Icecat Release Notes July 31, 2020: 100th Scrum Sprint release! Real-time XML alpha testing, JSON local specs support and Malayalam added

We’ve released for the 100th time an Icecat update since we adopted Scrum! Fun fact: in case the Scrum framework would have existed from the start of Icecat’s platform, we would have celebrated our 500th release instead :).

Near Real-time XML – alpha testing

Last year, we announced to switch to Near Real time XML generation, which allows to create timely and personalized XML. Updates don’t need to wait in the queue first, before being published. First, 15 shops will be selected as test users for this new feature.

HP local index feeds

We added detection of invalid feeds from brands. When detected, we’ll skip them and continue to process all other feeds. We are creating special little feeds from HP’s feeds where we have only the following attributes: Brand, Brand part code, Country, Product name, Activities, and Release date. These index feeds are supporting our system and our users to understand in which markets a product is present. For each locale, a separate index is created every day.

Added repository for United Arabic Emirates – English

Language name: United Arabic Emirates – English
Short code: EN_AE
Backup language: English
Country of language: United Arabic Emirates
And now you can get XML, JSON, Live in this locale as well.

JSON – added local specs

We didn’t have support for local specs in JSON. After a quick sprint, we added this possibility. But, in the near future, this change will be made consistent with our XML structure.

Review links fixed

Got request from a user that in reviews we had broken link. Fixed it.

Front Office: Countries graph for Brand Rank page

Added a new feature to the brand rank page: showing a brand’s datasheet downloads by country.

Front Office: Added “Source: Icecat” mark to the graph on the Brand Rank page

Front Office: Added Malayalam language (Indian languages group)

Front Office: Used JSON granular call for Specs tab displaying on the product page

In the scope of the Front Office product page performance improvement, we speeded up the Specs tab loading time by using JSON granular calls. Now, even the biggest specification tables are loaded fast and do not affect the overall page load speed significantly anymore.

Front Office: Hamburger menu links changes: removed “Product content by catalog” and change the links to “Invest in Icecat” and “About Icecat”

Removed the deprecated link “Product content by catalog” and changed the links for “Invest to Icecat” (https://iceclog.com/category/invest/) and “About Icecat” (https://icecat.com/about.html) menu items

Bugs fixed

• The brand name is written in lowercase in the page title if lowercased in URL
• Links to video are absent on the main page
• App_key is not always presented in JSON link (embed block)

Vladimir Demchuk