Sitecore MVP 2018

Hi Friends,

Congratulations to all our extended family on being Sitecore MVP for 2018.

Below is the link to check the complete 2018 Sitecore MVP listing -

Sitecore MVP List 2018

Adding Custom Web Edit button

We know most of our content authors would love to use the experience editor for all their editing but sometimes they find that they have to use the content editor as some option have not been configured for them in the experience editor.

Through this short article  we can see how to add custom web edit buttons in the experience editor to enhance the author’s editing experience.

Steps:

1. Switch to core DB.

2. Go to /sitecore/content/Applications/WebEdit/Custom Experience Buttons and create a new item of type /sitecore/templates/System/WebEdit/Field Editor Button.

3. Update the fields in the newly create item, i.e. header, tooltip, icon and fields.

    Put the exact Field Name that you would like to edit in the ‘Fields’ section of the newly created item.

    You can also add multiple field names separated by |.

4. Save it and go back to Master DB.
5. Under the layouts folder, open the rendering definition item with which you want to associate this new button.                                 

6. Go the section ‘Experience Editor Buttons’ and select your new button.

7. Save and see the magic happen. 

You can use it to enable field editing of fields which normally are not available in the experience editor like, multi list, tree list etc.

Sitecore 9 - New xDB Database Support

Sitecore 9 has delivered on a major request of it's customers - xDB support for SQL Server.

Experience Database (xDB) came with the release of Sitecore 7.5, and it brought in major overhaul around Sitecore's architecture for data storage. Earlier to Sitecore 7.5, Analytics was saved in SQL server where few key deficiencies were noted, like  - it only scaled vertically, lead to inefficient scaling, and that the data was too complex to structure effectively. The change was a NoSQL database in the form of MongoDB.

Mongo provided vertically scaling - for speed, horizontal scaling - for size and Schemaless document database which allowed flexibility. However, it did present organizations with a number of challenges.  The foremost of these challenges was probably the technical requirement for MongoDB as part of the platform, in addition to the pre-existing SQL Server.

With this release, Sitecore now supports using SQL Server 2017 as the database for xDB.  This version of SQL Server provides the necessary level of capability for storing JSON structures in a noSQL type of manner that was not previously possible with SQL Server.

Note - Sitecore has expended the choice for both the partners and Azure customers, to the cosmos dB as well as the Sql Azure (which become's the perfect solution for the integrated Azure).

The support finally provides more options both in terms technology (SQL vs NoSQL) and hosting (Cloud vs On-Prem) to align with one's customers needs.

Sitecore 9 - Federated Authentication Update

Sitecore uses ASP.NET membership for user authentication. If we want to leverage authentication through other mechanisms, there is a lot of custom development comes into picture.

The latest release introduces support for OWIN authentication middleware, which can enable users to log in via standard Microsoft OWIN authentication providers. This can now allow users to log into Sitecore using Azure Active Directory, ADFS, Microsoft, Google, various social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or any other third party platforms that support OAuth.

Current OWIN middlewares available include:

  -  OpenId Connect (AzureAD, identity server)
  -  Microsoft Account
  -  Google
  -  Facebook
  -  Twitter
  -  WsFederation
  -  OAuth
  -  SAML

Logins can be either Virtual Users or Persisted Users in the membership database. This means that the authentication can be used to both log into the Sitecore CMS as well as for the front-end website (allowing one to identify and collect rich data about your users whilst making it easier for them to use Single Sign On.)