Spring '20 Release Notes

In this release

Spring '20

These features are available as part of Yext’s Spring ’20 Release. Unless otherwise noted, all features are available globally. 

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

Answers

Pages

 

Listings

Reviews

Analytics

App Directory

Platform

Addendum: Product Updates Made in Response to COVID-19

 

Knowledge Graph

New Suggestions Experience

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

With this release, we’ve introduced a brand-new way to track and act on suggestions to the data inside your Knowledge Graph.

Previously, users had to visit two different places in the Yext platform to understand and take action on suggestions, depending on where the suggestion originated:

  • The Knowledge Graph > Approvals tab to view suggestions from other Yext users, like local managers or franchisees; and
  • The Listings > Publisher Suggestions tab to view suggestions from consumers on third-party platforms like Google Maps and Facebook.

With the Spring ’20 Release, we’ve unified these experiences to make it easier, faster, and more seamless to see and act on suggestions to your data from any source.

Now, in the NEW Knowledge Graph > Suggestions tab, you can see all suggestions to your Knowledge Graph data, from any source to which you have access.

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Suggestions with a status of “Pending” — which require action, such as Approval, Rejection, or Cancellation — will appear on this tab by default.

You can filter suggestions by Entity or Entity Type; Source; Status; Folder; Label; or Approval Group. These filters will also carry over into the page URL — to share a filtered view, simply copy and share the URL.

Availability of Suggestion Sources

Updates to the Suggestions feature in this release are strictly to the user experience. The nature and sources of suggestions have not changed. 

To access suggestions from consumers via third-party services like Google Maps or Facebook, Yext customers must have the Starter package.

To access suggestions from other Yext users, customers must have the Base package and must have the proper user roles and permissions enabled.

View Suggestion Details and Take Action

From the Suggestions page, you can click to review a single suggestion or multi-select a group of suggestions. This brings you to a page where you can see the data that is currently inside your Knowledge Graph, the suggested change to that data, and that suggestion’s activity history.

From this page, you can Accept or Reject the suggestion. You can also comment on, attach a file to, and see the versions of a suggestion.

If there are multiple suggestions for the same field, accepting one of them will automatically reject the others.

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Suggestion Workflow

A new “Workflow” option allows users to work through groups of suggested edits based on filters or individual selection. Select or filter to a specific group of suggestions and click “Review All”. 

The Workflow page will then show a list of all selected suggestions on the left side of the screen. Once a user approves or rejects a suggestion, the next item in the workflow will appear, and the previous item will be marked as completed in the list.

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Bulk Actions

At this time, it is not possible to Approve suggestions in bulk, since we do not recommend that you blindly accept changes to the data in your Knowledge Graph.

However, if you know for sure that the data inside your Knowledge Graph is up-to-date and do not want to trust suggestions from a specific source, you can Reject suggestions in bulk from the Suggestions tab.

Approvals Tab Deprecated & Historical Suggestions

The previous Knowledge Graph > Approvals and Listings > Publisher Suggestions tabs have been deprecated.

The new Suggestions tab displays all historical suggestions previously displayed under Knowledge Graph > Approvals, and historical suggestions from 6 months in the past previously displayed under Listings > Publisher Suggestions.

Rich Text Formatting

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

A new Rich Text field type is now available when creating custom fields.

How Are Rich Text Fields Displayed to Consumers?

Upon General Availability for the Spring ’20 Release, Rich Text fields will be able to be displayed on:

  • Yext Pages built by Yext's consulting team
  • Yext Pages built inside the Page Builder interface

Rich Text fields will also be able to be displayed in Yext Answers search results in the first half of 2020.

Rich Text fields cannot currently be displayed on Yext Pages built by customers themselves via Page Builder. This functionality will be enabled in a future release.

For customers with Yext Listings, please note that Rich Text fields are not distributed to any third-party Knowledge Network publishers at this time.

Create a Rich Text Field

To create a Rich Text field, visit Account Settings, click Custom Fields in the sidebar, and click the + Add Field button. You can now select “Rich Text” from the field specification dropdown.

By default, a Rich Text field can accept and display the following rich text elements:

  • Bold
  • Italics
  • Underline
  • Hyperlink
  • Bulleted List
  • Numbered List

Uncheck any rich text elements that you do not want to be available for this field.

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From there, the Custom Field setup is unchanged: select the entity type(s) this custom field will be available for, enter an optional Tooltip Description, and click Save Field or Save and Add Another.

Edit a Rich Text Field

Once set up, rich text fields can be edited in the Knowledge Graph tab by selecting an Entity that contains one or more of these fields. Text with supported rich text elements will render on view and edit.

Click on the field to edit it. You can add available rich text elements via the toolbar at the top of the text entry, or by using standard keyboard shortcuts:

  • Bold: Command+B
  • Italics: Command+I
  • Underline: Command+U
  • Hyperlink: Command+K
  • Bulleted List: Command+Shift+8
  • Numbered List: Command+Shift+7

Alternatively, you can copy and paste supported HTML or Markdown into the field.

If, upon initial configuration of the rich text field, you have chosen to disable a specific rich text element by unselecting it, the element will not appear in the formatting bar. If you paste rich text that includes that disabled element, you will see an error message.

