Orbit release notes 2025

Our Orbit development team works using fortnightly sprints. This helps us get the newest features to you as soon as they are ready.

25 March 2025

Version 2.1.22

Headline feature: Orbit connect: Additional relationship types

We’re introducing some new relationship types for use in your Orbit connect system.

Relationships are defined by selecting common fields in related data tables. Relationship types define how the data in those tables are joined.

In addition to the originally hidden (but now visible) One-to-Many relationship type, Orbit connect now supports One-to-One and Many-to-One options. Using these new relationship types you can append columns of data by linking additional tables sharing common fields.

You can use these additional relationship types to enhance your original data and increase its suitability for segmentation and analysis purposes by e.g.

  • Adding demographic or geodemographic data to your current records

  • Enhancing product information by matching it with a product code

  • Adding any other data you may want to bring to the system

Benefits:

  • More flexibility when setting up, maintaining, and enhancing your system

  • Easily add extra information to the system without spending substantial time redefining it

  • Minimise the amount of necessary data required in each record

  • Add additional data to individuals, sites, products (or any other type of) records, or add geodemographic information to addresses

  • The parent data record doesn’t need to be altered. A single code can be used to efficiently append many additional columns of information to each record, rather than having to store the additional date against **every record** in the original source data (and parent table)

See Additional relationship types.

New features and improvements

Audiences

Audience workbook default chart selection

When you create a new audience from an audience workbook chart, the new audience now defaults to the table of that chart, not the table of the original workbook audience.

Bug fixes

Dashboards

  • Pre-defined dashboard filters using files no longer retain an original file reference after you add an existing/upload a file, and then edit and save your dashboard.

  • When you update an audience or dashboard cube measure, this is now reflected in the description label, as expected.

  • Dashboard text tile notes no longer only left align, you can now also centre and right align notes.

  • We've fixed an issue preventing new a search filter term from appearing along with any already active filter definitions on a dashboard. The blue update icon did not appear and the underlying tile query option also couldn't be selected.

Campaign

  • Deep links to resources now work correctly when logging in via SSO. Previously, after reopening your browser and pasting a saved dashboard link, you were redirected to the Orbit home screen instead of the intended dashboard. Now, after authentication, deep linking takes you directly to the intended correct resource.

  • Logging out of Orbit while working in a journey no longer causes an error.

  • Orbit now correctly authenticates with the API when using the default settings for SignalR campaign stats and status updates. Previously, with experimental API endpoints disabled, an authentication error prevented journey counts from updating as expected.

  • We've fixed an issue where creating a draft version of a campaign journey did not immediately update the audience preview counts, causing inconsistencies when switching between live and draft versions.

11 March 2025

Version 2.1.21

Incoming headline feature: Elevated dashboards

We’ll soon bring the improved edit panels from audiences to dashboards, making dashboard tile definitions clearer, faster, and more consistent. This upcoming elevation of our dashboard technology simplifies training and onboarding of Orbit dashboard end users, making what you learn in one area seamlessly apply to the other.

For more comprehensive detail on the functionality and benefits of elevated dashboards, see our Apteco insider programme.

To prepare for the full release of elevated dashboards, we advise that your system administrator makes a few adjustments to your Orbit update schedule and existing dashboard content. We'll continue to update this administrative support information as we approach the full release of elevated dashboards.

For more detail on how to effectively prepare for elevated dashboards, see our elevated dashboards technical update.

New features and improvements

Campaigns

Custom domains for Apteco landing pages

You can now specify a custom domain for landing pages in Apteco Orbit Campaigns when using Apteco email.

With a custom domain, your landing page URLs look more professional and reflect your brand.

For more information about the required DNS record changes, see Landing pages.

Upsert data to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce SalesCloud from Orbit campaigns with a PeopleStage channel

You can now upsert data into a defined table in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce Sales Cloud directly from an Orbit campaign. This helps keep your CRM data up to date without needing external processes.

Feature availability: This update does not yet allow full setup within Orbit. You must still create channels in PeopleStage. However, if you already use PeopleStage, you can now run these campaigns in Orbit. The next step will be enabling full data setup and transfer directly within Orbit.

If you use PeopleStage, and these channels are set up in PeopleStage, you can enable them in Orbit to transfer data from Apteco to these platforms. For setup documentation, see below.

The Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce Sales Cloud channels in Orbit are now controlled by a Preview Switch under Application settings. See Preview features. If you have set up these channels in PeopleStage, you can turn on the switch to use them in Orbit campaigns.

