Summer '19 Release Notes

In this release

Summer '19

These features are available as part of Yext’s Summer ’19 Release. Unless otherwise noted, all features are available globally.

Unless otherwise noted, Yext customers can gain early access to these new features by visiting Account Settings, clicking Account Features in the left sidebar, and toggling the features on in their accounts.

 

Knowledge Graph (formerly known as Knowledge Manager)

Platform & APIs

Pages

Listings

Reviews

Analytics

App Directory

Usability Updates

 

Knowledge Graph (formerly known as Knowledge Manager)

Custom Entity Types

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: Direct

With the Summer '19 Release, Yext customers will be able to create custom entities to model, store, and publish their public facts. Entities are the building blocks of a Knowledge Graph, and where a brand would store the information that their customers might be looking for.

Custom Entities can consist of built-in and Custom Fields, which give each Custom Entity their specific characteristics. For example, a car company may want to create a Custom Entity for cars, dealerships, and service departments. These entities are linked together, and within their Knowledge Graph, the customer is able to specify that cars are available at dealerships, which also contain service departments.

Instances of Custom Entities can be added/updated through the Yext API.

Linked Entities Module

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: Direct

linkedentitiesmodule.jpg

The Linked Entities Module is a new UI enhancement to the Yext platform, to easily provide a visual summary of all of the relationships that exist for an entity. In the right-hand sidebar of each entity details page, this module will list all of the linked entities for the entity in view. These line items will also be preceded by an arrow that demonstrates the direction of the link.  An arrow to the right indicates that the link is established by a field on the entity you are viewing, whereas an arrow to the left indicates that a field on another entity has established a link to the entity you are viewing.

Editing Custom Field Types

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: Direct

Customers will now be able to edit and update Custom Field Types that are created within the Yext platform. Previously, Custom Field Types were immutable after creation, and with this update, you will be able to make edits to the fields as well as delete them.

Extended Postal Codes

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: Direct

The Yext platform now supports extended postal codes in address fields. For example, in the USA, customers can now set nine-digit postal codes (in addition to the five-digit postal codes currently accepted) for their locations. For customers who have access to Yext Listings, these will be passed on to all data partners that accept this nine-digit format. International customers will also be able to set the longer, optional postal code format in their respective countries.  This field can be fetched via API, and can also be displayed on Yext Pages.

Customizable Add Screen

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: Direct

Yext customers can now customize the “+Add Entity” screen to show more fields when a new entity is added. In Account Settings under Manage Entity Types, you can edit the fields available for that entity. To make a field appear on the “+Add Entity” screen, simply check “Visible On Add” for that field. Fields that are on the “+Add Entity” screen by default cannot be removed.

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Platform & APIs

Rebranded Navigation

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

As the Yext platform evolves, so does our visual identity. With this release, customers will be able to see new updates to the Yext brand, such as a new Yext logo, new product icons, and the renaming of Knowledge Manager to Knowledge Graph.

Home Screen

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

homescreen.jpg

The Yext platform has a new look. With the release of the Home Screen, customers will be able to create a custom dashboard to display the information that is most critical to each customer’s account. Upon login, customers will be able to see modules such as analytics, quick links, reviews awaiting response (Ultimate package required), recent reviews (Ultimate package required), and more. The Home Screen can be customized by dragging and dropping the modules, and the information displayed will be filtered to the data that each account viewer has access to.

This feature will remain opt-in until Fall ’19 General Availability.

New Webhook Security Feature

PACKAGE: Base
CHANNEL: All

Yext customers now have a way to add optional security to their API connection to the Yext platform. With our new webhook feature update, customers can generate a unique signing secret in their Yext developer consoles. This way, when a webhook is triggered, Yext will hash the request body using the signing secret, and include this hash in a header on the webhook request. Upon receipt of this request, customers can compare their hash of the request body with the included header.

Should it become compromised, you can manually regenerate your signing secret in the Yext developer console.

This additional verification is optional and customers who are already using Yext webhooks should not experience any interrupted service.

Partner Portal Translations

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: Partner

In the Summer '19 Release, Yext is releasing the ability to translate the Partner Portal based on the language settings of the user’s browser. When this feature is enabled, all users for a partner account will see the portal in the language that their browser is set to. Previously, the Partner Portal was available in English only.

User Role Name Changes

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

As the Yext platform evolves to allow the modeling of different kinds of data, the user role names will also evolve to stay consistent. Any user role names with “Location” in the title will be updated with “Entity”. For example, “Location Manager” in Yext will be changed to “Entity Manager”.

This feature will go live with Summer '19 General Availability.

