OMN5 is now available

apollon, leading software provider for marketing automation and product data communication, has completely revised its software suite „Online Media Net“, in short „OMN“. The new version OMN5 is now available. Best user experience, state-of-the-art, trend-setting technology and maximum automation due to artificial intelligence (AI) are the three cornerstones of the latest version.

Norbert Weckerle, CEO of apollon: „Five wins! The modern web standard is HTML5. The apollon GmbH+Co KG was founded five years ago. The latest and most revolutionary release of Online Media Net is available in version five – OMN5. A good sign, if you ask me. To ensure that the success of our in-house development continues and, more importantly, that our customers continue to enjoy investment security in the future, we have decided to adapt our successful software suite even more to the latest market requirements and technologies. Thus, we have invested more than 7,500 person days of development time in the new release OMN5. This is the biggest single investment in the history of apollon and shows our great confidence in the performance of OMN.“

Best User Experience
In order to offer an optimal user experience, OMN’s new interface is based on current standards and well thought-out design guidelines. This includes the use of the HTML5 interface technology based on the Google Angular framework. This means that OMN5 is not only supported by all common browsers such as Chrome or Firefox, but the implementation in the HTML5 web standard also reduces complexity in the UI and ensures a uniform visual appearance. Since OMN5 is still web-based, it can be accessed at any time and from anywhere, regardless of whether the solution is operated as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or on-premises.

In addition to the current standards, the new, consistent design concept makes it easier for users to work with OMN. All types of media assets such as images, 3D objects, Office and PDF files, but also InDesign documents, can be viewed directly in the browser. OMN5 also has numerous editors for editing and refining content. One of the new editing options is the table mode. This allows product information to be edited, following the example of Excel. All editors have a uniform structure and can be compared in different tabs. This is particularly advantageous when you want to make comparisons. For example, during a correction vote or briefing, when determining image details or when editing InDesign documents. The improved tools in OMN5 also enable independent creation of workflows – for example, to integrate an additional correction process. Directly in OMN5 and without the need for separate software. Another new feature is the expanded options for online image editing. This includes, among other things, that users of OMN5 are now able to design advertising materials such as documents, online banners and social media snippets themselves – CI-compliant and independent of agencies.

State-of-the-art technology
OMN5 uses state-of-the-art open source technologies such as the search engine „Elasticsearch“ and the workflow technology „Camunda“. Elasticsearch, which is directly integrated into OMN5, ensures high search performance. This makes it possible to search 100,000 assets at an enormously high speed without having to accept long waiting times. The search results can then be narrowed down, much like an online shop. Not only faceting and filtering is possible in this context, but also opening and directly editing the search results with just one click.

Camunda is used for planning, modelling and implementation of processes. Not only because Camunda is the leading workflow technology in this area, but also because the solution is designed to be user-friendly for both developers and users. Another advantage of Camunda is that it also enables process interaction between systems such as an ERP system and OMN. In order to realise the integration of different business applications along the value chain, the EAI (Enterprise Application Integration) concept was used in this version. The new „EAI“ module not only opens up flexible and easily extendable system integrations, but also offers comprehensive options for importing and exporting various data.

As marketplaces play an increasingly important role in online sales, OMN5 comes with the OMN-Connector. This enables dealers and manufacturers to place products directly in all relevant marketplaces. The product information is automatically adapted or transformed according to the specifications of the respective marketplaces. Since the OMN-Connector can be used to serve worldwide marketplaces, OMN5 clearly supports the implementation of the internationalisation strategy.

In order to keep OMN5 at the cutting edge of technology, apollon relies on agile biweekly development sprints. By means of unit tests, integration tests and automated E2E-tests apollon ensures smooth updates during daily work.

Maximum automation
Maximum automation within OMN5 is made possible through the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Thanks to AI, emotional product texts can be created automatically from granular information (attributes) quickly, cost-effectively and with a high degree of variance. These SEO-optimized texts help to increase the organic visibility of your own online shop.

Since OMN5 can handle machine translation and allows translation via different translation engines (e.g. Deepl, Google, Microsoft or Systran), product texts can be automatically translated into different languages – without human interaction.

In the area of media management, OMN5 has been extended with a wide range of AI options. These AI services include the automated cropping of images, which means that backgrounds can now be removed from motifs without manual intervention. This brings extreme speed and highest price advantages. In addition, AI also supports content enrichment by automatically recognizing image content and assigning the appropriate keywords. Since the so-called image tagging with the help of AI takes place within seconds, the assets are not only immediately available, but the hit rate of the assets stored in the MAM system is also significantly increased thanks to precise keywords.

Interested parties can get to know the new release OMN5 in a personal and non-binding online demo. To the online demo request