The main objectives for the implementation of the Cobalt Release 3.2 project were to:

  1. Deliver on promises made to several key customers as a follow up to the 3.0 release.
  2. Successfully deploy our products on the December 2016 Update for Dynamics 365 (version 8.2) and SQL Server 2016.
  3. Improve the meeting registration user experience for both customers (portal) and staff.

Here are the highlights for the release.

Asynchronous Payments

We added the ability to process asynchronous payments across the board for all portal processes. What this means is that instead of waiting for the entire transaction to complete (create the order and invoice, charge the credit card, create and apply the payment, and update the related application, registration, etc.) before we redirect the end user to the confirmation/receipt page, we are now simply creating the order and payment, loading the receipt page and then doing everything else behind the scenes. This reduces the wait time for the customer and allows us to log any issues that occur with applying the payment for staff and/or Cobalt support to review.

Portal Impersonation

A button has been added to the contact record that allows staff to launch the portal logged in as the user so you can see exactly what your customers are seeing when they have questions or issues.

Event Documents

This new feature allows you to associate documents with an event to be displayed at different times. Documents can be added for the public to view and download, they can be made available for registrants, and they can also be set to display once the event is over. In addition to downloadable documents, you can also display links or even messages.

HTML Receipt Display

In this release we updated the receipt form to display the HTML as it looks on the CRM form.

Document Uploads on Forms

We added the ability to add a question for document upload to the forms module. You can also map these documents to related entities (e.g. membership application, meeting registration, contact, etc.) as notes.

Replaced JavaScript with Business Rules

Wherever possible, we replaced the JavaScript on forms with business rules. These native rules are faster and allow staff to easily review and update the business logic. For example, we have logic to show and hide fields on the payment record based on the type. Business rules can be used to do following:

  • Set field values
  • Clear field values
  • Set field requirement levels
  • Show or hide fields
  • Enable or disable fields
  • Validate data and show error messages
  • Create business recommendations based on business intelligence

Event Updates

As part of this release, we made several client-inspired updates to meetings and classes.

  • Display meetings in ISV wizard even after the registration end date has passed. This allows staff users to register people in the back end after the portal deadline has passed.
  • Edit Meeting Registration Wizard – This makes the edit registration capabilities from the portal available to staff.
  • Prorated Meeting Cancellation Fees – Updated the meeting cancellation fee logic so it’s now possible to refund a percentage of the registration fee. For example, if you have multiple registration fees you can now create a percentage cancellation fee that refunds a set percentage based on the individual registration fee so that the refund is proportionate to the registration fee.
  • Split Meeting Registration Fee & Activity Fee Queries – Prior to this release, all meeting registration activity fees had to be tied to a meeting registration fee. This required you to create an activity fee for every registration fee even if the cost for the activity was the same for all registration fees. We have now decoupled the fees so they can either be linked or independent. This should save staff significant time on setup for larger events.