 

Pages

Support for Custom Entities

PACKAGE: Available as an add-on to any package, must also include a Yext Consulting package. Not available in Page Builder.
CHANNEL: Direct customers

Customers who add custom entities to a Yext Knowledge Graph will now be able to create or add landing pages for those entities to their website. Create Pages for jobs, featured items, products, offers and more — in addition to the location, professional and event landing pages you are already powering from Yext. Like all Yext Pages, your Custom Entity Pages will include the proper and up-to-date Schema.org mark-up, load fast, and look great on any device.

Custom Entity Pages are built by the Yext Consulting team who will partner with you to deliver fully customized landing pages.

Enhancements to Page Builder

PACKAGE: Pages customers with access to the Page Builder tab (customers who did not use Yext Consulting to build Pages).
CHANNEL: Direct customers

We have made several enhancements to the Page Builder functionality to support customers who build and maintain their Yext Pages within the platform.

New Modules

  • Image Gallery III: This module allows you to select a photo field from the Knowledge Graph and display it on your Pages as a grid of images with click-through CTAs.

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  • Location List and Person List: These lists display locations or people in a card layout.

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  • Person Details: This module pulls in and displays core details about a Person entity, such as name, title, description, and up to two CTAs.

persondetails.jpg

  • App Download: A module that allows you to link users to your app listing in the Apple App Store and/or Google Play to download your app.

appdownload.jpg

Universal Entity Picker

Yext Page Builder now utilizes the Universal Entity Picker. Now, when a user is building a Page Template, they will be able to see all entities that could use the selected Page Template.  This allows users to filter and more easily make a selection, or navigate between different entities to preview in the template.

Holiday Hours Support

For customers that utilize the Holiday Hours field in Yext, your location pages will automatically reflect the holiday hours that you set on the week of the holiday.

Image as Constant Value

You can now enter images as constant values in your Page Templates. Set and easily update banner images, logos, or other photos you want displayed across all of your location, professional, or event landing pages.

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Knowledge Tags Updates

PACKAGE: Add-on to Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

Customers with Knowledge Tags can include Google My Business attributes managed in Yext on their landing pages. These attributes will display as a bulleted list and be kept up-to-date using Knowledge Sync.

 

Listings

Google Postcard Verification for Service Area Businesses

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

Previously, service area businesses could not initiate postcard verification on Google My Business via API. With the launch of Google My Business API v4.4, Google now accepts an address parameter for where the postcard should be sent.

Improved Settings in Partner Scan

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: Partner

Yext Partners who use Yext’s scan tool can update their settings in Branding Settings to customize and better enhance the Partner scan.

  • After running a scan, the share email template will be translated to the user’s browser language (previously all default inputs were in English). Partners can further customize the default text they want to appear when sharing scan results.
  • When a business runs a scan using the Partner scan tool, our Partners now have the ability to ask for name and email fields. So when Partners are following up on leads as a result of a business scan, they have the most accurate contact information from who ran the scan.
  • Partners now have the option to include a legal disclaimer in the whitelabel scan.

New Fields in Partner Scan

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: Partner

Yext Partners can include additional fields in their business scans.

Fields Partners could scan for before the Summer ’19 Release:

  • Business Name
  • Address
  • Phone Number
  • Reviews Data

Additional fields Partners can scan for after the Summer ’19 Release:

  • Business Hours
  • Primary Category
  • Website
  • Aggregate Ratings from Website
  • Products and Services from Website

Adding these additional fields allows our Partners to identify extra opportunities where they can provide value. A brand’s true digital footprint includes their website AND their presence on third-party publishers. By including website performance in the scan, Partners can showcase a more accurate representation of a brand’s digital presence and in doing so, expose more areas where the business can improve.

YP Added to Partner Scan

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: Partner

Yellow Pages has been added to Partner Scan results.

Posting to Facebook

PACKAGE: Professional and above
CHANNEL: All

With the Summer ’19 Release, Yext has disabled automatic posting of Featured Messages to Facebook. In the past, any time users updated their Featured Message in Yext, it would automatically post to Facebook.

Customers who have the Professional package or above and want to post to Facebook can do so through our Social Posting tool.

Instagram Listing Functionality

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

Instagram recently enhanced their business profiles to expose more fields when consumers are searching for places on Instagram.

The list of fields that Instagram now accepts are:

  • Business Name
  • Address
  • Website
  • Category
  • Business Hours

Instagram pulls this data from Facebook. Managing your Facebook Pages with Yext helps ensure that the photos consumers post of your business on Instagram are geotagged accurately. Also, when consumers are searching for your business under Places on Instagram, our customers can ensure they have accurate, up-to-date information.

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Note: With Instagram recognizing these additional fields, it will now be a filterable publisher in the Listings tab.

