Latest updates in STEP
2023.4 is the release where Instrument — the new STEP UI and UX — reaches general availability, offering a modern, consistent, out-of-the-box interface built around identified user journeys and core PIM business cases. Alongside it, ESG Data Management arrives as an early adopter release for sustainability compliance data, and the Industry Standard Mapper removes manual work from mapping product data between industry standards and versions. Configuration management completes its second phase, letting administrators build a change package from Git and run impact analysis before installing. Faceted Search index publishing gets faster and more resilient, SaaS quality of service work continues, and central authorship supports list-of-values cross validation. In PDX Syndication, language-specific conditions and localized channel metadata support a multilingual syndication strategy, and Digital Catalog gains multi-language support, unpublishing and composite attribute rendering.
Configuration management across environments
Applicable to all domains | Included in Platform | Admin, Developer | 23.4 highlight
What changed
Customers need to move subsets of configuration — data model, workflows, business rules and more — between STEP systems predictably and accurately. The first phase was delivered in 2023.3, and 2023.4 delivers the second phase, focused on integration with an external version control system in Git. Previously a change package could be exported to Git with each element in an editable format; now a change package can be constructed from all the changes previously exported to Git, and the impact of an update on the target system can be reviewed by running an impact analysis before installation.
- Administrators can review the impact of a configuration update before installing it.
- Change packages can be assembled from version-controlled content.
- Supports dynamic development processes with predictable deployments.
SaaS quality of service
Applicable to all domains | Included in Platform | Admin | 23.4 highlight
What changed
Customers expect the SaaS offering to be performant, resilient and able to handle very large data volumes, and this continuous initiative bundles multiple requirements to monitor and improve service quality over time. 2023.4 focuses on three areas: reducing or eliminating empty event partition sequences; improving the process around cleanup of old transactions to increase In-Memory component efficiency; and ongoing security enhancements to remove vulnerabilities and stay current with the latest standards.
- Better performance for event queues that have been paused for a long time, and during forward and rewind operations.
- More precise event count estimation and improved scalability.
- Continued security hardening against known vulnerabilities.
ESG Data Management
Applicable to all domains | Please refer to your Account Manager | Business User | 23.4 highlight
What changed
Environmental, social and governance data management requirements are numerous, spanning regulatory demands from governments and investors, green customer expectations, and business partners differentiating through standards and ESG ratings — all of which demand transparent data. With 2023.4, the first early adopter release of ESG Data Management is delivered: a pre-configured module for creating ESG profiles and recording sustainability compliance, not only for products but also for locations, employees and suppliers.
- Lets businesses use their available sustainability data for compliance and reporting.
- Covers products, locations, employees and suppliers rather than products alone.
- Pre-configured, so customers do not build the ESG model from scratch.
Industry Standard Mapper
Applicable to PMDM | Available with the Industry Standard Mapper license | Admin, Business User | 23.4 highlight
What changed
Manufacturers must deliver product data in specific industry standards, often in specific versions, and new versions are released once or twice a year — leaving manufacturers working with countless standards and versions and performing time-consuming mappings and reclassification. With 2023.4, a mapping tool is introduced to support mapping product data to new versions of an industry standard or between industry standards.
- Saves manufacturers a large amount of manual mapping work.
- Makes data exchange easier and more efficient.
- Keeps pace with standards that change one to two times a year.
Additional resources
- Initiative video: Watch
Instrument — new STEP UI and UX
Applicable to PMDM and PDX Syndication | Please refer to your Account Manager | Business User | 23.4 highlight
What changed
The configuration and flexibility of the Web UI, although powerful, can be a drawback: its extensive component list is overwhelming for practitioners, challenging to maintain and can slow version upgrades. With 2023.4, Instrument becomes generally available — an out-of-the-box solution built to solve core PIM business cases, reflecting the Workbench data model and contextually guiding users through their tasks, with a modern, consistent interface focused on identified user journeys.
- A modern, consistent interface built around real user journeys.
- Reduced implementation time compared with configuring the Web UI.
- Higher ROI and improved user satisfaction.
Additional resources
- Initiative video: Watch
Faceted Search optimizations
Applicable to all domains | Please refer to your Account Manager | Business User | 23.4 highlight
What changed
Faceted Search is part of the modern search experience initiative, aimed at improving user experience, ease of use, performance and productivity for non-expert end users. Release 2023.3 added support for Customer, Supplier and Location domain use cases covering entities and data containers, enabling a consistent search experience across all data domains. With 2023.4 the focus is on overall performance and robustness, particularly index publishing.
- Up to 20% faster performance expected.
- Better resilience to network outages, for more reliable indexing.
- Supports a search interface usable by people unfamiliar with the data model.
Additional resources
- Initiative video: Watch
Optimized central authorship
Applicable to all domains | Included in Platform | Business User | 23.4 highlight
What changed
When entering B2B party data, accuracy and efficiency suffer as data volume and complexity rise, especially where attributes are co-dependent. With 2023.4, the 'Title with unfold' data container experience is enhanced to support list-of-values cross validation.