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Hyperlink Types

When editing an Entity that has a Rich Text custom field enabled, you can add a hyperlink and set the Link Type to:

  • URL
  • Phone
  • Email

To add a hyperlink, enter text into the field, highlight it, and click the link icon on the toolbar or use the Command+K keyboard shortcut. A modal will appear. Select the Link Type and enter the correct information in the “URL,” “Phone,” or “Email” field that appears.

The data that appears inside the “Text” field will match the data that was highlighted upon adding the hyperlink. Alternatively, you can embed a text field from the Entity by clicking the plus sign on the right side of the “Text” field. “Text” is an optional field; if you leave it blank, the field will just show the link in the URL/Phone/Email field as the text.

Upload Rich Text Fields

Rich Text fields can be uploaded via files that contain either HTML or Markdown. In the “Configure File” step, make sure that the file field name is mapped to the correct field name that corresponds to a custom field with rich text enabled.

In the Data Cleansing Rules column, the system will default to “Allow supported formatting & remove unsupported formatting” for any field that contains either HTML or Markdown. You can select Edit and then “Remove All Formatting” if you choose.

The upload will only accept either Markdown OR HTML; it will reject a field that contains both.

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Export Rich Text Fields

When you export entities that include rich text formatting, “Include Formatting (Markdown)” is the default Output Format. If you want to change this format, select Actions > Configure and select HTML formatting, or deselect “Include Formatting” to export the raw text.

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Rich Text Fields via API

You can set the content for a Rich Text type field via the Entities: Create and Entities: Update endpoints of Knowledge API v2 using HTML, markdown or plain text.  To fetch the content for a Rich Text type field via Entities: List or Entities: Get, you can use the new format query parameter to specify one of the following:

  • "markdown"
  • "html"
  • "none"

If the parameter is not specified, the default format returned will be markdown.

User-Specified Translations for Custom Field Names, Types, and Entity Types

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

Today, the names of built-in fields and entity types are auto-translated based on the user’s “Display Language” in their Personal Settings. However, user-generated text inputs associated with custom fields, custom field types, and custom entity types do not translate automatically when the Display Language is changed. For example, “Location” is a built-in type, so will change to “Ort” if the user’s Display Language changes to German. However, if a user created a custom field type called “Car”, that term would not be translated, even if the user’s Display Language were to change.

With this release, users can now assign translations to specific user-generated inputs they’ve created in our platform. Once these translations are added, users will see their translations in the Yext Knowledge Graph whenever their Display Language changes based on their preferences in Account Settings.

Please note that Yext will not automatically translate these inputs — this feature simply allows users to provide their own translations where applicable.

How to Assign Translations

Users can now assign translations to the specific user-generated text inputs listed below in the Yext Knowledge Graph so that they can view them in their native language the same way they can for Yext’s built-in text.

The “+ Add translation” link can be found when creating and editing the following:

  1. Custom Field Name
  2. Custom Field Tooltip
  3. Custom Entity Type Name
  4. Custom Entity Type Plural Name
  5. Custom Entity Type Description
  6. Custom Field Type Name
  7. Custom Field Type Description
  8. Custom Field Type Subfields

Once the user clicks “+ Add translation”, they’ll see a modal where they can choose a language and assign a translation for any of the inputs listed above. Once the translations are added, the corresponding languages will show in the UI under the field entry (below).

+ Add Translation Link Visible on Create and Edit

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Select Language and Assign Translation

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View / Edit Previously Assigned Translations

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Support for More than Two Hours Intervals

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

Some businesses have “split hours”, or are open for more than one interval of time on a given day.  For example, a restaurant may be open from 9:00 am to 10:30 am for breakfast, from 11:30 am to 2:00 pm for lunch, and then from 4:30 pm to 10:00 pm for dinner.

Previously, users could only store up to two hours intervals for a given day. Now, it’s possible to store any number of intervals for a given day.

Hours intervals can be synced with Yext-powered Pages and Answers properties, as well as some Listings properties. However, for Listings, not all Knowledge Network publishers take multiple hours intervals, so your Hours may or may not be delivered to publishers depending on their requirements. Google My Business can accept up to 3 hours intervals for a given day.

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Linking to Entity Edit Using Entity IDs

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

You can now create URLs to link to specific Entity Edit pages in Knowledge Graph using the entities’ external Entity IDs.

Previously, Entity Edit URLs were composed using Yext IDs, which are Yext-generated and immutable. While these URLs will still work as expected, you can now also link directly to Entity Edit pages using the following structure:

https://www.yext.com/s/[Account ID]/entity/edit?externalEntityIds=[Entity ID]

This will enable users who are familiar with their external Entity ID values to navigate Knowledge Graph quickly, as well as any API users who want to build URLs to specific Entity Edit pages programmatically.

Updates to Field Views in Entity Edit

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

We made some small usability upgrades to Knowledge Graph fields this release, including the following:

  1. Websites: Previously, our “Websites” field was one large compound field that could store a Website URL, Menu URL, Reservation URL and Order URL.  With this release, we have split these URLs into separate fields to make it easier to see and manage your data.

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  1. Videos:  We have updated the Add Video flow to look and feel similar to the Add Photo flow that we launched in the Fall ‘19 Release.  With the new Add Video experience, you can still add a YouTube video URL, search for a YouTube video, or apply an asset, but in a simpler, improved user interface.

