Working steadily towards 2022 goals and exciting new content strategies, organizations need to be supported by the technologies they use every day. Here’s a quick refresher on some key Q1 releases to Kontent headless CMS that make daily content management a little easier for all folks involved in the process.

Organizing and securing valuable assets

Visual information is engaging and helpful. Some interesting stats show why assets continue to be a key focus for brands: Visuals like charts, graphics, color design, and images increase readership by 80%, while people are 30% more likely to send payment faster when prompted by visuals. 

Kontent customers certainly recognize the power of the perfect visuals. That’s why it’s important to be able to organize, manage, and govern assets easily in Kontent’s built-in asset library. Last year, releases supporting advanced asset management transformed the way users work with assets. In Q1 2022, we’ve continued to release upgrades in this area. Let’s recap a few. 

• Simplified asset search and discovery: Now, when inserting images to a content item, the last visited folder in the asset library is remembered. A total time saver that keeps creators focused on the task at hand. Also, when selecting a sorting option in the asset library, Kontent remembers it and will sort assets the same way next time. It’s also possible to sort assets in the dialog for inserting an asset into a content item. The creature of habit within all of us can appreciate this.

• Additional security when accessing assets: This update is especially useful for organization who work with sensitive content, content hidden behind sign-in walls, or projects that aren’t public facing. As part of the advanced asset management capabilities, organizations have the option to secure access to a project’s assets, so that only your apps can fetch assets, great for maintaining portals or intranets, right in Kontent. This tutorial is useful for those who are ready to restrict public access to content and assets.
• Custom asset domains: Now, Kontent allows customers to use their own domain to serve assets to website visitors. Having a custom asset domain makes URLs more trustworthy and can support SEO optimization goals – something that’s truly top of mind this year. Follow the tutorial to set up your custom asset domain.

Working with content more intuitively 

When writing, the fewer distractions, the better. New releases to Kontent improve the authoring and publishing experience, from updating content to getting the little details just right. 

• Drag & drop for files into rich text elements: This is a feel-good update that creators will notice right away. In Kontent, easily drag and drop physical files directly to the rich text editor! From there, image files are uploaded as assets and added as images into the element content, while non-image files are uploaded as assets and added as links. 

• Streamlined flow for restoring older versions: Stay in the zone, it’s now possible to directly restore an older version of a published content item. There’s no need to create a new version of the item first – the item goes to its first workflow step automatically. Additionally, restoring an archived content item from an older version can also be done directly.

• Helpful regex validation updates: Don’t feel like looking up the regular expression for validating an email again? Choose from commonly used regular expressions directly in Kontent when setting them on content elements, and enjoy the benefits ASAP. Another important improvement: using regular expressions to validate URL slugs to have more control over how your URLs are built. 

• Truly optional elements: Good news! We’ve updated how optional text, asset, and linked item elements work. Previously, if an element was marked as optional in the Content Type editor, but another validation requirement was also selected, the optional setting was overridden. This caused the content item to fail validation when the optional element was left empty. Now, empty optional elements will always pass validation! If this new behavior doesn’t suit your operations, simply set the element as required.

Keeping workspaces easily navigable

Kontent is known for its intuitive interface. In Q1, more small, but meaningful improvements show that a clean, user-friendly UI will always be a top priority. Check out how we’re helping customers keep content and Collections easy to navigate.

• Super sleek sorting: When searching for content items, you can now clearly see information on how the items are sorted, right in the search bar. Also, if you set the list to custom sorting, for instance by Last Modified, simply tap the reset button to go back to the default – sorting by Relevance.

• In the know on the workflow: Having control over tons of content is no easy feat. Managers, we got you. To have a clear overview into how all content is organized and governed, head to the workflows where you’ll now see just how many content items fall under each specific workflow. 

• Finding the right Collection: Collections are an important way to draw boundaries around content and operations, while still keeping everything stored in one system. For organizations with a growing number of Collections, the new search function is a great help. So is the more convenient location of the Create New Collection button. Right at the top, no scrolling necessary. It’s the little things, you know?

• Suggested Collections: For users creating a new content item, you’ll now see the Collections you use most first. Also, when you filter out content items in the content list, then create a new item, Kontent suggests relevant Collections based on how your filters are set! And finally, when you create a new content item from within the linked items element, Kontent selects the parent item’s Collection for you. 

With marketers and content creators taken care of, let’s take a quick look at some updates technical teams will enjoy.

Driving innovation and automation

APIs are central to how content and the digital experience is managed. New options delivered in Q1 improve processes around large-scale user management, environments, and assets. Developers, take a look at some highlights below or dive into our comprehensive API reference. 

• Handling operations and teams at scale: Manage users in projects and subscriptions with new API endpoints in the Management API. These endpoints can be used to synchronize users and permissions across projects under your subscription, or to create an integration with your preferred user identity provider. For subscriptions, use the new API endpoints to list projects under a subscription, activate or deactivate users, and more. This release has greatly improved how project administrators manage large teams of users, without added manual work. 
• Easier and quicker environment management: New Management API endpoints allow developers to clone, rename, delete, and mark environments as production. API endpoints for environment management are used to automate creation of new environments and backups. 
• Managing asset renditions and taxonomies via new endpoints: Like we said before, asset management is taking center stage these days! That’s why the Management API v2 now supports managing asset renditions via new endpoints, including retrieving a list of renditions or a single rendition, updating an existing rendition, creating a new rendition, and more. It also supports setting asset taxonomies for assets. Learn more about these new endpoints in the API reference. 

What’s next for Kontent?

With this round of improvements released to Kontent, the whole team can work on their tasks much more efficiently. From upgrades to the authoring experience to new API endpoints that offer additional opportunities for innovation or automation, there’s something for everyone to benefit from. To check out every single release from Q1 2022, visit the product changelog.  

In the next quarter, customers can expect further updates that support streamlined workflows and content governance at scale – such as non-localizable elements, currently in Early Access. Governance is a challenge enterprises contend with every day; that’s not going to change anytime soon. 

Additionally, we’re focusing on new content modeling enhancements to ensure our customers have all the support in the world to prepare the right content model from the outset of their projects. We take content modeling very seriously because a quality content model is critical for a project’s long-term success. 

And as usual, platform optimization and reliability is an always-on priority for us, so that Kontent continues to provide true value to customers as they manage, govern, and scale their content operations. So, stay tuned for everything that’s in store! 

If you’d like to learn more about how Kontent works or take a deeper look at these new features in action, request a demo to chat with one of our experts.