- Users keep a streamlined data entry experience even where list-of-values dependencies exist.
- Improves accuracy in complex, co-dependent data structures.
- Reduces rework in B2B party data authoring.
Additional resources
- Initiative video: Watch
Language-specific conditions
Applicable to PDX Syndication | Available with the PDX Syndication license | Admin, Business User | 23.4 highlight
What changed
Global manufacturers and brand owners syndicate product data in dozens of languages, often delivering several to the same retailer or marketplace, and need to tailor language-specific data to retailer needs and to use language-specific logic to decide which channels receive which products. With 2023.4, PDX Syndication users working across multiple languages can automatically assign products and transform their data to meet retailer requirements in a way that respects the differences between languages in their product data.
- Limits manual data edits and user actions.
- Ensures the highest quality content is delivered to each channel.
- Supports a multilingual syndication strategy through automation.
Additional resources
- Initiative video: Watch
Language-specific channel attribute names and lists of values
Applicable to PDX Syndication | Available with the PDX Syndication license | Business User | 23.4 highlight
What changed
The teams responsible for providing and verifying product content in particular languages may not be confident in their process if they cannot see attribute names and other channel requirement elements in their own language. With 2023.4, PDX Syndication users working in channels spanning multiple markets and languages can see attribute names, descriptions and lists of values in the language they are enriching data in.
- Local teams work with channel requirements in their own language.
- Greater confidence in the correctness and completeness of the data provided.
- Supports enrichment by teams unfamiliar with the channel's primary language.
Additional resources
- Initiative video: Watch
Digital Catalog enhancements
Applicable to PDX Syndication | Available with the PDX Syndication license | Admin, Business User | 23.4 highlight
What changed
Digital Catalog owners could already make product content available to retailer and distributor partners on a self-serve basis, but faced limitations around multilingual content and complex data structures and had no simple way to unpublish products. With 2023.4 the catalog adds support for multiple languages, so product descriptions can be provided and seen in different language layers; an option for manufacturers to unpublish products via the PDX interface and API; and support for composite attributes used in PDX, rendered as a grid to describe nutritional information or other structured data.
- Eases the commercial process across international companies.
- Products can be unpublished without deleting entire catalogs.
- Structured data such as nutritional information displays clearly as a grid.
Enhancement requests delivered with 2023.4
ER 1 and ER 2 applicable to PMDM, ER 3 applicable to all domains | Included in Platform; third-party ECLASS and ETIM licenses required for ER 1 and ER 2 | Admin, Business User | 23.4 highlight
What changed
Enhancement requests let the platform adapt continuously to market and customer needs. Three are delivered with 2023.4: support for ECLASS version 14, including a new ECLASS Advanced capability for sorting cardinality blocks when working with large numbers of blocks in complex data structures; ETIM users can use ETIM-provided metadata to sort attributes in the Web UI and surface the most important information first, and receive the change code on the attribute classification reference to keep data current and avoid redundancy; and older Web UI revisions are purged automatically when a user saves a new Web UI configuration in the Web UI designer.
- Keeps ECLASS and ETIM customers current with their standards.
- Users no longer need to delete previous Web UI revisions manually in the Workbench.
- Automatic purging helps prevent the STEP system running into memory issues.
FAQ
2023.4 makes Instrument, the new STEP UI and UX, generally available, and delivers the first early adopter release of ESG Data Management for sustainability compliance across products, locations, employees and suppliers. The Industry Standard Mapper is introduced for mapping product data between industry standards and versions. Configuration management adds Git-based change package construction with pre-install impact analysis, Faceted Search index publishing gets up to 20% faster, SaaS quality of service work continues, and central authorship supports list-of-values cross validation. PDX Syndication adds language-specific conditions, localized channel attribute names and lists of values, and Digital Catalog enhancements. Three enhancement requests are also delivered.
Business users are the primary audience for Instrument, ESG Data Management, Faceted Search, central authorship and the PDX Syndication language updates. Administrators are targeted by configuration management, SaaS quality of service, the Industry Standard Mapper and Digital Catalog enhancements. Developers are addressed by configuration management.
The 2023.4 deck does not map initiatives to the Acquire, Manage and Share data journey steps used in later releases. It groups them by applicability instead — all domains, PMDM, Customer/Supplier/Location MDM and PDX Syndication. Journey step mapping should be confirmed from the release notes before publishing.
Configuration management, SaaS quality of service, central authorship and the enhancement requests are included in Platform, the term this deck uses for base. The Industry Standard Mapper requires the Industry Standard Mapper license, and all three PDX updates require the PDX Syndication license. Two enhancement requests require third-party ECLASS and ETIM licenses. For ESG Data Management, Instrument and Faceted Search optimizations the deck directs customers to their Account Manager.
Yes. ESG Data Management is delivered as a first early adopter release in 2023.4.