Unavailable Reason Actionable Flag Updates

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

Unavailable reasons in Listings are categorized as “Customer-Actionable”, “Yext-Actionable”, or both. We’ve recategorized many of these unavailable listings to better fit with the proper person to solve the unavailable reason.

We’ve recategorized the reasons a listing would be considered “unavailable” to help easily identify which unavailable listings are actionable and can be fixed by the customer. For example, if a missing phone number, which can only be provided by the customer, is needed to fix an unavailable listing, then that unavailable listing would be deemed as “Customer-Actionable.” These changes may also reflect in the “Fix your Data” section on the Listings Overview page.

Knowledge Network Updates

PACKAGE: Noted below
CHANNEL: Noted below

KNupdates.jpg

We’re proud to continue expanding the Knowledge Network with new integrations that help our customers power answers about their businesses across more endpoints than ever.

Global:

Google+

  • As a reminder, Google fully deprecated Google+ on March 7th, 2019. Therefore, Yext customers are no longer able to create posts on Google+ from the Yext platform.

Zenrin

  • As opposed to generic markers or word texts, brand icons are much more recognizable and allow consumers to engage with a business easily and more directly - especially when they’re on the go.

zenrin.jpg

  • Zenrin licenses and provides brand icons to automakers and navigation product developers, who supply the data to a variety of GPS and navigation products. Through this integration, you can power your brand’s icon across GPS and navigation systems to drive greater discoverability and brand recognition. Zenrin is available to Yext ENT customers globally, with a subscription to the Starter package or above.

Chillwall

  • Chillwall is an AI-powered events discovery platform. Chillwall learns and recommends the latest local events based on your location, interests, and passions so more people attend and experience your unique events. Included in the Yext for Events Starter package or above by July 2019, Direct customers of Yext will be able to easily manage and promote their events on Chillwall.

North America:

US & CA

  • DealerRater is the world’s leading car dealer review website that helps connect consumers with the right person at the right dealership. With the Summer ’19 Release, mutual customers using Yext for Review Monitoring can pull in DealerRater reviews for the locations that are subscribed to any of DealerRater’s Connections Products.
  • Note: DealerRater only supports locations in the US and CA.

Europe, Middle East, and Africa:

Bing

  • Yext customers can update the facts about their business, like hours of operation, photos, videos, and more, for their locations in Japan.
  • In addition, get accurate information to your customers faster now that Yext supports fast updates in Germany and Great Britain.
  • Bing is available to all Yext customers with a subscription to the Starter package or above.
  • No pre-existing relationship with Bing is required to take advantage of these integrations.

YellowMap is a leading provider of local search solutions in Germany. When users are searching, YellowMap’s smart local search function provides them with answers even before they are asked, and adds relevant information into search results that were not directly queried. In addition to supporting locations in Germany, Yext will now support locations in Austria on YellowMap. YellowMap is available to all Yext customers with a subscription to the Starter package or above.

 

Reviews

With the Summer ’19 Release, Yext Reviews has been enhanced to provide more visibility into your reviews data and additional flexibility to view it in the way that makes the most sense for your business! From international improvements to the ability to test generation emails per location, this release is sure to help bolster your reputation management strategy.

Excel (XLSX) Export Option for Review Monitoring

PACKAGE: Professional and above
CHANNEL: All

Now the Review Monitoring tab is even more flexible with how you are able to view your reviews data. In addition to CSV, the Review Monitoring tab is now exportable to Excel (XLSX) which provides added functionality for international characters.

Japanese Language Support in Sentiment Analysis

PACKAGE: Ultimate
CHANNEL: All

Gain a global view of what consumers are saying about your brand through Sentiment Analysis. Japanese is now a supported language so you can get even more information about your customer experience.

True Average Rating of Facebook Page in Review Monitoring

PACKAGE: Professional and above
CHANNEL: All

Facebook uses a proprietary algorithm to calculate a location’s average rating when it has been “recommended” or “not recommended” by consumers. Yext now pulls that data directly into the platform, so you can view the true Facebook rating on the Review Monitoring tab.

Note: If you filter the page to just Facebook, the true Facebook average rating will be displayed at the top of the screen. If you filter the page to any other publishers, the Facebook rating will be omitted from the average rating data.

recommendedrating.jpg

Approve First Party Reviews from Quarantine via API

PACKAGE: Ultimate
CHANNEL: All

To increase flexibility of your interaction with the Yext platform in whichever environment fits your needs, you are now able to approve first-party reviews from quarantine via API.

Disable Review Notification Login Links through Branding Settings>

PACKAGE: Professional and above
CHANNEL: All

Previously, Yext’s review notifications were automatically configured to include a Yext branded login link. For your convenience this link is still enabled by default, but now Yext clients and partners are able to disable the login links in their Branding Settings.

