Sitecore Explorations

Sitecore

My 2021 Reflections

Hope everyone got the Covid-19 vaccines and staying safe.  

Here are my contributions for the year – 

Presenations:

Blog Posts :

Award :

  • Experience Awards 2021 (Honorable Mention)  

Certification:   

  • Sitecore 10 .NET Developer Certification  

Contributions :

  • Logged Sitecore Bugs  
    •  CS0208574 Forms are missing in Forms Designer View
    •  CS0206915 High memory utilization on xConnect/Solr server 

Conferences I attended:

  • Symposium
  • SUGCON  
  • Virtual Developer Day
  • MVP Sitecore Lunches  
  • All Pittsburgh SUG meetups 
  • Most of the SUG Boston/ Queen City/ Columbus meetups  

Co-organized SUG-Pittsburgh Meetups :

Co-organized SUG-QueenCity Meetup :

 

Plans for 2021 :

Learn and contribute:

  • Sitecore 10.2
  • Composable DXP
  • Containerization
  • Sitecore Saas Offerings

Co-organize :

  • Monthly SUG-Pittsburgh meetup
  • Monthly SUG-QueenCity meetup

Presentations:

  • Sitecore Virtual Developer Day
  • SUGCON EU/Symposium
  • SUG Meetups

Happy Sitecoring!

 

November 29, 2021
0
Forms / Sitecore

Sitecore Forms missing | No Forms to display – Issue fix

Sitecore Forms were missing in Forms Designer view after being created. I experience the same and here are the things I tried to get fixed.

  • Cleared browser cache
  • Cleared Sitecore cache (/sitecore/admin/cache.aspx)
  • Incognito/private mode to see if Forms are showing up
  • Rebuilt Forms folder from Developer menu (faster way)
  • Rebuilt Sitecore Master Index

After doing above all, Forms weren’t still showing up 🙁  Decided to take a deeper dive.

I checked the JobsViewer(/sitecore/admin/jobs.aspx) to check what jobs are running and to my surprise, the re-indexing only Forms folder was running for more than 2 hours and they were so many jobs queued up (Content Authors may be busy creating more content for the website).

I was wondering what’s causing the indexing queue to be clogged. Checked the Crawling log using Sitecore Log Analyzer to see what’s happening and for every single update, it was triggering re-index synchronously and immediately checked the Indexing Strategy for sitecore_master_index and it was set to syncMaster! 

This was the root cause of the problem because every time the Content Author was making a change it was triggering the re-index synchronously, whereas it should asynchronously re-indexed with an interval. I switched it to the intervalAsyncMaster strategy to fix the issue.

Tip: Sitecore Log Analyzer is a powerful tool for parsing Sitecore log files. It provides the interface to explore and navigate through a large amount of log data.

 

Here is the patch I used to update the index strategy. 

Now within few minutes, all queue jobs cleared and moved to finished jobs.

Checked Forms in Designer view, all forms were showing up! Tada!

Hope this helps someone.

Happy Sitecoring!

July 29, 2021
0
Sitecore

Sitecore Sidekick – Upgrade

I was working on a Sitecore 9.0.2 client project and the Sitecore Sidekick(1.4.4 version) was already installed. When I tried to initiate the Sidekick and it was throwing an error –

Method not found: Void Rainbow.Storage.IDataStore.Save(Rainbow.Model.IItemData) SitecoreSidekick.Shared.IoC.Container.Resolve(Object[] args) +776
ScsContentMigrator.Core.ContentItemInstaller..ctor() +313
ScsContentMigrator.<>c.<InitializeContainer>b__5_4(Object[] args) +31
SitecoreSidekick.Shared.IoC.Container.Resolve(Object[] args) +117

While researching the error, came to know that I need to update Rainbow and Unicorn (If you use Unicorn in your project to serialize items make sure you install the No Rainbow package as this will not overwrite Unicorn’s Rainbow DLL files but rather utilize whatever version Unicorn is using (Sidekick can work with any version). You can skip if your project doesn’t use it) packages as it wasn’t compatible with the versions that were installed.

I was wondering what version of these packages(SideKick, Rainbow, and Unicorn) will be compatible with Sitecore 9.0.2 and realized it doesn’t matter! 

So decided to update the Sidekick(it automatically updates Rainbow) and Unicorn with the latest version via NuGet. Make sure to update all installed Sidekick packages to up-to-date. In my case, I updated the below ones – 

  • SitecoreSidekickFoundation
  • SitecoreSidekickContentMigrator
  • SitecoreSidekickCore
  • SitecoreSidekickAuditLog
  • SitecoreSidekickEditingContext

It automatically updated all the dependencies like below

Now updating Unicorn(Skip if your project doesn’t use it for serialization)  

All packages and it’s dependencies were successfully installed and deployed to QA and UAT environments(it needs to be deployed to the servers in order to make the contract) and the Sidekick started working.

Now we were able to pull content from any environment!

Installing via Sitecore Package

It is not recommended, If you like to install it in environments directly without check-in to source control, you can install it as a package. Download the latest package at the root of the repo.

References

  • https://jeffdarchuk.com/2016/10/24/sitecore-sidekick-content-migrator/
  • https://kamsar.net/index.php/category/Unicorn/

Hope this helps someone. 

Happy Sitecoring!

 

April 30, 2021
0
Sitecore / XConnect

High memory utilization fix for xConnect server

We were seeing High memory utilization on the xConnect server and it coincides with when our monitoring service reports the site being down. Logs were particularly showing these two errors related to the xConnect –

Error #1:

System.OperationCanceledException: The operation was canceled.
at System.Threading.CancellationToken.ThrowOperationCanceledException()
at System.Web.Http.Filters.ActionFilterAttribute.<CallOnActionExecutedAsync>d__5.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Filters.ActionFilterAttribute.<ExecuteActionFilterAsyncCore>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Controllers.ActionFilterResult.<ExecuteAsync>d__2.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Filters.AuthorizationFilterAttribute.<ExecuteAuthorizationFilterAsyncCore>d__2.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Controllers.AuthenticationFilterResult.<ExecuteAsync>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Controllers.ExceptionFilterResult.<ExecuteAsync>d__0.MoveNext()

Error #2:

Sitecore.XConnect.Operations.SetFacetOperation`1[Sitecore.XConnect.Facet]: Sitecore.XConnect.Operations.FacetOperationException: Operation #0, AlreadyExists, Contact {32971b60-1245-0000-0000-0611bab4b38e}, Classification
[Error] ["XdbContextLoggingPlugin"] XdbContext Batch Execution Exception
Sitecore.XConnect.Operations.FacetOperationException: Operation #0, AlreadyExists, Contact {32971b60-1245-0000-0000-0611bab4b38e}, Classification
 [Error] XConnect Exception Filter OnException(), url - "https://prod9-xconnect.everence.com/odata/Contacts?%24filter=Identifiers%2fany(id:id%2fIdentifier+eq+'a5642a9a87ad41e1ab65a624b7d1b1f6'+and+id%2fSource+eq+'xDB.Tracker')&%24expand=Identifiers,MergeInfo,ConsentInformation,Classification,EngagementMeasures,ContactBehaviorProfile,Personal,KeyBehaviorCache,ListSubscriptions,AutomationPlanEnrollmentCache,AutomationPlanExit,TestCombinations"
System.OperationCanceledException: The operation was canceled.
at System.Threading.CancellationToken.ThrowOperationCanceledException()
at System.Web.Http.Filters.ActionFilterAttribute.<CallOnActionExecutedAsync>d__5.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Filters.ActionFilterAttribute.<ExecuteActionFilterAsyncCore>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Controllers.ActionFilterResult.<ExecuteAsync>d__2.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Filters.AuthorizationFilterAttribute.<ExecuteAuthorizationFilterAsyncCore>d__2.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Controllers.AuthenticationFilterResult.<ExecuteAsync>d__0.MoveNext()
--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---
at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.ThrowForNonSuccess(Task task)
at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)
at System.Web.Http.Controllers.ExceptionFilterResult.<ExecuteAsync>d__0.MoveNext()

Investigation:

Created a dump using the Procdump tool. Here is the command I used for creating 18GB of the dump file 

procdump -m 18000 -ma [Name or PID]     

From reviewing the memory dump, we could see two SQL queries that have consumed 8GB and 6GB of memory in your XConnect instance. 

Both queries were running the [xdb_collection].[GetInteractionsByContactIds] stored procedure. This stored procedure retrieves interaction data for a contact.

The queries are attempting to retrieve the interactions for a specific Contact ID. After reviewing some of the retrieved interactions from this contact, we could see the User-Agent for this contact was

Mozilla/5.0 (Unknown; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/534.34 (KHTML, like Gecko) PingdomTMS/0.8.5 Safari/534.34

The above agent is Pingdom (It is a website monitoring and availability service) to have many interactions stored in XConnect. Although it’s a bot, it was considered a valid user and the interactions were being tracked.

Resolution:

In order to mitigate the interactions from Pingdom, we added the User-Agent of Pingdom to the <excludedUserAgents> configuration (Sitecore.Analytics.ExcludeRobots.config) so that future visits from Pingdom are treated as a bot and not saved to XConnect.

For more details, please see this article here: https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/90/sitecore-experience-platform/en/configure-robot-detection-functionality.html#idp23361

Thank you Sitecore Support for helping us figure out the issue.

Happy Sitecoring!

April 8, 2021
0
Sitecore / SPE

Bulk update fields using SPE

I came across a scenario, where I need to update the email field for all custom forms built with ‘EmailTemplate’. Since it’s going to be a bulk update, decided to do it in SPE(so powerful!)

Here is the script I wrote –

$path = "master:/sitecore/content/external_forms"
$templateName = "EmailTemplate"
$emailAddresses = "test@test.com"
$fieldName = "ToEmail"
$items = Get-ChildItem –Path $path –Recurse | Where-Object { $_.TemplateName -eq $templateName }
foreach($item in $items) {
if($item.Fields[$fieldName] -ne 'null'){
$item.Editing.BeginEdit()
$item.Fields[$fieldName].Value = $emailAddresses
$item.Editing.EndEdit()
Write-Host ($item.Name + ": " + $item.Fields[$fieldName].Value)
}
}
view raw BulkUpdateFieldValuesUsingSPE.ps1 hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Hope this helps someone. Any questions, please leave a comment.

Happy Sitecoring!

January 25, 2021
0
Sitecore

My 2020 Reflections

2020 has been a rough ride, Covid-19 has changed our lives. Hope we all get vaccinated in the upcoming year. Stay home, stay safe.

Here are my contributions for the year –

Presentations:

  • Feb 11 – Sitecore 9.3 new features and live installation – SUG Pittsburgh
  • March 26 – Smart Experience Forms – SUG Pittsburgh
  • April 12 – Sitecore 9.3 new features and live installation – SUG Jordon
  • July 15 – What’s new in Sitecore 9.3 and Live Installation – SUG QueenCity

Blog Posts:

Podcast:

YouTube:

Conferences I attended:

  • Sitecore Symposium
  • All SUG Boston/ Pittsburgh/Queen City meetups.

Co-organized SUG-Pittsburgh Meetups :

Co-organized SUG-QueenCity Meetups :

Participation:

  • Sitecore Lunch
  • Hackathon

Plans for 2021 :

Learn and contribute:

  • Content Hub
  • Cortex
  • Sitecore AI Personalization
  • Sitecore Experience Forms
  • Docker Containers
  • Sitecore 10

Co-organize :

  • Monthly SUG-Pittsburgh meetup
  • Monthly SUG-QueenCity meetup

Presentations:

  • SUG Meetups
  • Sitecore SUGCON EU/Symposium

Happy Sitecoring!

December 11, 2020
0
SIF / Sitecore

Sitecore 10 SIF Installation Roadblocks

Sitecore_10_Installation_Roadblocks

Sitecore 10 was out a couple of months back. I installed it using SIF, hit a couple of roadblocks while installing and sharing the resolutions that helped resolve the issues.

If you haven’t installed Sitecore 10, here are some blogs that help you install.

Sitecore 10 using SIF: https://scorewow.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/install-sitecore-10-in-10-using-sif/

Sitecore 10 using SIA: https://madhuanbalagan.com/installing-sitecore-10-using-sia

 

Error # 1: Solr Port Issue

I have multiple Solr services running for different versions of Sitecore and here is the error I got while installing Sitecore 10.

“Port 8984 is already being used by another process. Please choose a different port”.

Run services.msc to check how many Solr’s are running on the machine.

Resolution:

If you have multiple instances of Solr running and you don’t know what port, it’s associated with. Here is a quick way to get the process name and kill if it’s is no longer needed.

Find which process using Solr port

 

Get-Process -Id (Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort $portNumber).OwningProcess

Sitecore_10_Installation_Find-_Which_Process_Using_Solr_Port

Also when installing the Solr, you can add the Port Name and Sitecore Version number or any information in the Description of Details tab.