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  1. Entity Lists: For Entity List type fields, we have improved the experience of searching for the entity you are trying to reference.  Now, when you go to link two entities together, you will be presented with a searchable list of other entities in your account, organized by Entity Type.

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Export Multiple Language Profiles at Once

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

This feature will allow users to export multiple language profiles at once.

When utilizing the Entity Export tool, if the entities selected to export contain multiple language profiles, users will now be able to choose to export more than one language profile per entity in the same file. In the resulting export file, there will be multiple line items with the same Entity ID. Each row will also have the corresponding language code for any profiles the user chose to include in the export.

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Expose Built-In Field API Names

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

With this enhancement, we now surface the API names for built-in fields, custom fields, and entity types in a single location inside the Yext platform so that users can find the information they need to self-serve.

The API names for all three of these objects are now housed together on the Manage Entity Types > Edit Entity Type page within Account Settings. On this page, under “Settings,” users can find the Entity Type API name, and under “Fields,” users can find the API names for both custom and built-in fields as a light gray second line under each field name.

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Answers

Vertical Intents

PACKAGE: Answers
CHANNEL: All channels where Answers is sold

Vertical Intents gives Yext Administrators the ability to tweak the ordering of sections in Universal Search. Vertical Intents can be used to boost or bury sections in certain situations, thereby giving you further flexibility to control what shows up in search results, depending on the specific query.

Some example use cases include:

  • A retailer wants “Products” to always show up first, regardless of the query
  • A restaurant wants to always show “Jobs” last, regardless of the search query
  • A health system wants to hide “Doctors” if the user searches for “Heart Attack,” and instead display a screen to call 911

Pinned Queries

PACKAGE: Answers
CHANNEL: All channels where Answers is sold

Pinned Queries allows a Yext Administrator to specify an exact result set for a specific query in Universal and Vertical Search. Pinned Queries can be used to optimize for specific business goals rather than to allow the system to provide data from the Knowledge Graph that most closely matches the query.

For example, if for the query “Cancel my Account,” you wanted to show results first for “How to downgrade,” you could pin this result set instead.

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Custom Sorting

PACKAGE: Answers
CHANNEL: All channels where Answers is sold

Custom Sorting allows a business to configure how results should be sorted within a specific vertical.

Example use cases include:

  • Sort products by release date
  • Sort menu items by calorie count
  • Sort providers by Accepting New Patients

The field types that are supported for this feature are dates, numbers, and yes/no fields.

This feature is configured per vertical and can also be used to expose client-side sorting options within Vertical Search. For example, in product search, you could expose the following sorting widget or the search results page:

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Vertical Search - No Results

PACKAGE: Answers
CHANNEL: All channels where Answers is sold

When a user looks for an entity that the customer does not have inside their Knowledge Graph, or searches for something related to a different vertical in Vertical Search, a new “No Results” screen will be returned. This screen will include:

  • A suggested next action
    • Users will be directed to more relevant verticals, if applicable
    • Users will optionally be shown the Q&A module, in which the user can leave a question for the business
  • A list of all results for that vertical, instead of the current blank screen

As a result of this new feature, users will be given a more robust search experience, thereby reducing bounce rate and increasing conversions in spite of not having the proper data stored in the Knowledge Graph.

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Q&A Submission

PACKAGE: Answers
CHANNEL: All channels where Answers is sold

The Q&A Submission form can optionally be included at the bottom of both universal and vertical search. If the results in Answers are unsatisfactory, it enables users to get an Answer directly from the brand. When submitted, this form creates a question within Yext (found in the Q&A tab). The brand can then respond to the question right from the Yext platform, and the user asking the question will be emailed the response. The user can then promote the question to an entity and surfaced in future searches to augment the search experience.

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Search Logs

PACKAGE: Answers
CHANNEL: All channels where Answers is sold

Search Logs allows Yext Administrators to see the granular data on user searches. Specifically, Yext Admins can see:

  • The date and time a search occurred
  • What the query was
  • The latitude and longitude, city, and country where the query was conducted
  • The number of verticals and entities returned
  • The top vertical returned

 This data can then be exported for further analysis offline to uncover trends, understand customer intent, and overall gain new customer insights.

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Popular Queries

PACKAGE: Answers
CHANNEL: All channels where Answers is sold

With the queries screen in Answers Analytics, Yext Administrators can aggregate metrics under the most common queries that users are submitting. These metrics help you understand where you should allocate your resources to improving your Answers Experience. For example, if the query “What is the meaning of life” appears in 185 sessions and 272 searches, it might be a good indication to add more detailed, thoughtful answers to your website.

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Internal/External Traffic Segmentation

PACKAGE: Answers
CHANNEL: All channels where Answers is sold

With Internal / External Traffic Segmentation, Yext Administrators can segment users via IP address for further analysis. In short, Yext Administrators can now specify which searches are conducted by consumers versus those that are conducted by their employees.

To segment traffic, visit Answers > Overview, click All Traffic, and then select External or Internal traffic."

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Pages

Sites and Domains UI

PACKAGE: Any Yext package that includes Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

We are continuously improving the usability of Yext Pages.  This Spring, we are excited to release a new user interface for Yext Pages that allows you to see all of your Pages in the Sites tab. So no matter how many Templates you have, whether they be for locations, people, FAQs, or anything else, you will be able to see all of these Templates in one place. We’ve also created a dedicated Domains section to deliver a more seamless experience for managing your domains.

