That was spring 2018 when Magento announced the upcoming release of the 2.3.0 version. While we are still in a rush of excitement after the introduction of Magento 2.2.6 with its multiple security fixes and performance improvements, let’s briefly overview the functionality we are about to experience – with the beta code already available. And see what Magento professionals think about it.
Table of Contents
Magento 2.3 Features Overview
Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
We are living in the mobile-first world, not to speak about the growing popularity of mobile commerce. PWA technologies allow building stores that offer app-like experiences. Now, intuitive frontend on the hand-held devices will become a reality for Magento developers & UX experts.
GraphQL data query language is used for building faster frontend as a result of optimized queries and independent frontend and backend development. Products, categories, customer, as well as URL resolution for products, categories, and CMS pages are among the completed items so far. Here’s what’s expected to be introduced in the near future:
Click here to stay tuned on this community project.
Additionally, that’s where the Magento community and 3rd party extension builders come in handy, just as well as their Magento 2 AMP solutions.
Page Builder
The content management functionality was previously available solely for Magento’s selected partners. Now, the commerce merchants and general partners will get access to it. Drag-and-drop interface is expected to create beautiful rich content pages with no third-party intervention.
Declarative DB Schema
This is a new strategy that is intended to make the Magento installation and upgrade a lot easier. Declarative Schema allows the developers to define the structure of a database or the changes to be made, and convert the XML schema files into SQL statements following which they’ll be executed.
Multi Source Inventory (MSI)
MSI introduces a new global approach to inventory management thus striving to ensure seamless customer experience no matter which device the shopper uses, where they come from and which channel they prefer.
Now, the merchants will get to link multiple sources aka stock locations (warehouses) to a product. With the shopper’s shipping address in mind, this will help easily define the sources that are the closest to the customer. Data from stock locations will get linked to the external systems via the API.
Backorders and pre-orders management is also expected to be included in the core Magento functionality.
For advanced shipping management possibilities, we recommend checking the best-in-class Magento 2 Shipping extension by MageWorx.
Security
Magento has always placed special emphasis on the platform’s security. This time, we’ll see more caching and user verification enhancements. They’ll include:
Google reCAPTCHA & Two-Factor Authentication
This is it! The Magento merchants are about to get this functionality! Now, they’ll be able to keep the main store pages – registration page, contact form, forgot password page, as well as admin & user login pages secure from bots. The built-in mechanism will help detect malicious activities, and greatly decrease the number of SPAM-related attacks of the Magento Admin Panel. From the convenience standpoint, the functionality is promised to appear only when suspicious requests take place.
Cache Management Access Control List (ACL)
Just MMageWorx Magento 2 Management extension, now, Magento page admins will specify the users who get to both view and manage cache types, i.e. assign roles. This brings more control over cache-related user actions.
Amazon Integration
Another long-awaited functionality is the ability to synchronize a Magento store and its product data with Amazon. Access to Amazon multi-channel fulfillment (with its advanced shipping options and operational expertise) opens drop shipping opportunities, improves shopping and admin experience, ensures faster delivery, and more.
Which of the Announced Feature(s) in Magento 2.3 Do You Find the Most Exciting? Why?
Brent Peterson, Magento Master, Wagento: Of course, I am most excited about PWA but I don’t think we will see PWA in 2.3 (at least this first version).
For other items:
Magento Page Builder – It will be great for our clients to have more CMS capabilities.
Amazon integration – This has been a long time to come and people are always asking for this.
Finally, MSI – We have been waiting for Multi-Source Inventory FOREVER! The majority of our clients have multiple locations and warehouses. This is going to be a great built-in feature.
Sergey Uchuhlebov, Magento Developer at MageWorx: I’m really excited about the upcoming Magento 2 version. In my opinion, the introduction of PWA technologies is ambitious and long-awaited functionality. Although, it’s not clear to me at the moment how it’ll be implemented. PHP 7.2 support, GraphQL, and Declarative Schema are a must-have today. I’m wondering, why they weren’t introduced a little earlier (just thinking out loud)?
I’ve got certain concerns about Multi Source Inventory, which is impressive and promising functionality. Just hoping it won’t turn out to be some promoted paid service.
And, just as always, I’m personally super unhappy about the absence of support of backward compatibility and deleting classes. Well, I’ll have to live with it!))
Syed Muneeb Ul Hasan, Magento Developer, and Blogger at Magenticians: First of all, thanks for inviting me to comment on this exciting topic.
The recent announcement of Magento 2.3 includes many awesome features, and choosing from them is not an easy task :).
I think the following features will add a lot of value for the Magento community.
- Integration of Google reCAPTCHA
- Two-Factor Authentication
- GraphQL API
Store security is an essential component of overall customer satisfaction and with the availability of both Google reCAPTCHA and 2FA checks, merchants could offer more security without spending more on store development. GraphQL is another great addition that will get the required data without increasing the overall number of API calls.
Óscar Recio Soria, Magento Master & Certified Technical Director at Interactiv4: It’s hard to decide on just one piece of functionality. In my opinion, GraphQL will become a revolution in Magento ecosystem. With the technology, it’ll be possible to create PWA solutions that will create the user experience that’s totally different from the one we’ve got today. For the developers, I find the functionality of the Declarative DB Schema very interesting. This will allow us to get Zero Downtime deployments in all the deployments. This will ensure that the customers get their new features transparently.
Muhammad Fayyaz Uddin Khattak, Magento Community Manager at Cloudways: In Magento 2.3.x Commerce, I really like the idea to put the significant enhancement to Magento’s native CMS using Page Builder. Its template creation, drag and drop feature, layout management, and user experience seems friendly to manage for a non-technical user especially store owners. Another thing is the native support of ElasticSearch in Magento 2.3.x Open Source. ES is a powerful search tool. It empowers search capabilities of Magento platform which gives a better search experience to the buyers.
Andreas von Studnitz, Magento Developer and Co-Founder of integer_net: Besides the myriads of bug fixes and small improvements by the community which make the product more stable, I am mostly looking forward to the new PageBuilder. The CMS has been a weak spot of Magento since the beginning, and having an intuitive and flexible input interface for content will be great for many merchants and agencies.
Aron Stanic, Head of eCommerce Sales Team at Inchoo: Page Builder – I believe from a merchant’s perspective, this may be the single most anticipated feature as it should help with their marketing efforts a great deal. MSI – definitely something that has been long in the works, and it is great that the community stepped up and delivered this as a collaborative effort. Many B2C and B2B merchants will benefit from this feature. PWA Studio – PWA has been a buzzword for a long time now, with a lot of collaborative or standalone initiatives popping up (Deity, Vue Storefront) – now it remains to be seen whether the official product is something that agencies can bet on as THE go-to solution for their clients’ needs. We look forward to adopting it on some of our future projects.
***
A thousand and one thanks to all the participants for taking out a time to contribute to the article! I appreciate that a lot!
Magento 2.2.6 has several critical security fixes, performance upgrades and other enhancements. Can’t wait to witness what surprises Magento 2.3 will bring to us!
Reading this article was an experience. I enjoyed all the information you provided and appreciated the work you did in getting it written. You really did a lot of research.