This is life saver, do not need to worry about which Solr maps which port in the future!

 

Sitecore_10_Installation_NSSM_Service

 

Sitecore_10_Installation_Service_List

 

Error # 2: SQL User Issue

“msdeploy.exe : Error: .Net SqlClient Data Provider: Msg 12809, Level 16, State 1, Line 5 You must remove all users with password before setting the containment property to NONE.                                                            At C:\ProgramFiles\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\SitecoreInstallFramework\2.2.0\Public\Tasks\Invoke-CommandTask.ps1:31 char:13”  

                                                    

Resolution:

For some reason, the SC10 uninstall did not remove all the variables for failed instances. I removed the  ‘sc10_CollectionUser’ in local DB users, fixed the issue.

 

Sitecore_10_Installation_SQL_User_Issue_Resolution

 

 

Error # 3: Credential Issue

Sitecore_10_Installation_Error_Credential_Issue

“Install-SitecoreConfiguration: A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name ‘Credential’. This error might have been caused by applying the default parameter binding. You can disable the default parameter binding in

$PSDefaultParameterValues by setting $PSDefaultParameterValues[“Disabled”] to be $true, and then trying again. The following default parameters were successfully bound for this cmdlet when the error occurred: -Debug -WarningAction

-Verbose -InformationAction -ErrorAction

At C:\ResourceFiles\XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1:77 char:1

+ Install-SitecoreConfiguration @singleDeveloperParams *>&1 | Tee-Objec …

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

+ CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Write-Error], WriteErrorException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WriteErrorException,Install-SitecoreConfiguration”

 

Resolution:

The SqlServer module wasn’t installed by default, so I had to do it manually.

Ran this on Powershell command fixed the issue.

Install-Module -Name SqlServer -AllowClobber

 

Hope this helps someone. Any issues, let me know in the comments section.

Happy Sitecoring!

October 8, 2020
0
Horizon / Sitecore

Sitecore Horizon 10 Installation

I want to share my experience with the Installation of Sitecore Horizon 10. 

Prerequisites

Before you install Sitecore Horizon, you must:

After you install the tools, restart your machine.

SameSite cookies and custom domains:

The commonly-used browsers such as Chrome and Safari are changing how the browsers interpret the SameSite cookie. After the change takes effect, Horizon will only work if the Sitecore Horizon host instance, the Sitecore identity instance, and the Sitecore CM instance belong to the same site. 

Sitecore CM: https://cm.mycompany.com
Sitecore identity: https://si.mycompany.com
Horizon: https://horizon.mycompany.com

Installation

  • Download Horizon 10 from here. I downloaded the on-premises deployment.  

  • Extract the zip file and open InstallHorizon.ps1

  • Fill out the below parameters –

  • Run the InstallHorizon.ps1 in Adminstrator mode.



  • Once the installation is done (only takes 2 to 3 minutes), you will see a new Icon in Sitecore XP.



  • Clicking the Icon opens Horizon (yes, it’s separate IIS site) in a new tab and you can explore the new features!

Post Installation

To use the alignment and indentation features in the rich text editor in Horizon, make sure to add the below styles to your default style sheet (like default.css in your project).

.rte-indent-1 {
     padding-left: 40px;
}
 .rte-indent-2 {
     padding-left: 80px;
}
 .rte-indent-3 {
     padding-left: 120px;
}
 .rte-indent-4 {
     padding-left: 160px;
}
 .rte-indent-5 {
     padding-left: 200px;
}
 .rte-indent-6 {
     padding-left: 240px;
}
 .rte-indent-7 {
     padding-left: 280px;
}
 .rte-indent-8 {
     padding-left: 320px;
}
 .rte-align-center {
     text-align: center;
}
 .rte-align-justify {
     text-align: justify;
}
 .rte-align-right {
     text-align: right;
}

Hope this helps someone. Any issues, let me know in the comments section.

Happy Sitecoring!

August 19, 2020
0
Sitecore

Installing Sitecore 10 using SIA(Sitecore Install Assistant)

Sitecore 10 is out! I tried installing it using SIA(Sitecore Install Assistant) along with SXA and it installed smoothly without any errors!

Prerequisites: 

No need to install any prerequisites(includes Solr, SIF) manually, SIA will take care of it.

Preparation:

  • Download installation package (Graphical setup package XP Single) from here.

Installation:

  • Extract the file zip file downloaded and click on Setup.exe
  • Install the prerequisites to make sure the required SIF and Windows Server prerequisites are up to date.
  • Install Solr 8.4.0 by filling Port, Windows service path prefix and Install path and Install.

Note: Make sure the port number is different from earlier versions of Solr installed. 

  • Fill out site prefix, admin password (going with b, so easy to remember) and Confirm password (new to Sitecore 10), and license file path.
  • Fill out SQL server instance name, admin username and password.
  • Double-check the Solr URL (browse to make sure it’s running successfully), System root and Windows service name
  • Select optional module SXA if you need. I’m going for it, time to explore SXA! Would be nice if Horizon is listed here.
  • Review the summary to make sure the settings are correct.
  • SIA validates to make sure the files look good.
  • Install. This takes around 10 minutes (you can get a coffee!). If it errors out, check out the log.

Yayy!! It’s installed. Is it easy to install with SIA? It’s indeed a great tool!  

Check out the release notes for what’s new in Sitecore 10 here

Happy Sitecoring!

August 4, 2020
0
Horizon / Sitecore

Sitecore Horizon 9.3 Install, Troubleshooting, and Uninstall

I want to share my experience on the Installation of Sitecore Horizon 9.3, Uninstallation, and the errors I faced during installation.

Prerequisites

  • Install Sitecore 9.3 
  • Ensure CMS site is accessible with https protocol
  • Ensure WebSocket Protocol enabled

After installing the tools, restart your machine.

Installation

  • Download Horizon 9.3 from here. I downloaded the on-premises deployment.
  • Extract the zip file and open Parameters.ps1
  • Fill out the below parameters –
  • Run install.ps1 in Powershell Administrator mode
  •   Once the installation is done (only takes 2 to 3 minutes), you will see a new Icon in Sitecore 
  •   Clicking the Icon opens Horizon (yes, it’s separate IIS site) and you can explore the new features!

Troubleshooting Error

I faced this error after the installation was successful. When I opened Horizon, here is the error message I got.