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Page Builder

Custom Schema.org Markup

PACKAGE: Any Yext package that includes Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

We are excited to announce the ability to create custom Schema.org markup for your Yext Pages! In addition to the Schema.org markup that we already provide for built-in Entity Types, you can now create custom, purpose-built Schema.org markup for the Pages you build for Custom Entity Types. This new capability improves your eligibility for rich search results by structuring your data so search engines can easily understand your business. Click here to learn how to create your own Schema.org markup.

Schema.org Markup Updates and Improvements 

PACKAGE: Any Yext package that includes Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

The library of available Schema.org Properties is constantly growing, which means search engines have more and more structured data that they can take advantage of to provide good search results to consumers. We continuously grow our library of built-in Schema.org Properties to ensure that Yext Pages can answer a variety of questions and search engines can recognize these properties. Now, the following new Properties are supported for Healthcare Entity Types:

  • isAcceptingNewPatients
  • HealthPlanNetwork

We’ve also added Schema.org markup support for the Hotel, Job, and FAQ built-in entity types.

Create Custom Fields from Page Builder

PACKAGE: Any Yext package that includes Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

We are continuously developing new ways to improve the usability of the Page Builder. Now you can create custom fields and immediately add them to your Pages. Without having to leave Page Builder, you can create custom fields that map to parameters of page Template modules. We auto-populate the custom field form so that you have all of the best options pre-selected. This auto-population minimizes the work you have to do and ensures that you create a field that works for your parameter. 

Here’s how to get started:

First, navigate to the parameter within a Pages module that you are looking to map to a custom field in the Page Builder. Open the content mapping dropdown menu and select the option to ‘Create Custom Field.’ Once you’ve finished editing all of the required settings, click on the ‘Save Field’ button and you’ll see a message at the top of Page Builder notifying you that the custom field has been added successfully. Then click on the Knowledge Graph Link in the toast message to open your entity and populate your new field.

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Content Mapping for HTML Parameters

PACKAGE: Any Yext package that includes Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

Now the HTML module allows users to pull dynamic HTML from Knowledge Graph, giving more flexibility to customers who are building Pages. As a result, customers who want to store entity-specific HTML in the Knowledge Graph will be able to easily display it using the built-in HTML module. They will only need to maintain one Template for all of their entities and can modify individual entities’ HTML in the Knowledge Graph as needed.

Here is an example of the new ability to display entity HTML.

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One way to use this functionality is to store your website’s header and footer in the Knowledge Graph. You will be able to use them on your Yext Pages as well as other platforms you use to build your website.

Automatically Populate Website Field with Landing Page URL

PACKAGE: Any Yext package that includes Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

Now when you publish a landing page, Yext automatically populates the Website field so that the page’s URL is syndicated to the Listings Network. Previously, when customers published a page, the URL was saved in the special Landing Page URL field and you had to manually update the Website field. We're reducing the number of steps you need to take to ensure the links to the pages you build are synced across the Knowledge Network.

Here is the new account setting:

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We automatically select ‘Yes’ for you so that you don’t have to manually make this update for all of your pages. Now you will always have your Landing Page URL linked to from the Main Website Field unless you disable this feature.

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Modules

Store Locator Module Adds the Search Query Parameter to URL

PACKAGE: Any Yext package that includes Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

To improve the Store Locator experience for end-users, we’ve made it possible to store the state of a search in the URL. For example, if someone is viewing the Store Locator on a company’s page, when they search for locations in ‘New York,’ the resulting URL will include ‘New York’ in it so that the consumer always knows that they are seeing the results to their search. 

With this improvement, you’ll be able to configure the default empty state of your store locator and create URLs that lead to specific search results. You’ll be able to create CTAs that link to specific search results in the Store Locator. Plus, your visitors will be able to easily bookmark or share search results with others by simply sharing the URL.

Customize Search Results in the Store Locator Module

PACKAGE: Any Yext package that includes Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

We are continuously developing ways to improve the Store Locator experience for you and your customers. Now, you have more control over the data and data sources that power search results in the Store Locator. You can select exactly which fields you want to show your customers in the search results, like hours, address and phone.

Here’s an example of what results could look like for your customers:

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Used Saved Filters in Key Modules

PACKAGE: Any Yext package that includes Pages
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

We are making improvements to the module experience. When using the Nearby Locations and Upcoming Events modules, you can now be selective about which locations show up when someone searches for nearby locations.  

Similarly,  you will be able to choose which events are associated with events calendars. With these improvements, visitors to your Pages will have a better experience and see more relevant content based on what they’re searching for.

Knowledge Tags

Knowledge Sync Support for Built-in and Custom Entity Types

PACKAGE: Add-on to any Yext package
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext, Partner Channel

Now you can use Knowledge Sync with Custom Entity Types, which effectively allows you to power data about any entity on a page you build for that entity with your current content management system. Simply select a Custom Entity Type from the Knowledge Tags dropdown menu to get started. We’ve also added Knowledge Sync support for the Hotel, Job and FAQ built-in Entity Types.

Note: Yext supports Knowledge Sync for Custom Entity Types but not for Schema.org markup.

