TL;DR

• Sylius is the first eCommerce platform to fully support Symfony 5 – the newest, fastest, and most popular framework for professional PHP projects development;
• PayPal Commerce Platform in default Sylius installation – the most modern of PayPal payment solutions is now automatically delivered (via plugin) together with the vanilla Sylius setup*
• We are reaching 50% core logic coverage with our new API standard – API Platform, the best tool in the API category in the Symfony ecosystem. Through it, since this release you can manage via external systems**:
  • Loyalty rules, return management, and multi-source inventory in Sylius Plus;
  • Customer account, orders, emails, products & product variants management in inventory source;
  • You can expose your custom features built on top of Sylius through Api Platform;
• We have been fixing (still WiP) a very complex tax calculation that stabilizes refund and invoicing features among other things. That effort includes:
  • Enhanced shipments management, incl. a proper taxes and promotions calculation in refunds;
  • More precise taxation adjustments, so you can trace back origins of them with ease;
• From now on, you can choose whether a product attribute should be translatable or not – a small but necessary feature for multi-store, multi-country setups like the one of our beloved Sylius Plus Customer – Brille24 who requested this functionality.

*Technically, the new PayPal plugin was already available with the previous release, but it didn’t install automatically with Sylius back then. Read more about the solution here.

**Naturally, Sylius has had a fully working API for years, we are just bragging about its new, better version. 😉 To have the full overview, check the Sylius API documentation here.

Intro after intro

So currently our sprints are named gorgeously after the astral objects in our solar system planets (yup, we skipped Pluto). And leading with that thought we’d like to share what were the goals of all of those sprints since our last release of Sylius 1.8 (September 14th, 2020 till today). Seems like the right key to follow the development of any digital product – step by step, what were we aiming for.

Also, depending on why you’re here (a C-level executive deciding on  upcoming eCommerce replatforming, a developer looking for fixes, a product owner interested in new features or just browsing for fun) you can review our sprints via a business perspective or what we have done from the development side.

Sprint Goals

1. Schizophrenic Saturn (#General):
Make API more customizable

Business Perspective:
We took another step, to provide the best developer experience of combining both worlds of API Platform and Sylius. From now on it should be easier to build something on top of them both.

Development Perspective:
You may mix API Platform and Sylius configuration as you wish. Additional resources that you will create may have support for one of them or both.

2. Quantum Qwerty (#Loyalty) – [Sylius Plus]: Admin can add loyalty rules

Business Perspective:
We’ve introduced a new integration layer for loyalty rules. Since Sylius v1.9 you can manage your loyalty rules in Sylius Plus from external systems.

Development Perspective:
Loyalty rules have several new endpoints which allow for their management. You can not only add, but customize them as well.

3. Pandemic Phobos (#Shipments):
Shipments with tax adjustments are refundable

Business Perspective: 
Taxation and promotions are handled much better on single and multiple shipments. What is more, you can refund the shipments including taxation without any problem.

Development Perspective: 
Shipments became a source of orders adjustments as well. This makes shipments first-class citizens together with order items and order item units. Since this release, all shipment related taxations and promotions will be related to the shipment itself. Before, you will make a migration check with our upgrade guide to see if your assumptions were correct during updates!

4. Omniscient Oberon (#Products):
Product and product variants managed in inventory source in API; We can handle non-translatable attributes

Business Perspective: 
Inventory sources may be one of the most common elements integrated with other systems like ERP, WMS or courier apps. From now on, this integration is supported with our new API. In addition, attributes management has a much better feel and look and supports non-translatable attributes as well (no more duplicated pieces of information!).

Development Perspective:
Inventory source management received several API endpoints. You can manage inventory source stocks (amount of items in given location). In addition we are supporting non-translatable attributes, which may be of importance especially if you have an integration with an external PIM system.

5. Narcoleptic Neptune (#Taxes):
Payment process with the new API and PayPal Commerce Platform (PPCP); we know how to handle tax adjustments

Business Perspective: 
Proper tax calculation is crucial for every business. We’ve improved the taxation system in general. Handling taxes and restoring via invoices etc will be much easier now. Our default payment integration with PayPal Commerce Platform got support with the API Platform.

Development Perspective: 
What is more, we’ve introduced relation tax adjustments and an appropriate tax rate. These changes should make work around invoicing much easier. Check our upgrade guide to see if your assumptions were correct during the update!