Failed to render a page: Failed to render the root extension, with error: Failed to render a fragment. Status code: InternalServerError, message:

I checked the logs (C:\inetpub\wwwroot\[Hoirzon Website\logs) and it showed below message

[1] Ensure that Node.js is installed and can be found in one of the PATH directories. Make sure the Node executable is in one of those directories, or update your PATH.

I verified that the Node.js path (C:\Users\manbalagan\AppData\Roaming\nvm\v10.16.0\) was accessible and PATH was correct.

Also, I uninstalled Node v10.16.0 and reinstalled. Restarted my machine. Nothing helped.

Finally, I resolved the issue by adding ‘Everyone‘ permission and allowed full control to NVM folder (C:\Users\manbalagan\AppData\Roaming\nvm) fixed the issue! IIS couldn’t access the folder without ‘Everyone’ permission.

Uninstall

If you want to uninstall the failed versions (to clean up IIS sites it created), here is how you can do it –

  • Uninstalling is straight forward – just need to run the uninstall.ps1 script 
  • After uninstalling, it didn’t remove the Horizon Icon in Desktop mode. Clicking on the icon goes to 404 page.  It would be clean if the icon is also removed.

Hope this helps someone. Any issues, let me know in comments section.

Happy Sitecoring!

July 9, 2020
0
Sitecore / Tools

5 Essential Sitecore Chrome Extensions

Browser Extensions are handy and easy to use without leaving the tab. Here are the top 5 Sitecore Chrome Extensions I use daily and it saves ton to time! 

Sitecore Author Tool Box

Author: Ugo Quaisse

This extension is a lifesaver and must have! Here is the set of handy tools into Content Editor. Favourites Bar, Desktop notifications, and Dark mode are my favorites.

Download link

 

Sitecore Extensions

Author: Alan Płócieniak

This tool is super helpful, has great features. You can just Ctrl+ Space to search for commands. 

Download here

Also when in the Web database, it shows the red bar on the top to make sure you are not editing in Web DB!

The latest version 3.3 is released, check out the new features here

 

Sitecore Icon Search

Author: Gabriel Streza

This is my favorite extension. You can search and add Sitecore icons without ever leaving the tab.

Download here

Once you choose the icon, it automatically sets the Icon field on the template, and the icon’s relative path is still be copied into the clipboard! 

 

Sitecore Developer Tool

Author: Vlad Shpak

This tool allows navigating to admin pages like cache, serialization, show config (I use this most of the time), etc.  Also, you can switch between databases or set a new database on the options page. 

Download here

Additional tip: If you want the pages to open in a new tab, you can set it in option page and also add any admin pages you want like below

 

Sitecore Analytics Testing Tools

Author: Derek Hunziker

This is a fantastic tool for testing GeoIP and Analytics.

You can clear analytics-related cookies and specify a forwarded IP address for GeoIP lookups.

Download here

 

Pro-Tip:

You can use the same extensions in Microsoft Edge by copy and pasting the same Chrome link in the Edge browser.

Select Allow extensions from other stores in the banner at the top of the page and confirm the popup.

Select the Add to Chrome button and the extension is now added to Edge.

Learn more from here.

 

Hope this helps. Any questions, leave a comment below.

Happy Sitecoring! 

May 15, 2020
0
Forms / Sitecore

Generic method to read values from any type of Form fields

Are you looking for a generic method to read the values from any type of Sitecore Form fields? Here is the solution.

         private static Dictionary<Guid, string> FormFieldsToDictionary(IList<IViewModel> fields)
		{
			Dictionary<Guid, string> fielDictionary = new Dictionary<Guid, string>();
			foreach (var field in fields)
			{
				fielDictionary.Add(Guid.Parse(field.ItemId), field.GetType().GetProperty("Value")?.GetValue(field, null)?.ToString() ?? string.Empty);
			}
			return fielDictionary;
		}

	private static string GetValue(IViewModel field)
		{
			if (field == null)
			{ return default(string); }


			if ((field as StringInputViewModel) != null)
			{
				return (string)(object)(field as StringInputViewModel).Value;
			}

			if (field is ListViewModel)
			{
				var listField = (ListViewModel)field;
				var array = listField?.Value?.ToArray();
				if (array == null)
				{
					return string.Empty;
				}
				return String.Join(",", array);
			}

			if (field is DateViewModel)
			{
				var dateField = (DateViewModel)field;
				return dateField.Value.HasValue ? dateField.Value.Value.ToShortDateString() : string.Empty;
			}

			if (field is NumberViewModel)
			{
				var numberField = (NumberViewModel)field;
				return numberField.Value.HasValue ? numberField.Value.ToString() : string.Empty;
			}

			if (field is TextViewModel)
			{
				var textField = (TextViewModel)field;
				return (string)(object)textField.Text;
			}

			if (field is CheckBoxViewModel)
			{
				var checkbox = (CheckBoxListViewModel)field;
				return (string)(object)checkbox.Value;
			}


			return default(string);
		}

Utilization:

protected override bool Execute(UpdateContactData data, FormSubmitContext formSubmitContext)
		{
			var fieldsDictionary = FormFieldsToDictionary(formSubmitContext.Fields);

           // From here you can create a model from fieldsDictionary, call any API and return call status

       }

Hope this helps someone. Any questions, leave a comment.

Happy Sitecoring!

April 6, 2020
0
Forms / Sitecore

What’s new in Sitecore Forms 9.3

You can now publish the forms within Forms Designer. No need to navigate to Content Editor to publish. This is pretty handy when developing forms.

Users can now delete submitted data for a particular form and specify a date range.​​

You can now use the Sitecore bot detection functionality to verify whether visitor is human. This removed the need for a Captcha element. Nice work Sitecore!

Now the forms element that allows you to add email confirmation to a form.​​

Users can now use the Redirect submit action to redirect to a URL and pass parameters to it.

To add file upload functionality to your forms, you can now use the File upload forms element. I use to utilize the Forms Extensions module(It’s very nice), it’s now included in forms element. 

 

Apart from these, there are bunch of enhancements made  – 
  • Improved database performance by increasing our ability to prevent deadlocks.​
  • You can now use the client-side API to retrieve form fields, for example when you build a custom submit action that needs to show all the form fields.
  • You no longer need to rebuild the master index after you install Sitecore XP.

 

Hope this helps. Any questions, leave a comment below.

Happy Sitecoring!

March 14, 2020
0
Sitecore

Tips and Tricks: Re-index item(s) faster

I recently came across a scenario where I wanted to reindex a specific item(s)/folder instead of the full content tree. 