Test Generation Emails for Selected Locations

PACKAGE: Ultimate
CHANNEL: All

Now you can test the exact review generation experience a particular location’s customers will get. Previously, the review generation emails were sent using placeholder data, but now you can choose a specific location to get a visual on exactly how the emails will look for your customer.

 

Analytics

The Summer ’19 Release contains a number of Analytics enhancements designed to get you more data when and where you want it. From Reviews widget views to Google Follower count, get a comprehensive view of your total brand interactions with Yext Analytics.

Google My Business Follows

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

Yext users can now track the new GMB metric “Follows” to keep track of how many users are following their locations and professionals on GMB. This gives additional insight into location popularity and helps to further understand the markets you are reaching.

gmbfollows.jpg

Analytics for Reviews Widget

PACKAGE: Ultimate
CHANNEL: All

Yext now provides analytics data back into the platform when you have the reviews widget installed on your website. You’ll be able to easily see how many times the widget has been viewed to get additional insight into the reach of your first-party reviews.

Analytics for Custom Entity Pages

PACKAGE: Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers

With the release of the next generation of Yext, you will now have access to analytics for custom entity pages such as page views, call to action clicks, and more, so that you can see a broader reach of customer interaction with all of the public facing facts about your brand.

Analytics Data Exportable to Excel

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

Yext Analytics is now even more flexible with how you are able to export your data. In addition to CSV, analytics data is now exportable to Excel (XLSX) which provides added functionality for international characters.

Search Tracker: Search Localization Migrated to Latitude/Longitude

PACKAGE: Ultimate or Competitive Intelligence Add-on
CHANNEL: All

The Search Tracker will now localize searches by latitude/longitude rather than street address. This provides enhanced international flexibility to help determine what your presence in search is — by keyword and location of your consumers’ intent.

Google Search Console Metrics Consolidation

PACKAGE: Pages
CHANNEL: All

Yext’s Google Search Console Query Type metrics (Pages-specific metrics) previously included Branded, Categorical, and Other as available classifications. For increased simplicity, Categorical and Other have been combined into a single Unbranded classification (while Branded has remained the same).

Historical Search Tracker HTML SERP Data Reduced to 90 Days

PACKAGE: Ultimate or Competitive Intelligence Add-on
CHANNEL: All

For increased reliability of the Search Tracker, Yext will now only be storing the HTML SERPs for searches run on your behalf for 90 days.

Note: Yext previously stored HTML SERPs indefinitely.

Listings Search Terms Insights Deprecation

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

The Listings Search Terms insight has been deprecated from Yext Analytics and it will no longer be available in the report builder, in any dashboards, or in any notifications.

Facebook Demographics Insight Deprecation from Listings Overview Screen and Standard Dashboard

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

Facebook Demographics including age range and Male/Female are no longer available through the Facebook API for locations with fewer than 100 views per day. The Facebook Demographics insight has been removed from all Listings Overview screens and Standard Dashboards. This data is still available in the report builder for all relevant locations.

 

App Directory

PACKAGE: Customers with any package (Base, Starter, Professional, Ultimate) can access the Yext App Directory; however some apps are available only in certain packages. International app availability depends on the app’s ability to support customers in your market.

CHANNEL: All

Yext partners with some of the biggest enterprise platforms to bring you new ways to transfer your digital knowledge to and from Yext. Connect Yext with these systems to maximize efficiency, maintain accuracy across platforms, and become a more intelligent enterprise.

New apps in the Summer ’19 Release include:

  • Adobe Experience Manager
  • Podium Reviews
  • Voicify
  • PageFreezer
  • CertiStar

To learn more about each of these apps, visit yext.com/products/apps.

 

Usability Updates

'Welcome to Yext' Intro Guide

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All except Strategic Partners

All Yext users will now see a “Welcome to Yext” or “Welcome to the Platform” (Partner) intro guide when they first log in to the platform. Currently when users log-in to Yext the don’t have any welcome experience. This is a great way to introduce the platform and help users get from “what now?” to taking action themselves. This is for anyone with a Yext login (excluding Strategic Partners and specific Enterprise accounts).

This feature will be available with Summer ’19 General Availability.

Platform Onboarding Guide

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All except Strategic Partners

Full Control and Account Manager users now have access to a list of onboarding guides including the following:

  • Welcome to Yext/Platform
  • Knowledge Graph Overview
  • Listings Overview
  • Reviews Overview
  • Analytics Overview
  • Set up email notifications
  • Set up Knowledge Assistant
  • Add a user
  • Branding Settings Overview (Partner)

This feature will be available with Summer ’19 General Availability.

In-Platform Knowledge Base Available for International Customers

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All except white-labeled Partners

Starting with the Summer ’19 Release General Availability date, international customers can access the Knowledge Base straight from the Yext platform.