6. Makeshift Makemake (#Payments):
PayPal is installed by default in Sylius-Standard; emails are sent via API

Business Perspective: 
As announced back in September, every new store based on Sylius will have a preinstalled PayPal Commerce Platform. This plugin of course is optional, but we wanted to make your setup easier.

Development Perspective: 
The PayPal Plugin is preinstalled with each Sylius-Standard installation. What is more, we’ve introduced an emailing layer for a new API. If both New API and Shop (Twig) will be turned on, the emails will be triggered in the “hybrid” mode. Links from emails dispatched from actions performed through API interfaces will go directly to your Shop. If the Shop will be turned off, then mails will contain only “raw” data (like order id) and you should override the content.

7. Lunatic Lysithea (#Returns):
We researched on how to handle non-translatable attributes; we can place a return request using API

Business Perspective: 
Return requests may be easier to implement as part of your custom shop experience, as they have native API support in Sylius Plus.

Development Perspective: 
Return Requests received their API support in the shop. In total 7 additional endpoints were added which allow for return request management from an account perspective.

8. Khaki Kalyke:
We know how to handle ResourceBundle in Symfony 5; possible changing payment method via API after order confirmation

Business Perspective: 
R&D for Symfony 5 support. More features available for shop users throughout API. Definite security upgrade.

Development Perspective: 
Initial support for Symfony 5 & ResourceBundle was added. Special kudos to Loic Fremont and his project Monofony relying on this bundle heavily.

PS: we’ll be sharing a blog post on this specific sprint in the near future – we’ll let you know via our newsletter.

9. Jade Jupiter:
Administrator can manage inventory sources using API; customers can see their orders details using API

Business Perspective: 
Since this sprint, you can plug management of warehouses themselves to Sylius from external sources. Management of items within was added in the later sprint.

Development Perspective:
CRUD management of inventory sources (warehouses/locations) exposed via new API. Order management via API implemented.

10. Inglorious Io:
Sylius Plus made compatible with Sylius/Sylius 1.8 and API tested for Sylius Plus

Business Perspective: 
Sylius Plus with support for Sylius 1.8 and new API

Development Perspective: 
Sylius Plus with support for Sylius 1.8 and new API

Features & Contributors

Since release 1.8 we’ve had some time to work on other Sylius Standard and Sylius Plus features, fixes & patch bugs that our Dev Team and Community revealed to the world. Lots of these PRs were initiated by developers in our community, who we’d like to thank for their proactive support – shout out to you all!

• #12139 [Api] Locale code on checkout (@Tomanhez) – now we process checkout in locale chosen by user
• #12116 [Adjustment] Add more details to adjustment and make shipment adjustable (@GSadee, @SirDomin, @lchrusciel)
• #12107 API platform payment (@SirDomin) – completing payment by PayPal
• #12257 [API] change new-API prefix to API (@SirDomin)
• #12148 Support for Symfony 5 (@pamil)
• #12098 [Attributes][PoC] Attributes view reorganization (@Tomanhez, @kulczy, @AdamKasp, @SirDomin) – alongside Symfony 5 it is the biggest feature in this release  
• #11950 [Core][Channel] Add contact phone number to channel (@twojtylak)
• #11805 Redirect /.well-known/change-password to the right page (@jacquesbh)
• #187 Symfony 5 support for ResourceBundle (@loic425)
• #185 Upgrade PagerfantaBundle to new version with B/C layer (@mbabker). Thanks for taking over Pagerfanta itself!

Demo

Take a tour of Sylius Standard or Sylius Plus to get more into specific business opportunities we’ve addressed. If you want, we can guide you through the demo, talk about your blockers and help validate if this is the right software solution for your business.

Download

So, let’s put our money where our mouth is – visit our download page to get direct access to Sylius, read more about our support or how you can become a Sylius developer with our online course.

Next steps?

What’ll we be working on for the time being?

• Upgrade to PHP 8
• Catalog promotions (#spoilerAlert)
• Further stabilisation of Refund & Invoicing plugin (mainly tax processing)
• Introducing into Sylius documentation API examples – how to customize, expand etc.
• Upgrade Guide from ShopApiPlugin to API Platform

Ok, that’s all for this release! See you on the flip side!