Typically I would have reindexed from Indexing Manager in Control Panel which takes a good amount of time to rebuild all items.

Instead, I chose the item(s)/folder, navigated to the Developer tab, and clicked Re-Index Tree. It was done in less than a minute! 

This will rebuild the Item(s) to all the indexes in your solution and I feel this is very quick as compared to traditional re-index.

Note: If you don’t see Developer tab in the menu, you need to enable it by right-clicking on the menu and select the developer option.

Note: Same trick works with Web DB when you switch it in Sitecore Desktop.

Hope this helps someone. Any questions, leave a comment.

Happy Sitecoring.

February 10, 2020
0
Sitecore

Install Sitecore 9.3 (using SIA) quickly in 20 minutes!

I’m participating in Sitecore Hackathon 2020 for the second time. One of the requirement is to have sitecore 9.3 installed on your machine except for commerce . I want to share my experience how i quickly installed Sitecore 9.3 using SIA(Sitecore Install Assistant) in 20 minutes!

Note: No need install any prerequisites(includes Solr) manually, SIA will take care of it.

Preparation:

  • Download installation package (Graphical setup package XP Single) from here.

Installation:

  • Extract the file zip file downloaded and click on Setup.exe
  • Install the prerequisites if needed. 
  • Install Solr 811 by filling Port, Windows service path prefix and Install path and Install.

Note: Make sure the port number is different from earlier versions of Solr installed. 

  • Fill out site prefix, admin password(going with b, so easy to remember) and license file path.
  • Fill out SQL server instance name, admin username and password.
  • Fill out the Solr URL, System root and Windows service name

Note: Go to Solr URL to make sure it’s running successfully.

  • Select optional module SXA if you need. I’m going for it, time to explore SXA! Would be nice if Horizon is listed here. 
  • Review the summary to make sure the settings are correct.
  • SIA validates to make sure the files look good.
  • Install. This takes around 10 minutes (you can get a coffee!). If it errors out, check out the log.

Yayy!! It’s installed. Is it easy to install with SIA? It’s indeed a great tool!

Check out the release notes for what’s new in Sitecore 9.3 here

Happy Sitecoring!

January 26, 2020
0
Sitecore

My 2019 Reflections

2019 is going great so far, wanted to share my contributions to the Sitecore community(Awesome!).

Presented Sitecore 9 Forms(Intermediate/Advance) in 7 SUG’s-

• April 18 2019 – SUG Bulgaria
• May 4 2019 – SUG Bangalore
• June 4 2019 – SUG Manchestor, NH
• June 6 2019 – SUG Belarus
• June 12 2019 – SUG Boston
• June 25 2019 – SUG NCR(Delhi -India)
• Aug 29 2019 – SUG Educador

 

The blog posts I have written and one of my blog post received ‘You are life saver, Thank you’ comment.

• Install Sitecore 9.1 quickly in 5 easy steps
• Sitecore 9 Forms: Redirecting to formbuilder on Submit?
• Sitecore 9 Forms: The required anti-forgery cookie __requestVerificationToken is not present
• Sitecore license file expired?
• Sitecore 9.1 Forms: Conditional Logic
• Sitecore 9 Forms: Custom Control – Conditional Section
• Sitecore 9 Forms: Success message
• Sitecore 9 Forms: Custom Submit Action
• Tips and Tricks : GIT Cherry Pick
• Sitecore Certification : Exam and Review
• Sitecore 9 Forms: Save Data
• Sitecore 9 Forms: Custom Regex Validation
• Sitecore 9 Forms: Custom Grouped dropdown
• Sitecore 9 Forms: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘unobtrusive’ of undefined
• XConnect: Certificate was not found
• Sitecore 9 Forms: Access landing page fields in FormSubmitContext?
• Sitecore 9 Forms: The date range is invalid. Please select a date range that is within the range of the list.
• Sitecore Forms: Export Data to CSV shows Field Types on column header?
• Sitecore Forms: Redirecting to External URL

Youtube
• How to add Forms Custom Submit Actions – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE_aaFN7GvY

Slack Community
• Active on #wffm-forms

Certification
• Sitecore 9.0 Certified Platform Associate Developer

Participation
• Hackathon

Conferences I attended
• SUGCON India
• SYMPOSIUM
• All SUG Boston meetups.

2020 Plans

Learn and contribute

  • Cortex
  • Sitecore AI Personalization
  • Sitecore 9.3 Forms
  • Sitecore 9.3 Overall

Co-organize (Virtual)

  • Quarterly SUG-Pittsburgh meetup

Present

  • SUG Meetups
  • Sitecore SUGCON EU/Symposium 2020
December 4, 2019
0
Forms / Sitecore

Sitecore Forms: Export Data to CSV shows Field Types on column header?

I exported the Forms data using Export the selected data into CSV button and noticed one of the column header was showing field type not field name.

I checked at many places, couldn’t figure out. Later I checked on Content Editor – Forms and found that item name was showing the field type!

I gave the appropriate Field Name in Forms and the CSV file looks good now. 

Forms Field Name sets Item Name and Label sets the Title field in Content Editor.

Don’t forget to publish the Forms!

Happy Sitecoring.

October 21, 2019
0
Forms / Sitecore

Sitecore Forms: Redirecting to External URL

I came across a scenario where I need to redirect to a external url(thank you page) after form submission. It’s achievable using formSubmitContext’s RedirectUrl property on your Custom Submit Action.

Here is the code snippet – 

protected override bool Execute(string data, FormSubmitContext formSubmitContext)
		{
//Prepare model
//WebApi Call

//Redirect to external URL
var thankYouPageUrl = $"{HttpContext.Current.Request.Url?.Scheme}://{HttpContext.Current.Request.Url?.Host}/[thank-you-page-path]/";

formSubmitContext.RedirectUrl = $"{thankYouPageUrl}?id={add-any-querystring-if-needed}";
formSubmitContext.RedirectOnSuccess = true;              
return true;

}

Hope this helps someone. Happy Sitecoring!

October 10, 2019
0
Forms / Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: The date range is invalid. Please select a date range that is within the range of the list.

I deployed the forms to Staging environment and see how the forms were performing.

I exported the data using Export form data into CSV button and i received ‘The date range is invalid. Please select a date range that is within the range of the list.‘ error.

I tried different range and it threw the same error. I checked the db([project]. ExperienceForms) and there was NO DATA!

I submitted the form and tried again. It downloaded the CSV file with an entry on it.

