Upgrading to Unica V12: A Comprehensive Guide to New Features and Benefits
Upgrading to Unica V12: A Comprehensive Guide to New Features and Benefits
When it comes to keeping up with the latest marketing automation software upgrades, it’s important to have a plan in place. It’s important to evaluate and consider what is included when an upgrade comes out so that you can make an informed decision if the upgrade makes sense for your enterprise. If you follow this path, you can be sure that your marketing campaigns run as smoothly as possible and that you’re taking advantage of the latest technologies.
HCL recently released an update to Unica Campaign – v12.1. This update includes many enhancements to the latest version, as well as the introduction of new modules. Version 12.1 represents the largest expansion of the platform in over 20 years.
12 Reasons to Upgrade to Unica V12
1. Unica Journey – Visualize, create, execute, and measure personalized omnichannel customer experiences for your clients.
2. Unica Deliver – Directly deploy email and SMS directly without the need of a separate email service provided (ESP) or SMS aggregator.
3. Unica Link – Connect with any delivery channel via REST APIs using out-of-the-box support for Salesforce (CRM), MailChimp (email), Mandrill (email), and Twilio (SMS), and custom connector development for other channels.
4. Cloud-Ready – With a Docker-Kubernetes-Helm Chart based cloud-native deployment, Unica is easier to install, scale on-demand, and faster to upgrade. Docker is a set of platform-as-a-service products that uses OS-level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers.
5. Centralized Offer Management (COM) – Improved centralized interface to manage offers more easily. Specifically, create offers without an offer template. After you’ve used an offer, you can then use it to create an offer template for continuous reuse.
6. Easy CMS Integration – Integrate Content Management Systems (CMS) with out-of-the box plug-ins for Adobe Experience Manager, HCL DX, HCL Digital Experience, and HCL Web Content Manager.
7. Advanced real-time treatment rules – Use custom expressions to determine offer eligibility or the marketing score.
8. Strategic segment sharing – While these pre-defined lists have long been useful for standard inclusions and exclusions for batch campaigns, now you can share them with Interact for use in real-time inbound marketing channels, without the need to redeploy when segments are updated.
9. Cross-session contact events – Without any additional data work, Interact now tracks offers presented to customers across channels such as email, POS, and mobile push.
10. Treatment rule eligibility – Interact eligibility can now be based on dates and/or scores. Use these separately or combined with other criteria for more control over the best offers to present to your customer.
11. Prolonged product support – Upgrading to the latest version ensures continued product support for longer. Support for older versions of any software will typically expire sooner.
12. MarTech compatibility – Supports newer versions of operating systems, middleware, and data bases:
- Operating systems such as Windows Server, AIX, RHEL Linux, and SUSE Linux
- Web servers such as WebLogic, WebSphere, Tomcat, and JBOSS
- Databases such DB2, Oracle, SQL Server, MariaDB for system tables, and additionally Netezza, Teradata, Amazon Redshift dashDB, Apache Hive, Apache Impala, and HP Vertica for mapped data sources
- Oracle JDK/JRE or IBM JDK/JRE (for AIX)
The last point regarding compatibility is often a driver for upgrades at many organizations. Some IT departments even mandate certain versions of such software for security reasons – e.g., a more recent version of the JRE. Older versions of third-party software may contain known security flaws.
There are many other improvements and fixes not listed above. One other improvement of note that may vary depending on use cases and an organization’s specific Unica environment is runtime performance. Munvo has observed that certain long-running flowcharts can see dramatic improvements in performance – e.g., average run times of several hours down to less than an hour in certain cases.
Upgrade Process
Munvo has been working with Unica Marketing Solutions since 2005, and during that time we have successfully delivered upgrades across a variety of large enterprises with diverse tech stacks. We understand the importance of a well-oiled marketing machine, and we’re here to help your business get the most out of Unica. From implementing Unica technology enhancements and upgrades to managing your Unica marketing efforts, we have you covered.
Our upgrade process includes a detailed discovery process to understand your current environment and requirements. The upgrade plan is developed consequently. Considerations include:
- What version are you upgrading from?
- What exact version of Unica is being upgraded to?
- What features/modules are you using?
- What new features/modules do you plan to use?
- What sort of user-acceptance testing (UAT) does your organization usually perform?
- What Unica objects (flowcharts, templates, macros) need to be migrated?
- What additional training or knowledge transfer might your campaign developers need?
- How many environments do you have (DEV, PROD, TEST, etc.)?
- Is Unica being replatformed (installed on new/different servers)?
- Is Unica being installed on-premises or on cloud-based servers (e.g., AWS)?
- What OS and middleware is being used?
- What resources do you already have to assist with the upgrade (e.g., sys admins, DBAs)?
- What custom scripts and integrations are in place?
While an upgrade with minimal changes is generally easier, an upgrade can also be an opportunity to enhance or improve your Unica environments, especially to take advantage of features specific to v12.
There are two general strategies for upgrading Unica. One is an in-place upgrade where a newer version of Unica is installed over the previous version. Depending on your current version of Unica, intermediate versions may need to be installed first. For example, you may need to upgrade from version 10 to 11, and then to 12. The advantage of an in-place upgrade is that your existing environment settings, configurations, and objects remain, assuming they are compatible with the latest version. The disadvantage is that you may not want all your legacy settings, configuration, and objects, especially if something was misconfigured or needs to be remediated.
The other approach to an upgrade is a fresh install. With this approach, Unica is installed from scratch and your previous settings, configurations, and objects are copied to the new installation. Specifically, parts of the file system and system table objects are copied from the older version of Unica. This approach is preferred if you are re-platforming Unica – that is, installing it on new or different servers. It’s especially preferred if your OS and/or middleware is also being changed or upgraded.
With all the considerations involved, a Unica upgrade in a complex enterprise environment may not be for the faint of heart. However, an experienced partner like Munvo can help guide you through the pitfalls and make success much more likely.
The Munvo advantage
The advantages of working with a partner like Munvo include:
- Experience with countless upgrades to 50+ Fortune 500 companies
- Post-Implementation support and knowledge transfer
- Skilled project management and advisors to help guide you to successful delivery
- Official partnership with HCL/Unica since 2005
- Extensive cross-platform, cross-product MarTech expertise
Upgrading to Unica V12 enabled our client’s tech stack to support an EMM (Enterprise Marketing Management) application, enabling their team of over 200 users to track marketing projects’ statuses, details, and deliverables. This allowed them to improve transparency and accountability within their marketing departments.
Customer Success Story
Ready to get started?
At Munvo we’ve been working with Unica since 2005 and in terms of complex MarTech stacks and upgrades, we’ve seen it all. Acting as your trusted advisor and alongside your team we will ensure you can take advantage of all the new features and benefits in Unica Campaign v12.1. Simply contact us today and we’ll be in touch, or you can book a meeting directly with our Marketing Solutions Advisor.
Sales Inquiries + 1 (514) 223 3648
General Inquiries + 1 (514) 392 9822
sales@munvo.com
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