Infrastructure

Disable Support for TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1

PACKAGE: Add-on to any Yext package
CHANNEL: Direct customers of Yext

It is critical to always ensure reliable security for our customers. Sometimes that means disabling support for outdated capabilities. In mid-March, Yext will disable support for TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 in Live API, Consulting Pages, Non-Consulting Pages, Knowledge Tags, and Photos. We are making the change alongside Mozilla, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

 

Listings

Publisher Suggestions Tab Deprecated

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

The Publishers Suggestions tab under Listings will be removed because you can now view and act on all data suggestions in the Knowledge Graph > Suggestions tab.

Please see “New Suggestions Experience” under the Knowledge Graph section for more details.

Name & Description Character Limits

PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

Knowledge Graph now allows the Entity Name and Description fields to be any number of characters. However, many Knowledge Network publishers still impose a specific character limit on these fields. To respect the Knowledge Network’s differing name and description character limits, we cleaned up the logic to show Unavailable Warnings for entities with name & description character counts that exceed the publisher’s allowed character count (e.g. Google allows descriptions up to 750 characters, but Yelp allows descriptions up to 1000 characters). You may see an increase in the number of Listing Issue warnings in the Listings tab as a result of this change.

Q&A API V2 Support

PACKAGE: Yext Answers, Ultimate, or Google Q&A add-on
CHANNEL: All

Q&A content is now available in the Knowledge API V2. As a result, the following endpoints will be exposed: Question: Get, Question: List, and Answer: Create.

Linked Accounts API V2 Support

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

Publisher Linked Account information is now available in the Knowledge API v2. As a result, the following endpoints are available: Linked Accounts: Get, and Linked Accounts: List. These are read-only endpoints, so this does not give users the ability to OAuth via the Knowledge API.

Knowledge Network Updates

Publishers Added to the Yext Knowledge Network

PACKAGE: Noted below
CHANNEL: Noted below

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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. Unless otherwise noted, the publishers below are available to all Yext customers with a subscription to the Starter package or above, and will begin powering customers’ listings with Spring ‘20 Early Access on 3/19/2020.

North America (US + CA)

Top Rated Local: Top Rated Local is a local business site that helps users identify the best option by highlighting the top businesses within a local community. Top Rated Local analyzes ratings and reviews from hundreds of verified review sites, and then ranks businesses based on their overall rating. With Top Rated Local joining the Yext Knowledge Network, businesses that range from retailers, restaurants, and healthcare facilities + professionals can update their information in real-time on Top Rated Local.

This integration will be available for all Yext customers with General Access on April 16, 2020.

Germany

KaufDA: KaufDA joins the Yext Knowledge Network. KaufDA is a popular German site for local search, and helps its users find local promotions with retailers in their area. Businesses can power their facts and make updates to their information, including holiday hours, for their German locations on KaufDA.

Please Note: KaufDA is only available for mutual Enterprise customers.

Brazil

Apontador: Apontador is a Brazilian local search company helping more than 12 million users every month find and discover businesses in their local area. With this addition, businesses can power their facts and make near real-time updates to their listings located in Brazil on Apontador.

This integration will be available for all Yext customers with General Access on April 16, 2020.

Updates to Existing Knowledge Network Partner Integrations

PACKAGE: Noted below
CHANNEL: Noted below

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We’re proud to continue enhancing our relationships with existing partners in the Yext Knowledge Network. Unless otherwise noted, the publishers below are available to all Yext customers with a subscription to the Starter package or above, and will begin powering customers’ listings with Spring ‘20 Early Access on March 19, 2020.

Global

Facebook

Facebook Cover Photo + Profile Picture Requirements Change: Previously, it was required that all Facebook Pages have a cover photo and profile picture when they were created. Now, only some categories require you to include a cover photo and a profile picture. With this update, if you are currently experiencing any errors from having a missing cover photo or profile picture, the status of your listings in Yext will transition from ‘Unavailable’ to ‘Live’ as a result of this change.

Facebook Behavior Change with Pages Claims: Facebook changed their behavior with how businesses can claim unclaimed pages on Facebook. Detailed in Facebook’s documentation, Facebook recently deprecated the endpoint that allowed Yext to claim unclaimed pages on Facebook. Now, if Yext does not identify a Facebook page that the linked account has admin access for, then Yext will create a new page on Facebook. This is the language directly from Facebook: “Facebook encourages clients to create Facebook Pages even if unclaimed, inactive Pages for a location already exist. Facebook's algorithm will automatically merge those Pages with the claimed, active Page over time.”

“Like” Functionality Change in Social Posting: Facebook is deprecating the API endpoints we use to fetch like count and post likes on social posts. We will no longer show like count per social post in the platform, or give users the ability to like social posts with this change. This API deprecation affects all Facebook partners. More information regarding this deprecation can be found on the Facebook for Developers Graph API Changelog.

Bing: Listings in the following additional countries will be supported by General Availability on April 16th, 2020:

  • Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bonaire, Bosnia Herzegovina, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Croatia, Curacao, C冲e d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Dominica, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Guiana, Gabon, Georgia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guernsey, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, Iran, Iraq, Isle of Man, Jamaica, Jersey, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lesotho, Libya, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Montserrat, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Niger, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Rwanda, R志nion, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadin, Samoa, San Marino, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Sint Maarten, Suriname, Tahiti, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Baidu Maps: Yext’s integration with Baidu Maps is an API integration. This upgrade will be available for all customers to take advantage of in April 2020.