Hope this helps someone. 

Happy Sitecoring.

October 2, 2019
0
Forms / Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: Access landing page fields in FormSubmitContext?

I came across a scenario where I needed to access landing page fields(the page where we add Forms) in Custom Submit Action’s FormSubmitContext. 

By default, the page item isn’t known at the Submit Action. So started thinking should i create a custom hidden field or use the Forms Extensions module? At the end of the day, i didn’t need either. 

Here is the quick way to access the current page using HttpContext’s AbsolutePath.

protected override bool Execute(string data, FormSubmitContext formSubmitContext)
{
 
var contextItem = GetContextItem.GetItem(HttpContext.Current.Request.UrlReferrer?.AbsolutePath) as ILandingPageContentItem;

// Access fields from ContextItem
}

public class GetContextItem
{
	public static IStandardTemplateItem GetItem(string path)
	{
		Item item = Sitecore.Context.Database.GetItem($"/sitecore/content/<tenant>/Home{path}");
		
		return item?.AsStronglyTyped();
	}
}

Hope this helps someone. Any questions, please leave a comment.

Happy Sitecoring!

September 25, 2019
0
Sitecore / XConnect / Xdb

XConnect: Certificate was not found (Azure PaaS)

Experience Analytics was not working in the Production Azure PaaS environment. I checked the logs and it was throwing Certificate was not found error. 

Exception: System.InvalidOperationExceptionMessage: The certificate was not found.Source: Sitecore.Xdb.Common.Webat Sitecore.Xdb.Common.Web.CertificateWebRequestHandlerModifier.Process(HttpClientHandler handler)at Sitecore.Xdb.Common.Web.CommonWebApiClient`1.CreateRequestHandler()at Sitecore.Xdb.Common.Web.CommonWebApiClient`1.CreateClient()at System.Lazy`1.CreateValue()at System.Lazy`1.LazyInitValue()at Sitecore.Xdb.Common.Web.CommonWebApiClient`1.<ExecuteAsync>d__37.MoveNext()--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)at Sitecore.Xdb.Common.Web.CommonWebApiClient`1.<ExecuteGetAsync>d__32.MoveNext()--- End of stack trace from previous location where exception was thrown ---at System.Runtime.ExceptionServices.ExceptionDispatchInfo.Throw()at System.Runtime.CompilerServices.TaskAwaiter.HandleNonSuccessAndDebuggerNotification(Task task)at Sitecore.XConnect.Client.WebApi.ConfigurationWebApiClient.<Refresh>d__4.MoveNext()

  • My first guess was certificate would have expired, but it was valid. 

  • Second guess was thumbprint could be wrong, but thumbprint was perfectly matching with the config value(\App_Config\AppSettings.config file , in the validateCertificateThumbprint setting).

  • Started wondering why it can’t find the certificate for some reason?  Came to know that need to add an application setting to the web app called WEBSITE_LOAD_CERTIFICATES and the value needs to be the certificate thumbprint.

  • This application setting is required for the app service to load the certificate into the local certificate store of the host running the app service. 

Once the setting is added and I no longer see the error in logs and the Experience Analytics started showing some number/graphs. Yay!

Hope this helps. Any questions, please leave a comment.

Happy Sitecoring.

September 16, 2019
4
Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property ‘unobtrusive’ of undefined

Are you getting this error on Sitecore 9 Forms Submission? I got it and it took me some time to figure out. It’s all related to Validation. Here are the points to check to narrow down the issue —

  • If you have form fields set it to mandatory, change it to optional and see if that makes the submission successful. If so, one of the field validation is causing trouble.

  • It happens for custom form control quite often, where you need add the validation to razor view file and make sure you have this attribute – GenerateUnobtrusiveValidationAttributes. 
<label for="@Html.IdFor(m => Model.Value)" class="@Model.LabelCssClass">@Html.DisplayTextFor(t => Model.Title)</label>
<select data-trigger class="@Model.CssClass @Model.Name" name="@Html.NameFor(m => Model.Value)" id="@Html.IdFor(m => Model.Value)" data-sc-tracking="@Model.IsTrackingEnabled" data-sc-field-name="@Model.Name" @Html.GenerateUnobtrusiveValidationAttributes(m => m.Value)>
</select>
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => Model.Value)
  • Compare your custom control razor file to any one of inbuilt form controls ([iis-site-folder]\Views\FormBuilder\FieldTemplates ) like below and if you see any difference on attributes, add it out.
  • Finally a simple check: make sure to publish all the forms and view the landing page in live mode(not in preview mode)

Hope this helps. Happy sitecoring.

August 5, 2019
2
Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: Custom Grouped dropdown

I came across a requirement from a client that they wanted to show Country and it’s states grouped in a dropownlist. I created a custom grouped dropdown to fit into the scenario. Since this is an extension of dropdownlist, no speak knowledge required. 

Let’s get started

Step 1: Create custom dropdown list

Create a custom dropdownlist under
/sitecore/system/Settings/Forms/Field Types/Lists based on Field Type(/sitecore/templates/System/Forms/Field Type) template like below

Step 2: Create a code behind class and razor view

create a code behind class like this in VS project

using System.Collections.Generic;
using Sitecore.Data.Items;
using Sitecore.Diagnostics;
using Sitecore.ExperienceForms.Mvc.Models.Fields;

namespace Sitecore.Project.Example.Views.StateDropdown
{
	public class StateDropdown : DropDownListViewModel
	{
		protected override void InitItemProperties(Item item)
		{
			Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, nameof(item));
			base.InitItemProperties(item);
		}

		protected override void UpdateItemFields(Item item)
		{
			Assert.ArgumentNotNull(item, nameof(item));
			base.UpdateItemFields(item);
		}

		public Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, string>> Regions()
		{
			if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(DataSource)) return new Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, string>>();
			Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, string>> counrtyCollection = new Dictionary<string, Dictionary<string, string>>();
			Item item = Context.Database.GetItem(DataSource);
			var children = item.GetChildren();
			foreach (Item child in children)
			{
				counrtyCollection.Add(child.Fields["Name"].Value, new Dictionary<string, string>());
				foreach (Item desc in child.Children)
				{
					counrtyCollection[child.Fields["Name"].Value].Add(desc.Fields["Name"].Value, desc.Fields["Code"].Value);
				}
			}
			return counrtyCollection;
		} 
	}
}

