Frequently asked questions

Octana is a Contentful App providing you with a suite of low-code and no-code tools for creating and managing enterprise level websites on Contentful.

Each tool provided within the Octana app designed to alleviate a problem faced by marketers and content creators trying to manage their site on Contentful without developer or agency help. Create entire pages, easily edit content, manage forms and integrations, replicate and reuse content, bulk edit SEO and metadata, plus control your site architecture without needing to write any code.  Octana is the easy-to-use enhancement for your website on Contentful.

Octana is a SaaS tool — an app with an annual subscription fee, that allows you to manage the ongoing maintenance, editing, and creation on your Contentful site. However, we also offer professional services to give you a helping hand as you get started and support you ongoing.

Our professional services team manage the integration of Octana and Contentful, can apply your branding to our toolkit of ready-to-use content assets, manage content migration, and set up bespoke integrations with the rest of your tech stack.

A one-off professional services fee allows you to get going fast then take over the reins yourself using our no-code tools to manage your site and content without having to continually get agency or developer support to make simple changes.

Getting started with Octana is easy. Our Professional Services team can take you from design to live in a matter of weeks.

Our involvement can be as quick as implementing Octana within your existing tech stack to creating your your entire Contentful site from scratch — including applying branding, setting up custom integrations, and deploying to Netlify, Azure, AWS, Google Cloud Platform or your self-hosting solution.  Your site will be ready to start adding content and building pages in as little as 3 weeks using our low-code tools. Plus we give you full training on how to easily build, design, and manage your own content in-house without needing to call in the developers.  To get Octana, and start implementing our tools, book a demo.

The annual Octana subscription includes:

• Access to our no-code tools that make ongoing changes to both content and design a breeze.

Octana Core: Our toolbox of customizable content components for developer-free content creation.

Octana SmartUI: Our extensive library of grab-and-go design assets with your branding applied.

Octana Mapmaster: Control your site structure without code, plus easily bulk edit SEO and metadata fields.

Octana Integrate: Create engaging, data-driven experiences through endless enterprise integrations.

Octana QuickEdit: Our frontend click-to-edit interface.

• Access to new releases of the Octana Contentful app and other features are automatically included as they are available. 

• Content author training and support to help them get the most out of the Octana toolkit.

• Hosting on Netlify (Optional).

• A dedicated Delivery Lead through to go-live. 

• A dedicated Customer Success Manager for the lifetime of your Octana subscription.

• A dedicated Slack support channel.

You can also choose from a number of one-off additions as you go to help you deliver your site and new updates faster, including: 

• One-off Professional services for additional design or custom features and integrations. 

• Automated one-off data migration of content from your existing website.

No. Octana is an app designed to work on the Contentful platform. If you don’t have a Contentful site and are looking at headless content solutions we can help you decide if Contentful will be the right fit for your business.

Octana gives you control beyond the initial build.

Building and setting up your site is just the beginning, with Octana, you gain access to a suite of low-code tools built specifically to give marketers and content creators the ability to edit, maintain, and even create on Contentful themselves. This saves the ongoing cost of constantly having to re-engage an agency or developers to implement seemingly small changes that somehow end up costing thousands.  With the ability to edit and maintain your own content you can reduce the ongoing cost of your site by as much as 40% simply by eliminating expensive agency retainers. Plus, you can get your ideas to market faster without waiting for an external team to “fit you in.”

The Octana Contentful app is cloud-hosted. However, your frontend design and code, any code created to implement your data and mar-tech integrations are customer IP and owned by you.

The Octana Contentful app does not need to store any of your data, everything remains in your existing Contentful Space. In order to use Octana you use your existing Contentful user profile, you do not need to authenticate separately.

The intent is to leverage all the benefits of Contentful's security programme.

Your website will continue to run with no disruption to your customers. However, you will lose access to the Octana Contentful App, and the tools available to you through the app. This means that editing or adding to your site will take longer, and may require more developer or agency support.  If Octana is bundled with Contentful, you will need a direct contract with Contentful before the contract expiry date.

Yes. Octana would transfer responsibility for the code base to the internal team, and we can provide developer-level support if required.

Headless e-commerce refers to website architecture where the front end (what your customers see) of your e-commerce system, is decoupled or separated from the back-end (your commerce engine).

To be competitive in the rapidly growing e-commerce space, you need to be adaptive. Headless architecture, specifically headless e-commerce platforms allow you to change the customer facing side of your store, without affecting the back end processes that control shopping carts, shipping orders, tax calculations, and more. The reverse is also true — you can adapt your commerce processes separate to the design, layout, and content that your customers see.

This separation allows for greater control and the ability to create highly flexible experiences by harnessing the power of platforms designed to do one job, and do it really well.

Headless eCommerce platforms, like Commerce Layer, connect with Contentful through Octana’s Integration Layer.

Commerce Layer allows you control over your transactional engine, while merchandising and product discovery are handled by the Contentful CMS. Octana allows you to harness the power of specialist platforms, with an easy-to-use, low-code interface.

The ease of use allows marketing teams to take back control of their headless eCommerce platform and reduce reliance on developers or agencies.

Algolia allows you to build next-generation world-class search experiences delivering relevant content in milliseconds. Whatever your customers are searching for — whether they’re using exact terms or free-form expressions — they can find what they’re looking for.

Customers can type in just about anything, Algolia’s natural language processing understands their intent and delivers results based on similar search terms. Your customers don’t need to remember the name of that “thingy,” they just need to be able to describe it. By putting results at your customers fingertips, and helping them find what they need without them having to land on the exact search term you can drastically improve conversion rates from your site. 

Algolia can process most search queries in under 20 milliseconds — that’s fast. It happens to be up to 200 times faster than their competitors.

For full technical information on just how fast Algolia is, plus factors that impact speed, we recommend reading more here.

For enterprise sites, a fast search is incredibly important — with huge data sets to sift through, you don’t want to keep your customers waiting. Too long, and they’ll bounce from your site, or try elsewhere. Think of it like customer service — if you’re too slow, you might miss a crucial opportunity.