HERE: Yext’s integration with HERE is now feed/receipt. Now, when Yext sends our clients’ data to HERE, they will acknowledge that they’ve received the data successfully, or report if there’s an error message. This upgrade will be available for all customers to take advantage of in April 2020.

Hotfrog: Listings in the following additional countries will be supported by General Availability on April 16th:

  • Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, Mexico, Norway, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Africa

Yelp: Yelp Reviews (all offerings) are no longer available to be exported from the Monitoring or Response tabs in Yext.

Germany

Gelbe Seiten: Beginning April 2020, Yext’s integration with Gelbe Seiten is now an API.

 

Reviews

Restrict Review Assets for Specified Entities and Specified Languages (International Templated Review Response)

PACKAGE: Ultimate or Review Response add-on
CHANNEL: All

When adding a review response asset, users can now select entities as well as a language for which the asset will be restricted. When responding to your reviews using templated responses, this will allow you to more easily identify which templates to use, helping you respond more efficiently at scale. Using our Sentiment Analysis tool, Yext will automatically identify the language of the review, as well as the entity it is for.

If you complete the “For entities” field, the asset will only be available when responding to reviews for the specified entities:

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If you specify a language restriction, the asset will only be available for reviews in the language which the asset is specified for:

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To create a Review Response Template, navigate to Knowledge Graph > Assets > click Add Asset > Text > select Reviews for Usage.

Allow Reviews to Be Manually Deleted In-Platform

PACKAGE: Professional, Ultimate, or Review Monitoring add-on
CHANNEL: All

Customers can now delete individual third-party reviews from Yext. Previously, if a review had been deleted or was removed by the publisher, that review could not be removed from Yext. Now, if a review is removed on the publisher, customers can use this tool to remove the review from their reviews table in Yext.

To delete a review in Yext, click the drop-down arrow located on the right in each review, and select Delete.

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Salesforce Service Cloud Review Monitoring and Response Integration

PACKAGE: Professional, Ultimate, Review Monitoring add-on, or Review Response add-on
CHANNEL: All

Yext’s integration with Salesforce Service Cloud allows you to optimize your customer support by streamlining your existing workflows. Now, customers leveraging Yext’s Review Monitoring will be able to monitor their reviews, and those leveraging Yext’s Review Response tool will also be able to respond to reviews supported in Yext directly from Salesforce Service Cloud.

Please Note: Responding to reviews is dependent on sites that support review response within the Yext platform.

With this integration, customers can create workflows that automatically generate a Service Cloud Case when a customer leaves a review. To respond directly to a review, without having to re-enter the Yext platform, customers can post Case Comments on the Cases that are automatically generated. Additionally, customers can configure custom mappings between the Yext fields and their Salesforce Case fields to easily filter and report on certain reviews.

To learn more, please visit the Salesforce Service Cloud for Reviews app.

 

Analytics

Conversion Tracking for Listings

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

Oftentimes, the customer journey starts with a question on third-party platforms like Google or Amazon Alexa. But depending on what matters to your business, a consumer may not convert until they trigger a certain action on your website, like placing an order or booking an appointment.

In our previous Fall ’19 Release, we launched Conversion Tracking, which allows you to track how many clicks and conversions your business is generating. With the Spring ‘20 Release, we’ve expanded the functionality of Conversion Tracking where you can now tie back your conversions to their original source.

With this update, if a consumer starts their search experience by clicking on one of your listings, but then converts on your website – you can attribute the credit to your listings as being the original source that drove that conversion. This will allow you to better understand exactly how your customers are finding you, which will help you make more informed business decisions.

Conversions can be filtered by entity and publisher, and Conversion Tracking for Listings supports the following fields:

  • Menu URL
  • Order URL
  • Reservation URL
  • Website

Please Note: Conversion Tracking for Listings does not track listings on Apple and Yelp.

To set up Conversion Tracking for Listings, navigate to Analytics Overview page > Conversion Tracking Setup.

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Click Listings Conversion Tracking on the left, then check the box Enable Listing Tracking. Click Save.

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Next, follow the Listings Tracking Tag Setup instructions to insert the tag on the Landing Page that your listing directs to. Please note: This page does not have to be powered by Yext.

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Leaderboards

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

We’ve enhanced our Analytics Insights to provide better support for table charts. With these enhancements comes a new insight type – Analytics Table Insight, which allows you to create customizable data tables, such as Leaderboards. Leaderboards allow you to easily monitor how each of your entities are performing across your entire organization. Leaderboard examples include location leaderboards ranked by clicks, country leaderboards ranked by conversions, insurance agent leaderboards ranked by page views, and more! Understanding how well your entities are performing will help you identify which areas need more attention from a digital perspective, like SEO or additional paid ad spend.

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Leaderboards allow you to sort by certain metrics that are currently supported in the Insights section of Yext Analytics. You can view your table in either ascending or descending order, and add time comparisons to see percent changes, rank, and change in rank. And to further customize the data you want to see, you can add a column for simple custom fields as well as fields stored in your Knowledge Graph. This capability is especially beneficial for brands that have the same business name across their locations, so they’re able to use a field like Geomodifier to sort their entities.

