Adding value to clients by upselling products & services with Brendon O'Sullivan from Bosweb

To help you put your learning into practice, webinar participants will be receive a 15% discount on their next website. (*Some conditions apply, see below)

Wed, June 12th: Online Marketing with Brett Stockley from Pretty Pollution

Wed, July 10th: Learn how BC Gurus leverages Web Apps to power their popular Business Catalyst community website with Brent Weaver from BC Gurus

If you could not join us live, you can click the links below to access recordings of our past webinars:

Dreamweaver & Business Catalyst integration - with Adam Broadway (Download presentation deck)
Business Catalyst integration with Muse - with Daniele Beaumont and Chris Kellet

If you have any questions or suggestions please do not hesitate to send them over to BCPartner-Team@adobe.com. We will be happy to answer all your inquiries.

*15% discount coupon applies for new site upgrades on any yearly/biyearly desired plan. Coupon validity: 31-Jul-2013, only available for the webinars’ attendees.

New Accounts Resources available for you!

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:00:00 GMT

We are proud to present you New Accounts Resources designed to support you through the accounts most common questions.

Our objective is to offer you easy to use accounts instructions, that any BC Partner or Customer, regardless of his experience on the platform, can use to improve his BC experience.

What questions do we address:

How can I change the billing email address?
How can I email an invoice to my billing email address?
How can you move a site from one Partner to another?
How can I change a site plan?
What extras can I add to a site?
How can I cancel extras?
Can I transfer hosting fees from one site to another site?
Can I put a site on hold?
Can I cancel a paid site at any time?
Will a payment be refunded if I cancel a site?

The answers to these questions are available for:

Partners -> login to your Partner Portal -> Resources tab -> Sales -> General Resources -> Accounts FAQ

Customers -> in the Help & Resources area -> Popular Help Resources -> Accounts FAQ

For any questions regarding Accounts Resources, please contact the BC Partner team.

BC Sandpile - May meetings

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:34:00 GMT

BC Sandpile is a weekly online meeting run by Business Catalyst Partners for the purpose of sharing ideas, best practices, and networking.

Weekly Day/Time:

San Francisco: Tuesdays, 5pm (all times adjusted in relation to this time)
New York City: Tuesdays, 8pm
London: Wednesdays, 1am
Sydney: Wednesdays, 11am

BC Marketing Tactics with Fraser McCulloch - 30th April (1st May in AUS):
Fraser McCulloch from Platonik will share some of his quick fire marketing tactics that can easily be done with a BC site. He’ll also walk us through one of his most recent projects focusing on how BC was used to make the original idea come to life.
http://www.bcsandpile.com/_blog/Meeting_Chalkboard/post/marketing-tactics-fraser-mcculloch/

Sandpile Think Tank: Email Marketing - 7th May (8th in AUS):
We are dedicating an entire meeting to the discussion of email marketing with Business Catalyst. For those not going to Adobe MAX this is a perfect opportunity to network with other Business Catalyst Partners without traveling to Los Angeles.
http://www.bcsandpile.com/_blog/Meeting_Chalkboard/post/think-tank-email-marketing/

Enhance BC's Customer Service Ticketing with Scott B Reynolds - 14th May (15th in AUS):
Scott B Reynolds from Thrise will explain how to set up the Business Catalyst's integrated Customer Service Ticketing system, and show how to enhance it to offer better support. If you want a better way to provide customer support that saves you time and money don't miss this meeting.
http://www.bcsandpile.com/_blog/Meeting_Chalkboard/post/customer-service-ticketing-scott-reynolds/

Testing Business Catalyst Sites with Jared Checkley - 21st May (22nd in AUS):
Jared Checkley from Code Six Zero is going to show us how Selenium can be used as a tool to test Business Catalyst websites. This conversation should stimulate a wider discussion of how BC Partners can deliver higher quality websites to their clients.
http://www.bcsandpile.com/_blog/Meeting_Chalkboard/post/testing-business-catalyst-jared-checkley/

Speed Dating with Business Catalyst Resources - 28th May (29th in AUS):
With so many Business Catalyst resources it's easy to get lost. We are dedicating this entire meeting to explore as many helpful BC resources as possible.
http://www.bcsandpile.com/_blog/Meeting_Chalkboard/post/speed-dating-with-bc-partner-resources/

Full schedule: http://www.bcsandpile.com/_blog/Meeting_Chalkboard/
Sandpile Recordings: http://www.bcsandpile.com/business-catalyst/resources.htm