For more detail see:

Dashboards

Dashboard list search filter

You can now quickly and effectively search for a dashboard using the new dashboards list search filter.

This search filter feature allows you to find a specific dashboard from your list of available dashboards in My Dashboards and Shared Dashboards.

See Dashboard list search filter.

General

New training links and updated Home page design

We've revised our selection of Orbit Home page links for easier access to latest features, Apteco help, and now also our on-demand training resources.

The home page links now include:

  • Latest Features: Takes you to the Orbit release notes, where you’ll find detailed breakdowns of recent enhancements and bug fixes, along with links to additional resources.

  • Help Hub: Your go-to resource for user guides, release content, and technical documentation. If you need help using Apteco software, you’ll find your answers here.

  • On-demand Training: As part of our ongoing work to provide fully flexible, 24/7, globally accessible training for Apteco users, our on-demand training provision packs learning content and expert knowledge into an engaging series of video modules. Simply select and purchase your course to get started, with 30 days’ unlimited access to complete your learning.

Bug fixes

Dashboards

  • We've fixed an issue where selecting the dashboard that you're already on from your home list would then present you with a blank dashboard, without any tiles.

  • Target tiles now display target value percentages multiplied by 100, as expected. Previously, when creating a target tile using a percentage calculation using a fixed target, the target was rounded up and expressed as a decimal with a percentage symbol added to it.

  • We've fixed an issue where search filters were not saved when first added to a new dashboard. When you created a new dashboard, added a tile and search filter, and saved, the search filter would not save at the first attempt.

Campaigns

  • Undefined Email channel error messages now display a 'Show details' option, providing a detailed breakdown of the error. These details are especially useful to our Technical Services team when contacting them for further assistance with your error.

  • You no longer receive a null error message when copying and pasting an unnamed audience or interaction split. You can now copy unnamed steps and display step type in place of the name.

26 February 2025

Version 2.1.20

Headline feature

Audience splits based on message objectives

The Orbit journey builder now includes audience split functionality based on message objectives. This feature automatically segments your audience, sending them along different journey paths depending on how they interacted with your message. Instead of manually creating segmented audiences, you can define journey branches that adapt your customers’ behaviour.

With this feature, you can:

  • Define multiple journey paths based on whether a recipient met a message objective, such as submitting a form

  • Automatically send customers along relevant paths without manually creating segmented audiences

Key benefits

  • Tailor follow-ups based on actual customer interactions

  • Increase engagement by responding dynamically to user actions

  • Reduce manual effort and let the journey handle segmentation

For more detail, see Audience splits.

New features and improvements

Audiences

Export cubes to Excel

You now have the ability to export an audience workbook cube to Excel. You could already do this in dashboards, but is now available in audiences as part of our ongoing alignment between these two areas of Orbit.

For more detail, see Exporting an audience workbook cube.

Campaigns

Improved licensing visibility for campaign goals and message objectives

We've updated the Orbit journey builder to ensure you only see relevant UI elements based on your current licence:

  • Campaign Strategy in the journey option menu no longer appears if you don’t have a Campaigner licence or above.

  • The Objectives section in the message step side panel no longer appears if you don’t have a Campaigner licence or above.

These changes improve clarity for users with the Broadcaster bundle who don’t have access to goals or objectives.

For more detail on Apteco software licensing options, see Flexible pricing bundles.

For more detail on goals or objectives, see Campaign goals and Message objectives.

Bug fixes

Connect

  • The view connection string button no longer overlaps the actual text of the connection string, when configuring data sources in Orbit connect.

Campaigns

  • We've fixed an issue causing campaign goals to disappear from your journey when reopening the side panel.

  • You can now successfully delete a campaign goal as expected.

13 February 2025

Version 2.1.19

Headline feature

Multi-dimension charts in audience workbooks

We’ve now further extended audience workbook visualisations to include multi-dimension charts.

Multi-dimension charts are a combination of column, bar, line, and area charts, that can be clustered, stacked, stacked 100%, or a combination (Combo) thereof:

These full-screen charts also now take advantage of our fully redesigned properties side panel.

Two dimensions and one measure:

  • Clustered column

  • Stacked column

  • 100% stacked column

  • Clustered bar

  • Stacked bar

  • 100% stacked bar

  • Clustered line

  • Stacked area

  • 100% stacked area

Two dimensions and two measures:

  • Clustered combo

  • Stacked combo

  • 100% stacked combo

This enhancement further aligns audiences and dashboards, as we work towards providing you with a seamless analytics user experience. We want you to be able to access all the tools you need ‘in a pinch’, for ease of use, wherever you are in Orbit.