Create a razor view like this and build project

@using Sitecore.ExperienceForms.Mvc.Html
@model Sitecore.Project.Example.Views.StateDropdown.StateDropdown
@{
	var regions = Model.Regions();
}
<label for="@Html.IdFor(m => Model.Value)" class="@Model.LabelCssClass">@Html.DisplayTextFor(t => Model.Title)</label>
<select id="@Html.IdFor(m => Model.Value)" data-trigger name="@Html.NameFor(m => Model.Value)" class="@Model.CssClass" placeholder="Select Your Work Location" data-sc-tracking="@Model.IsTrackingEnabled" data-sc-field-name="@Model.Name" @Html.GenerateUnobtrusiveValidationAttributes(m => m.Value)>
	<option placeholder>Select Your Work Location</option>
	@foreach (var region in regions)
	{
		<optGroup data-id="@region.Value" label="@region.Key">
			@foreach (var state in region.Value)
			{
				<option value="@state.Value">@state.Key</option>
			}
		</optGroup>
	}
</select>
@Html.ValidationMessageFor(m => Model.Value)

Step 3: Fill out the fields

Fill out the View Path, Model Type and Property Editor(should be Property Editor Settings/DropDown List).  

you are now all set to utilize the custom dropdown list in Forms Designer. Don’t forget to publish the field!

Hope this is helpful. Any questions, please leave a comment.

Happy Sitecoring.

July 10, 2019
0
Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: Custom Regex Validation

I came across a scenario where i implemented a custom validation on Sitecore 9 Forms. Sharing my knowledge here. You can achieve this in three simple steps.

Step 1: Create custom validator

Create a custom validator under
/sitecore/system/settings/forms/validation based on Validation(sitecore/templates/System/Forms/Validation) template like below

Step 2: Fill out the fields

Fill out your own regex and error message. You can copy the Type value from other validator.

Step 3: Assign the custom validator

You can now add the new custom validator to any Form fields(
/sitecore/system/Settings/Forms/Field Types). All set and no code required!

Hope you found this blog helpful. Any questions, please leave a comment.

Happy Sitecoring!

May 7, 2019
0
Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: Save Data

Are you developing Sitecore 9 Forms and wondering where does the data get saved on Save Data?

  • It goes to local DB called Experience Forms (The DB comes with it as part of Sitecore 9 installation OOTB)
  • It has two tables – dbo.FormEntry and dbo.FieldData holds all the information.
  • The below first query gives the top 1000 form submissions. From the form ID, you can query against dbo.FieldData for any specific field values.

SELECT TOP (1000) [ID]
,[FormItemID]
,[Created]
FROM [sc91local_ExperienceForms].[dbo].[FormEntry]


SELECT TOP (1000) [ID]
,[FormEntryID]
,[FieldItemID]
,[FieldName]
,[Value]
,[ValueType]
FROM [sc91local_ExperienceForms].[dbo].[FieldData]

You can also export the data from ‘Export the data to CSV‘ button from Form Designer.

Hope this information is helpful. Any questions, please leave a comment.

Happy Sitecoring.

April 19, 2019
0
Sitecore

Sitecore 9.1 Forms: Conditional Logic

Conditional Logic is great new feature introduced in Sitecore 9.1 Forms. Basically you can add conditions to show/hide fields based on user input.

In this example below I set up a drop down and couple of sections that show/hide the section(you can go fields as well) based on user interaction.

My simple conditional logic form

Now I added the conditions to drop-down list by clicking on the Conditions section in the form elements pane.

Edit conditions to add new condition logic

Now are you wondering why the condition logic looks weird? Here is how it works –

  • All Condition are evaluated and applied in sequence.
  • Foreach condition, if the Condition matches, then apply selected action. Else, apply inverse of selected action.

Added the form to a web page and here is how my output looks –

When I chose 1, showed the Attendee #1 section
When I chose 2, showed both Attendees section

1. Dropdown Selection: Empty

  • Condition 1 Evaluation = False. Inverse selected action (Hide section1 and section2)
  • Condition 2 Evaluation = True. Apply selected action (Hide section1)

Results: Hide both section1 and section2

2. Dropdown Selection: 1

  • Condition 1 Evaluation = False. Inverse selected action (Hide section1 and section2)
  • Condition 2 Evaluation = False. Inverse selected action (Show section1)

Results: Show section1 and hide section2

3. Dropdown Selection: 2

  • Condition 1 Evaluation = True. Apply selected action (Show section1 and section2)
  • Condition 2 Evaluation = False. Inverse selected action (Show section1)

Results: Show both section1 and section2

Now you have the cool working conditional logic on the form. Any questions, please leave a comment.

Happy sitecoring!

April 2, 2019
4
Sitecore

Sitecore license file expired?

I have Sitecore 9.1 instance and today my sitecore license file expired. I had to replace the license.xml in multiple places to make sure my site, xConnect and Identity Server sites work.

  • Sitecore site:
    • The /App_Data folder
  • xConnect site:
    • /App_Data
    • /App_Data/jobs/continuous/AutomationEngine/App_Data
    • /App_Data/jobs/continuous/IndexWorker/App_Data
    • /App_Data/jobs/continuous/ProcessingEngine/App_Data (new to Sitecore 9.1)

Hope this helps if you have license expiration message.

Happy Sitecoring!

March 20, 2019
0
Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: The required anti-forgery cookie __requestVerificationToken is not present

Have you submitted a form and it returned with this error ‘The required anti-forgery cookie “__requestVerificationToken” is not present’? If so, here is the resolution.

  • This could be because of caching. Can you check if your rendering component or container/page level caching check box is checked? if so, unchecking the caching will fix the issue.
  • Also here is quick check you can do to see whether your form is cached – Inspect the form and check the _requestverificationtoken value like below and refresh the page – do you see same value now? if so, your form is in cache!
 <input name="__RequestVerificationToken" type="hidden" value="O0P3KYBqgEZXlksWnY3fhu0PptEB0a47rRGMgHNnF6lIL2S8tcts9z9NxdxIum7ANKMv95FZB275AeLTw6WxcOl4jCQ1">

March 13, 2019
2
Sitecore

Install Sitecore 9.1 quickly in 5 easy steps

Image result for install software

I’m participating in Sitecore Hackathon for the first time this year. One of the requirement is to have sitecore 9.1(Initial version) installed on your machine. So I want to share my experience how i quickly installed Sitecore 9.1 using SIF on developer machine in 5 easy steps. This post includes the prerequisites, preparation and installation.

