Oshyn: Best Practices in Sitecore CMS

Best Practices for Sitecore CMS May, 2009  Author: Gaurav Bhatt, Technical Project Manager 

Best Practices for Sitecore CMS  Table of Contents

Executive Summary

3

1.0 Sitecore CMS Structure

4

1.1 Templates

4

1.1.1 Template Inheritance

5

1.1.2 Template Types

5

1.2 Backups

6

1.3 Media Elements

6

1.4 Content Trees

7

1.5 CMS from a Content Editor’s (Author’s) Perspective

8

1.5.1 Insert Options

8

1.6 Managing Workflows

9

1.7 Content Sharing

9

1.8 Content Archiving

11

2.0 Use of Sitecore Modules

11

2.1 SharePoint Connector Module

12

2.2 SEO Module

12

2.3 Forum Module

13

2.4 Newsletter Module

14

3.0 QA for Content Authors

15

4.0 Security

15

5.0 Content Approval and Publishing

16

 

About Oshyn

 

About Author

Executive Summary Sitecore CMS is an extensive Web Content Management (WCM) platform for the mid-market. It offers reduced IT expenditures, expenditures, a streamlin ed content lifecycle, and a return of content control to the subject matter experts. The newest incarnation of Sitecore CMS version 6.0 is a mature product that incorporates standard social media components such as wikis, blogs, RSS syndication and and “ e-mail a friend” features. Based on standard .NET technologies, Sitecore offers customers a seemingly clear path to implementation. Though, like any other project implementation, there is careful planning required. And only by planning carefully, you’re able to execute to perfection. Every Sitecore implementation requires you to outline the basic features and then create templates and components based on these features. Oshyn has deep experience with implementing many content management systems for various clients. This experience allows us to understand the overall business goals and consequently create meaningful, user-centric features that will help organizations achieve those goals. We understand the key decisions that must be made prior to implementation and have some valuable tips that will ensure your business and technical users continued to have a positive and productive experience with the Sitecore content management system. This whitepaper demonstrates some of the best practices when implementing a Sitecore content management system compiled from years of successful client implementations. These best practices will help decrease the complexity of maintenance and increase the ease of use, as your site grows and your business requirements change

1.0 Sitecore CMS Structure   All content in Sitecore is organized in the Content Tree, and all content items are derived from a defined template structure. This ensures that the tree and templates are well organized; provide flexibility for growth and promoting usability for a successful implementation.  As a general guideline, you should follow the following steps: 

  Template inheritance should be carefully used but fully taken advantage of. You should be able to distinguish between page and non-page content.

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Media elements must be stored on the file system or in an external database.   Avoid storing large amounts of data in Sitecore databases. An external database should be used for storing large amounts of information. Perform periodic backups of data on an external drive. Developers should create well-defined Content trees and limit the number of items in Content trees. Field orders and filed names should be appropriately defined. This makes the CMS more user-friendly.

1.1 Templates  The template structures defined in your Sitecore project can greatly impact the usability and long-term flexibility of your Sitecore implementation. The total number of templates can easily get out of control unless time is taken to design the system correctly. This results in a cluttered system with unmanageable components. Oshyn suggests keeping the number of templates as low as possible, between five and ten, and template structures as simple as possible. Here is a screenshot of the template structure, created for one of our complex websites. Notice the naming convention and the total number of  templates.