See Multi-dimension charts in audiences.

New features and improvements

Campaigns

Using saved FastStats expressions in campaign message personalisation

You now have the ability to use any saved FastStats expressions as personalisation content fields in your Orbit campaign messages.

Using pre-defined FastStats expressions into your Orbit campaigns enables more dynamic and customised content.

This feature is useful for:

  • Linking fields for specific campaigns

  • Creating offer codes

  • Defining image sets based on segments

  • Writing conditional statements for personalised content

Note: Available for Analyser bundle and above.

For more detail, see the FastStats help content for expressions and FastStats expressions in Orbit message personalisation.

Bug fixes

Connect

  • We've fixed a bug requiring datetime database columns to be converted before they're loaded correctly. When using an SQL, Snowflake, or PostgreSQL data source with a datetime, the data wouldn't load to the EAV correctly, and would need to be represented at source.

  • You will no longer encounter a timeout when replacing or updating a data source, causing your process to crash without an error message being displayed. This fix addressed an error messaging issue in the connect user interface.

Dashboards

  • Categorical colours are now cached per session across themes, as well as systems and variables. This ensures that pie charts with different dashboard themes retain their correct colours after refreshing Orbit.

  • We’ve fixed a bug preventing sparse cube results from not being drawn and displayed in the UI. In dashboards, when you made a cube using Booking Date vs Postcode, in the inspector cube results were present but the UI stated ‘No data to Display’.

Audiences

  • A range error no longer occurs when you add dimensions with many categories to a cube. This range error would previously cause a crash after adding a second dimension to your cube.

  • Single dimension and combination (combo) charts now have greater ability to automatically increase the spacing of data labels, preventing overlapping issues occurring with chart labels presenting a lot of detail.

  • We’ve found and fixed an issue that caused incorrect results when you selected 'Omit Unclassifieds' on a cube that has multi-dimensions on the same axis. Extra bands/cells were incorrectly displayed outside your original selection, also affecting counts on any follow up audiences created from these extra cells.

General

  • When downloading large exported files from Orbit, you no longer encounter a timeout before completion. Previously, exporting a file of around 100MB could cause the process to stop without downloading the file to your browser.

  • Single sign-on (SSO) now works successfully through OpenID Connect, even if your Base URL parameter is blank. Previously, switching the protocol to SAML and back to OpenID Connect could leave Base URL empty, causing login failures.

29 January 2025

Version 2.1.18

Headline feature

Expanded audience counts in campaign journeys

We’ve enhanced the audience visibility in Orbit’s journey builder, giving you deeper insights into how your campaign logic affects audience sizes. You can now view detailed audience counts in both draft and published campaign modes, making it easier to refine and evaluate your campaigns.

Key improvements:

  • Audience counts in draft mode: See gross, net, and drop counts while working on draft campaigns, not just after publishing.

  • Detailed breakdown of drops:

    • Exclusions: Individuals removed due to exclusion rules

    • De-duplication: Overlapping individuals excluded from multiple groups

    • Volume constraints: Limits applied to the number of individuals in the campaign

      Note: These include any campaign volume constraints and target segment limits.

    • Entry constraints: Restrictions from contact strategies, such as "one person per campaign per month"

Enhanced audience counts improve transparency and efficiency by showing how exclusions, constraints, and strategies impact your audience. Detailed breakdowns of gross, net, and reduced counts are visible in the Target segment side panel, with timestamps to track when figures were calculated. You can refine your audience in draft mode and trust the updated counts to reflect changes accurately, streamlining your campaign-building process.

For more detail, see Adding audiences.

New features and improvements

Campaigns

Campaign-linked dashboards

Introducing campaign-linked dashboards, a powerful way to track and analyse marketing performance directly from your campaigns. These dashboards function like regular ones but come pre-populated with key campaign metrics, saving you setup time. Whether you need real-time insights or periodic analysis, they adapt seamlessly to your reporting needs.

Use a Tracking Dashboard to monitor live email campaign responses and ROI, making quick adjustments. For strategic reviews, create a Reporting Dashboard to assess segmentation performance and revenue trends in quarterly reports. Both dashboard types are fully customisable, enabling tailored insights with added metrics, filters, and themes.

Key benefits:

  • Get started quickly with pre-configured metrics like communications, recipients, and revenue, saving you setup time

  • Flexibility to customise dashboards by adding data, filters, and themes for tailored insights

  • Data integration that supports real-time SQL data for immediate updates or FastStats data for detailed reporting

Campaign-linked dashboards simplify performance tracking, helping you make data-driven decisions faster. Share and refine them with your team for maximum impact.

