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New SAGE® Features Revealed at Conference
Earlier this week at the SAGE Conference, SAGE announced a collection of new features that expand upon its industry-leading platform. These features allow promotional products distributors to personalize the way they work while maintaining the ease of use they’ve come to expect from SAGE.
SAGE Design Studio
The SAGE Design Studio boasts the largest number of upgrades. One of the most popular new features has been an update to the tool used to erase sample logos. Users now have three options: the free-form polygon eraser that has always been available, a highlight eraser that allows users to highlight the logo they want to remove, and the new default option of a smart eraser that employs SAGE AI technology to let users erase a logo with a single click.
Also new is the Magic Upscaler, allowing users to upscale image sizes without losing quality, thanks to SAGE AI technology. Instead of the back and forth with a client about the proper size of an image, Design Studio users can now enlarge it within the studio without fear of the image becoming pixelated.
Within the redesign is the introduction of layers functionality. Layers are commonplace in professional graphic design tools and allow users to easily separate, stack, hide, and reorder various design elements.
Helping clients visualize how their logo looks on a product is one thing; showing them how that custom product looks in use builds enthusiasm for seeing their branded merchandise out in the world. A cutting-edge and exciting new feature in the Design Studio is the ability to create lifestyle scenes using SAGE AI. Users simply describe the scene they want the product to be placed in (e.g. put this mug on a table next to a campfire at sunset) and within a few seconds a beautiful, realistic, royalty-free image is generated. That image can be used for presentations, websites, catalogs, emails, and other marketing materials, eliminating the costs of stock photos.
To help users maintain brand consistency and integrity, SAGE Design Studio now allows users to limit the fonts and colors available to their account within the tool. Gradient, pattern, shadow effect, and opacity options for shapes and objects have also been added to provide greater flexibility in designing visual effects. Users can skew and curve shapes to ensure they look natural on curved products like tumblers, allowing for impressive, realistic samples.
In addition to supporting PNG and JPEG files, the SAGE Design Studio now also supports WebP, Google’s imaging format that allows for smaller, richer images with smaller file sizes.
New Features in SAGE Websites and Stores
SAGE has introduced a number of new features to continue its focus on providing the most customizable and full-featured website platform in the industry. Six new widgets for customization have been released for use with the custom page builder. Widgets are the technology that make it easy for site owners to customize their pages (even the homepage) without having to know how to code. New widgets include a countdown clock, quick search, flipbook, idea search, icon, and code.
The countdown clock offers the potential to count down to a product launch or show how much longer an online store will be open, which is perfect for pop-up stores!
The flipbook widget allows distributors to easily add a flip catalog created with the SAGE's Catalog Studio to their website or even turn a standard PDF file into a flipbook with zero programming or effort.
The quick search widget works like the standard quick search already on SAGE sites, but with the ability to now place the quick search anywhere on the page.
The idea search widget gives SAGE websites SAGE AI-powered idea searching, allowing visitors to just type in details about their event or promotion and instantly get great product ideas.
The icon widget includes a large icon library that site managers may choose from when incorporating icons onto webpages.
Finally, there is now a custom code widget for more experienced users looking to add code to a SAGE Website. This widget allows for third party integration like adding an Instagram feed.
These widgets are being added to SAGE’s extensive collection of widgets, giving SAGE Websites and Stores even more customization and feature capabilities. This kind of customization is what allows promotional products suppliers and distributors to differentiate themselves from the competition.
In addition to the customization widgets, there are other new features in SAGE Websites to explore. On the back end, distributors can now see the history of updates on websites and stores, providing complete details regarding what the SAGE team has updated or changed on the site and when those changes occurred. These details can be viewed in sagemember.com.
Website customers can now also add suppliers’ real-time inventory on SAGE Websites. The feature shows whether a product is in stock or out of stock, with complete detailed stock levels available as well. Customers can also configure the feature to hide out of stock items on their site.
New cart features include a place to add notes to a cart (for internal purposes) and the automatic generation of an email to the administrator when a new client registers, providing the opportunity for a personal welcome or addition to the CRM. This helps brands keep new clients from falling through the cracks.
A feature that will be especially exciting for those with SAGE Stores is in the reporting area on the backend of the site. Several new reports and new columns added to existing reports will help site owners better understand how effectively their website or store is performing and also provide valuable information for clients.
Introducing the New SAGE Automation Center
SAGE Workplace subscribers can now automate the way they work thanks to the new Automation Center. The Automation Center will serve as the central hub for any automation users want to set up within SAGE Workplace. This new feature empowers users to choose the event as well as the actions they want to follow the event. For example, the event could be that a client comments on a presentation created in SAGE Workplace. The automation could be set up so that the comment triggers the creation of a task to follow up with that client. Other events and actions include, but aren’t limited to, sending an email, creating notifications, and adding alerts.
On the quest to empower promotional products distributors to work the way they want, the Automation Center takes SAGE Workplace to the next level. Users will be able to automate more of their workflow, providing more flexibility to attend to customers, run their business, and establish a healthier work/life balance.
New Features in SAGE Workplace
SAGE Workplace is the company’s flagship product and has helped take thousands of promotional products businesses to the next level by providing enhanced workflow efficiencies and incorporating new technologies.
In the Product Search module of SAGE Workplace, there is now a new way to search for products in the database of over 1.7 million products. Introducing SmartSearch, a natural language search box. Akin to other search bars, this search option gives users the ability to just type in what they want, with as many details as they want. SAGE AI then uses that prompt to automatically fill in the search fields and conduct the search. This new search method gives users the ability to search in an easy, natural way without having to worry about what goes in which search field.
In the Presentations module, SAGE is introducing an amazing new feature that uses AI technology to create instant virtual samples. With the click of a button, the tool pulls the client’s logo and adds it to all (or select) products within a presentation automatically. This saves users the time and tedium of erasing existing logos and replacing them manually while simultaneously giving clients an accurate look at how their branded merchandise could appear. And it all happens in a matter of seconds.
Another AI-powered feature in the Presentations module allows users to create a lifestyle image by simply entering a prompt. This empowers promotional products distributors to demonstrate how branded merchandise would appear in real-world scenarios to build enthusiasm for their clients. For example, a distributor might type the prompt, “Put this mousepad on an executive desk in an office overlooking a cityscape,” and in a matter of seconds that lifestyle image will appear and be ready to include in a presentation.
Also within the Presentations module is an enhancement to the Gallery View of a presentation. A product category filter bar will automatically appear at the top of presentations making it easier for viewers to narrow their view by product category.
Clients can now give instant feedback to distributors on which items they like in a presentation by clicking a thumbs up. This new function is especially useful for cases where clients want to get feedback from a group of people, giving the distributor real-time feedback as to which products were most liked.
Most of these features are already released and available for SAGE customers to enjoy today, with everything scheduled to be available by the end of January. For more information or to get a free complimentary subscription to give SAGE Workplace a try, distributors are encouraged to visit sageworld.com or reach out to SAGE at 800.925.7243.
About SAGE
SAGE, based in Plano, Texas, is the leading provider of information, marketing, and business management solutions to the promotional products industry. In addition to SAGE Workplace™ product research and business management services, SAGE also provides the industry with other research services, order management, CRM, project management, website and email services, e-commerce solutions, end-user catalogs, payment processing, tradeshows, tradeshow management services, and lead retrieval software. SAGE is the exclusive technology provider for members of the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), the industry’s non-profit association. For more information, please visit www.sageworld.com or call 800.925.7243.
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