Report Builder UX

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

We revamped our Analytics Report Builder to provide better usability, making it easier for you to create custom reports. All existing custom reports are now visible in a collapsible panel on the left side of the screen. Additionally, our new Insight Edit panel on the right side of the screen allows you to explore and select your preferred chart type with updated icon visuals. Previously, our advanced chart types were difficult to find because they were hidden in the dropdown menu under each chart type. With all chart types now exposed, this improved chart type experience makes it easier to identify and switch between chart types at any time.

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The Setting Section, which now lives underneath the new Chart Type Section, allows you to configure report settings such as time range, metrics, dimensions, and filters. All the setting dropdowns will remain the same. Instead, only the visual design and the location of the “Apply Changes” button is changed.

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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 Spring ’20 Release include:

  • Olo: Olo is the leading digital ordering and delivery platform in Food Services. This app syncs menu data from Olo into Yext.
  • Salesforce Service Cloud: Salesforce Service Cloud is Salesforce's customer service product. This app enables customers to send Yext reviews to Service Cloud and respond to them from within Service Cloud.
  • Punchh: Punchh is a digital marketing and loyalty platform for restaurants. This app syncs location data from Yext to Punchh to keep key information up to date in both systems.
  • Como Sense: Como is a digital marketing and loyalty platform for restaurants and retail. This app will trigger Yext to send a review request to consumers who complete events (e.g. redeeming a coupon) in Como.

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

 

Platform

Multiple Home Screens

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

The Home Screens feature, first introduced in the Summer ’19 Release, has exited beta and is now available to all customers. In Spring ’20, we’ve added the following key enhancements.

    • It’s now possible to add multiple home screens within the same account
    • For accounts with multiple home screens set up, each home screen can have a different audience

If you already had a home screen enabled in your account from the Summer ’19 Release beta, you will see the new version of that home screen moving forward. If you did not enable a home screen during the beta, you can now enable it by visiting Account Settings > Account Features and toggling it on.

Expander Icon and Home Screen Navigation Panel

Users will see a new expander icon on the left side of their home screen. Clicking the expander icon will open a panel on the left side of the screen.

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From this panel, users can:

Admin users:

  • Create a new home screen by clicking the + Add Home Screen button
  • Toggle among all home screens that are enabled for that account
  • Edit an existing home screen by hovering over its name and clicking Edit Home Screen 
  • Move existing home screens between “Draft” and “Active” mode
  • Delete an existing home screen 
  • “Move to Top” for home screens in “Active” mode

Users without Admin access:

  • View all home screens to which the user has access

Editing a Home Screen

When an Admin user enters Edit mode for a home screen, the collapsible side panel disappears, and the user will see a full-page edit view. From here, the user can:

  • Add modules to the home screen by clicking the Add Module button
  • Delete existing modules by clicking the Trash icon on the module
  • Edit the Audience for the home screen 
  • Cancel and exit Edit mode by clicking “Cancel”
  • Save changes by clicking the Save button, which becomes active after a change is made

If the user saves changes to an active home screen, all users with access to that home screen will see those changes.

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New Add Services Flow

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: Enterprise and Mid-Market

With this release, we’ve unified the launch workflow in a single experience.

Previously, the act of “launching” an entity on consumer-facing endpoints like Listings, Pages, or Answers — commonly referred to as “adding services” — required a different user experience depending on what the entity type was and/or where the information was to be distributed:

  • Location entities would require a License Assignment workflow to launch on Listings or Reviews
  • Event entities would require a Feature Pack to launch on Listings; Location entities would also require a Feature Pack to launch on Pages via Page Builder and Review Generation

Now, to add or remove services, users should select an entity or entities in the Knowledge Graph, click the More Actions dropdown, and select Add Services or Remove Services. (The “Add/Remove Feature Packs” and “Assign/Unassign Licenses” options have been removed from this dropdown.)

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After clicking Add or Remove Services, the user will be brought to a new Knowledge Graph > Launch tab.

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This page makes it much clearer to understand which subscriptions or feature packs correspond to which product features.

To further simplify the user experience, product features under the Subscriptions and Feature Packs lists will only be displayed if the account has the appropriate subscription features enabled. This means that users will not see options they are ineligible for.

To access this workflow, a user must have the Manage License Assignments or Manage Entity Feature Packs permissions enabled.

Designating Users As Administrators

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

By Spring ’20 General Availability, customers will be able to designate users as Yext Administrators. Yext Administrators will be copied on certain account level events, such as Listings Launch Escalations.

View Platform Usage

PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

By Spring ’20 General Availability, Enterprise customers will be able to view usage for some of the products they use, such as Total Entities (Knowledge Graph), Pages Live (Pages), and Entities Indexed In Answers (Answers). This will be visible in the “Platform Usage” section in Account Settings.

 

Addendum: Product Updates Made in Response to COVID-19

New Reopen Date Field

PRODUCT: Knowledge Graph
PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses worldwide have been forced to close temporarily. To make it easier to note temporary closures across the web, we’ve added a new “Reopen Date” field.

This field can be set both in the user interface and via API. It syncs information with any endpoint that Yext is powering — Listings, Pages, and/or Answers experiences.

If you do not know the date on which your business will reopen, simply set this date far into the future, and you can update it when you have more clarity.