For more detail, see Campaign-linked dashboards.

Audiences

Audience as a cube dimension

You can now use an audience as a dimension in audience workbook cubes. This allows you to further analyse an existing audience workbook cube by switching out a dimension, to use an audience as a dimension ‘on-the-fly’.

For example, you could take an existing audience with a dimensions of region and gender, then switch out the gender dimension for an audience dimension of respondents. This new audience dimension allows you to display a breakdown of people who have or have not responded to your campaign, drilling further down into your original audience and gaining additional insight into your respondents.

For more detail, see Audience as a cube dimension.

Bug fixes

Campaign

  • Personalisation parameters in push notifications were not being replaced with corresponding audience field values. The replacement logic now correctly substitutes variables like {{LastName}} with actual values.

Dashboards

  • Number card targets using a previous period now produce correct results, as expected. Previously, a target tile date comparison with a dynamic date range of ‘The Last Month’ could produce an overlap of one day from the source period to the comparison period.

Connect

  • We've resolved an issue that prevented certain names from being used for data sources. Previously, if a name contained special characters (e.g., symbols), the dialog would close when you clicked Create, without displaying a warning or creating the data source.

14 January 2025

Version 2.1.17

Headline feature

Message objectives: Track and optimise campaign performance

Campaign objectives now enable you to set specific goals for each message in your campaigns, allowing you to track their real-time performance. With this feature, you can easily monitor key actions, such as registrations, purchases, or app downloads, and assess how individual messages contribute to your overall campaign goals.

Key benefits:

  • Automatically track responses to monitor actions for each message in real-time

  • Set multiple calls to action to track several objectives within a single message

  • Measure revenue impact to assess the financial contribution of message responses

  • Set target timeframes for each objective that validate automatically

  • Leverage flexible data sources for comprehensive tracking across various data tables

Campaigns often feature multiple objectives for each message. For instance, you can track both pre-orders and event registrations within the same message, helping you evaluate each call to action individually.

Note: This feature is available with a Campaigner bundle and above.

Note: This feature is dependent on the Apteco software Q4 release.

For more detail, see Message objectives.

New features and improvements

Campaigns

Stop all campaigns

You now have the ability to stop all your Orbit campaigns. This acts as a failsafe to instantly halt all active campaigns.

You can then resume your campaigns, with each returning to its prior state and schedule. This feature is ideal for addressing critical issues like failed data builds or ESP outages with immediate action to prevent errors or incorrect messaging.

For more detail, see Stop campaigns.

Push notifications

You can now use push notifications as a channel in Orbit campaigns. This new channel type allows you to engage with your audience directly through their devices, delivering timely and targeted messages across your multi-channel campaigns.

Key benefits:

  • Instant delivery: Ensure your message reaches your audience in real time

  • High visibility: Notifications appear directly on a device’s screen, bypassing cluttered inboxes

SMS template builder appears with SMS channel

The SMS template builder is now displayed for use when an SMS channel has been set up in Orbit. This update applies to all SMS integrations.

View campaigns you’re not licensed to use

As a campaign user, you can now view a campaign that contains features you don't have a licence to use. However, you cannot use any features you’re not licensed for or save any changes you make.

Audiences

Value display limit in audience visualisations

In audience visualisations, you can now choose to show all values or limit the number of values displayed to the top or bottom n values.

For text variable dimensions, the option to use category display is now removed, and value display is the only available option.

This value display setting is now configurable at the overall visualisation level, not per individual dimension.

See Value display limit.

Omit zeros set to true by default

We’ve changed the way that omit zeros works for donut, pie, and funnel charts in audience workbooks. Omit zeros is now set to true by default for improved user convenience.

Administration

Folders tab for file upload

System administrators now have access to a folders tab on the file upload UI, enabling more efficient addition/deletion of file directories.

Bug fixes

Campaigns

  • When naming constraints, you now retain the changes you've made previously.

  • Swapping between campaigns on a slow connection no longer causes diagram errors to occur.

Dashboards

  • Dashboard row filters applied to a user/group/system no longer cause a timeout on API calls when fetching varCodes.

Audiences

  • We've fixed an issue preventing audience workbook cubes from displaying the correct percentage option.

Administration

  • We’ve found and fixed an issue that prevented the system availability monitor being correctly created for instances hosted within Apteco Cloud.