Overview
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Subscription Panel is a customer-facing application that allows users to view offers and then make a subscription purchase.
The Subscription Panel features work in tandem with the CMS Hierarchy and Cache Management features. This section discusses both the CMS Hierarchy feature and Cache Management feature, as well as the Subscription Panel features. The Subscription Panel is comprised of three subsections:
Component Manager
Structure Admin
Presentations
This diagram illustrates how the Subscription Panel, CMS, and Cache Management feature work in tandem.
While this picture shows where at the screen you can get access to Cache management, CMS hierarchy and Subscription Panel block
There are three levels in the CMS Hierarchy:
Client
Newspaper Group
Newspaper
Newspapers are a part of a Newspaper Group, and a Newspaper Group is a part of a Client. Settings can be applied at each level, but settings at the Client level act as the default and apply to lower levels as well. However, changes made at lower levels (e.g. Newspaper or Newspaper Group) will not automatically apply to higher levels. Lower level changes are called overrides since they override higher level settings.
We suggest organizing the hierarchy by configuring widely used settings at the Client level, then overriding them at lower levels when necessary. In some cases overriding is the best way to manage settings (e.g. overriding Attribute for different Newspapers) and doing so will save you headaches in the future.
You can navigate between the hierarchical levels. To do so:
Select the hierarchy button. (The button will display the current level’s name.) After selecting the button, the CMS Hierarchy screen will appear.
Choose the level you wish to be on. The window will disappear. Any change you now make will apply to the selected and lower levels.
There are two types of overrides for the Subscription Panel section of the CMS:
structural overrides - these apply to changes in the structuring of different components (e.g. changing parent/child relationships or their location)
property overrides - these apply to changes of a component’s property (e.g. changing the color of a component)
Remove structural overrides with the remove overrides button and remove property overrides with the wastebin icon located next to the component in question.
This feature clears your cache so that any changes you make take effect. You will want to use CMS + Panel button to clear the caches of the CMS and Subscription Panel feature.
You must set the panel’s URL for this feature to use this feature. From the CMS, select Admin -> CMS Settings and fill in the PanelClearCacheUrl1 field with your panel’s URL. The URL must not contain an SSL certificate (i.e. use HTTP, and do not use HTTPS). Example: http://checkout-demo.subscriberconcierge.com/cache/refresh
If your cache was successfully cleared, a success banner appears at the bottom of the screen.
The Component Manager subsection allows you to manage your Subscription Panel components. Components are the building blocks for your presentations. Each component has a name, class, and code. Components themselves contain various properties, which you can manage when you edit or create a component.
Each component is comprised of the following things:
Name - The display name for the component
Class - The overarching class the component falls into (e.g. address components or payment components)
Code - The code used to call and refer to the component
Typically, Naviga developers create your components with an SQL script. This ensures that your components are correctly named and ordered. A component's class and code, for instance, must adhere to a predefined naming convention for them to function properly. So though you can create components manually, it is not recommended.
The image below depicts the Component Manager UI.
If you select the + add new button to create a new component, the following screen appears.
The Structure Admin subsection allows you to structure components to build a Presentation Template. Whereas components are just the building blocks of your presentation, a template is the arraignment of the building blocks in a particular way.
Typically you will need only a single Presentation Template. It contains a Template Name and a Presentation Type, and is comprised of various components.
You can drag the components to arrange their order, or designate certain components as either a parent or child component.
Typically, Naviga developers create your Presentation Template. This ensures that it is created to spec. However, you can create Presentation Template manually.
This image shows two components. One is a parent component and has multiple child components.
This image shows the component selector tool. Use it to drag components into your Presentation Template.
The Presentations subsection allows you to manage the presentation of your arranged components. Instead of creating or arranging components, you are creating, previewing, editing, or deleting the final presentation of all of your work. Similar to how you use various components to create a Presentation Template, you now fine tune your Presentation Template(s) to create various Presentations.
You can either create a new presentation, import a presentation (JSON), or select an existing presentation.
When creating a new presentation:
- a blank presentation is a presentation with no components.
- save selection as new reuses the same components for multiple presentations, which means changes at the component level will affect both/any presentations using these components.
- duplicate selection creates copies of the components to use in a new presentation, which means changes at the component level will not affect other presentations.
When either saving as new or duplicating components, you should rename them so as to avoid adding copy1, copy2, and so on as extensions.
This image displays the various features of the Presentations menu:
After selecting/creating/importing a presentation, you can:
preview your presentation (to preview, you must be on a Newspaper level with your CMS hierarchy.)
set whether your presentation is active/inactive, which determines whether your presentation can be seen by end-users
set whether your presentation is a default presentation
manage your various components