For customers with Yext Listings: The Reopen Date field will power “Temporarily Closed” flags on Google My Business, Facebook, Apple Maps, Yelp, and Bing (select markets) listings. For all other Knowledge Network publishers, setting this field will send “Closed” hours or Holiday Hours (whichever the publisher supports) until the specified Reopen Date.

New Fields for Online Events

PRODUCT: Knowledge Graph
PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

In accordance with recent vocabulary updates to schema.org, we have introduced two new fields to the built-in Event entity type:

  • Attendance Mode: You can select Offline (DEFAULT), Online, or Mixed. Online or Mixed events will also have a field called “Virtual Location URL,” where you can input a link to the virtual location (e.g., livestream or webinar registration page).
  • Event Status: You can now set the status for an event “Event Moved Online”.

These fields sync information with any endpoint that Yext is powering — Listings (to publishers who support online events), Pages, and/or Answers experiences.

New CovidTestingFacility Schema.org @type

PRODUCT: Knowledge Graph, Pages, Knowledge Tags
PACKAGE: All
CHANNEL: All

In response to COVID-19, schema.org has made several improvements to help consumers better find answers about the pandemic. They just released a new CovidTestingFacility @type to represent the many new or existing medical facilities that are rapidly being established to test for COVID-19 (learn more). We have added a new Yext Category called COVID-19 Testing Facility to map to the CovidTestingFacility schema.org Type. If you have webpages built using the Page Builder or have pages with Knowledge Tags for any entity with this Category, their schema.org markup will automatically be updated to reflect this new @type.

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Google’s Rich Results Test on a Page Builder page for a hospital that provides COVID-19 testing

New or existing healthcare entities that are providing testing services should add this new Category to their Additional Categories. Not all customers are able to edit their Categories. If you are unable to do so, please reach out to Support to complete this process.

Note: Custom Entity Types do not support Categories, so this Yext Category will only be available for built-in Healthcare entities. 

Customers who purchased the Premium Custom Build package should contact consulting@yext.com to request that this new @type be added to their Covid Testing Facility pages.

Google Local Posts

PRODUCT: Listings
PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: Enterprise

In response to COVID-19, Google is temporarily enabling the local posts feature via API for businesses with 10 or more locations. Now, businesses can post, which includes scheduled posts and post approvals, for all of their verified listings on Google directly from Yext.

Google Local Posts are only to be used for COVID-19 related updates — like business closures, updates to safety and hygiene precautions, or information about how to buy gift cards. Posts will only be supported temporarily, as Google reserves the right to disable Google Local Posting for chain businesses at any time after the COVID-19 period. Additionally, existing restrictions on Google Local Posts still apply – Google does not allow local posts for Hotels or locations in China.

Customers on the Starter package can only post on Google, while customers on the Professional package or above can post on Google in addition to other publishers, like Facebook, Foursquare, and their website.

New Google Dining Options

PRODUCT: Listings
PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: Enterprise

Google is helping restaurants communicate their dining options to customers. Now, restaurants can add “Dine-In” to their Business Profile, which Google will display more prominently in Search and Maps in addition to attributes like “Takeout” and “Delivery.” Google has also added attributes for “Curbside Pickup” and has expanded “Delivery” attributes to non-restaurant categories. Businesses can take advantage of these attribute updates in the Google My Business Attributes section OR via the new Pickup and Delivery Services field in Knowledge Graph. 

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New Pickup and Delivery Services Field

PRODUCT: Knowledge Graph, Listings
PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: Enterprise

In light of the COVID-19 situation, a lot of publishers are interested in knowing whether or not a location supports pick-up or delivery services. Now supported in Yext is a multi-option select field to indicate whether a business supports services such as In-Store Pickup, or Same Day Delivery. Selecting these fields will allow businesses to sync pickup and delivery attributes on Apple Maps, Google, and Yelp.

Q&A Labels

PRODUCT: Listings, Answers
PACKAGE: Ultimate, Yext Answers, or Google Q&A add-on
CHANNEL: Enterprise

Questions that are asked via Google Q&A, or submitted through a Yext Answers experience, are pulled into Yext. Now, with Q&A labels, businesses can easily categorize questions that have similar characteristics. For example, highlight which questions are most important, those that need to be responded to, or require compliance approval.

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Knowledge Network Updates

PRODUCT: Listings
PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: Enterprise

We are continuing to work with our Knowledge Network partners to expand support for certain store location data and attributes that businesses want to highlight due to COVID-19. 

  • Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp, Bing, Apple, and Postmates now support Temporarily Closed flags. Note that Bing only supports this in select markets (Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, United States).
  • Apple now supports a number of attributes, notably Pickup and Delivery attributes.
  • Nextdoor now supports Order URLs to help businesses highlight online ordering.
  • We are adding support to sync Online Events to Facebook and Eventbrite. 
  • Baidu is now included in Yext ATM Listings packages (ATMs/Kiosks: Starter and ATM/Kiosks: Professional).

Conversion Tracking: Entity Filter for Conversion Tracking

PRODUCT: Analytics
PACKAGE: Starter and above
CHANNEL: All

Clients in the healthcare industry can now create different conversion actions by entity type (i.e. facility vs. provider), region, or label (to differentiate among specialties). 

Additionally, customers who operate in multiple countries can now set up conversion actions with different values per country by using the new entity filter option that we’ve added to Conversion Clicks.

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