Prerequisites:

  • OS: Windows 10, Windows Server 2016
  • DB:
    • Microsoft SQL Server 2017 or 2016 SP2 – Supports the XM database and is the required for the xDB
    • Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Sp2 – Only supports XM databases and does not support the xDB
    • MongoDB Server 3.6.6 – This is required if you are going to use MongoDB for the Collection database or as a Session State Provider
  • IIS 10
  • . NET
    • Sitecore XP 9.1.0 requires .NET Framework 4.7.1
    • Sitecore Identity server requires .NET Core Runtime 2.1.3
    • You must apply any available updates to the .NET Framework on every Sitecore installation
  • Search Indexing
    • Solr 7.2.1 – Default search provider
    • Azure Search – supported and recommended for Azure Cloud PaaS deployments only
    • Lucene – Only supports content search and does not support xConnect.
  • Powershell 5.1 – for Installing SIF

Preparation:

  • Download installation package(XP Single) from here
  • Extract the zip file you just downloaded
  • Again extract this file – XP0 Configuration files 9.1.0 rev. 001564.zip
  • Copy your license.xml file (If you have enrolled for Hackathon, you should have received the file in email)

Now let’s begin the installation!

Step 1: Solr 7.2.1 Install

Check out Jeremy Davis’s low effort Solr installs. It’s pretty cool! https://jermdavis.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/low-effort-solr-installs/

If you want to take traditional approach(Install as service using NSSM tool), here are the steps

  • Download Solr from here
  • Install as service using NSSM tool

  • It opens the NSSM Service Installer like below. Fill out the fields.
  • Note: If you already another version of solr running, make sure to give different port name.
Solr 5 running as a service on Microsoft Windows

Step 2: Install SIF

Run the following scripts in Powershell as administrator.

Register-PSRepository -Name SitecoreGallery -SourceLocation https://sitecore.myget.org/F/sc-powershell/api/v2;
Install-Module SitecoreInstallFramework;
Install-Module SitecoreFundamentals;
Update-Module SitecoreInstallFramework;
Update-Module SitecoreFundamentals;
Import-Module SitecoreFundamentals -Force;
Import-Module SitecoreInstallFramework -Force;

Step 3: Update config files

Update the following files in the folder with the exact information – solr path, solr service name, configsets path, instance name for sitecore, SQL instance name and login credentials.

  • XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1
  • XP0-SingleDeveloper.json
  • xconnect-solr.json
  • sitecore-solr.json

Step 4: Install prerequisites

Install-SitecoreConfiguration -Path .\Prerequisites.json

Step 5: Install Sitecore 9.1

  • Execute the script ./XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1 (takes good amount of time to execute)
  • Fingers crossed!

Note: There is no ‘b’ admin password. You can get the password at the end of the script execution. Nice work Sitecore!

Notice that it installed the third site in IIS – Identity Server (New to 9.1)

Also noticed the http://[sitename]/sitecore/login now redictes to identiyserver in the URL.

Have fun exploring Sitecore 9.1!

Any questions, please leave a comment.

February 27, 2019
0
C# / Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: Redirecting to formbuilder on Submit?

Problem:

Have you submitted a form and it redirected to form builder url and displayed without styles? If so, here is the solution

Resolution:

  • Make sure to add these scripts to MVC OuterLayout.cshtml and reference it in MVCLayout.cshtml. More details, refer the documentation (Steps 3 and 4)
@using Sitecore.ExperienceForms.Mvc.Html  

@Html.RenderFormStyles()
@Html.RenderFormScripts()

Any questions, please leave a comment. Happy sitecoring!

February 8, 2019
0
Sitecore

Sitecore Certification : Exam and Review

I recently took the Sitecore 9.0 Certified Platform Associate Developer exam online and passed with an overall score of 88%.

Here are the steps I have taken to become certified:

  • Took the Developer’s Fundamental Collection online. You can also do it through Instructor-Led or Virtual Classroom options – https://learning.sitecore.com/#homepage-learning-solutions
  • Went through all the modules and lab exercises. When I completed the fifth module, I received an access key in the email to book the exam.
  • You can book the exam in-person in the center or online. I chose online and booked the exam via https://www.webassessor.com/sitecore/index.html
  • This is a proctor guided exam, no book allowed. Also, the exam software Senitel says you should have an external web camera. It worked with the in-built camera on my work computer. So don’t worry about the external camera.
  • The exam has 50 questions and 90 minutes to complete. You can review the answers as many times as you want. I completed the exam in 30 minutes and review the answers in the next 30 minutes and I still have 30 more minutes left!
  • Overall I got a 88% score. Here is my Topic level scoring:

Architecture: 100%
Creating and Editing Items: 100%
Development Environment: 75%
Docs and Support: 100%
Installation: 100%
Publishing: 100%
xManagement: 100%
Field Types: 83%
Media: 100%
Templates: 85%
Versioning: 100%
Presentation: 77%
API: 100%
Modules and Packages: 100%
Performance: 100%
Search: 80%

  • Once you complete you exam, you will receive an email from test center with score and certification pdf file. Good luck!

Note:

  • Sitecore Professional Developer – This examination is for Version 8.2
  • Sitecore Certified Platform Associate Developer – This is for Version 9.0

January 7, 2019
0
GIT

Tips and Tricks : GIT Cherry Pick

I came across a situation where I need to merge only couple of commits from branch(not the entire branch) and Git cherry pick does the job pretty clean. I use Git extensions IDE and context menu makes it easier.

Here are the steps:

  • Make sure you checkout the branch you want to merge the commits
  • Navigate to the commit you want to cherry pick
  • Right click and select cherry pick commit option

  • It opens a dialog with the option to choose auto commit and add commit reference. I recommend checking both of them. By default, they are not checked. Hit Cherry pick button.

  • Now the commit is auto committed and ready to be pushed into current branch.

Happy cherry picking!

September 27, 2018
2
Forms / Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: Custom Submit Action

One of most common scenario I came across in Sitecore 9 Form is to create your custom submit action. You can achieve this in three simple steps.

Step 1: Create submit action button in Sitecore

Create the custom action button under /sitecore/system/Settings/Forms/Submit Actions.

Step 2: Create code behind class

Create a class that inherits SubmitActionBase class and override the Execute method.

public class CustomSubmitAction : SubmitActionBase<string>
{
public CustomSubmitAction(ISubmitActionData submitActionData) : base(submitActionData)
{
}

public override void ExecuteAction(FormSubmitContext formSubmitContext, string parameters)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull((object)formSubmitContext, nameof(formSubmitContext));

if (this.TryParse(parameters, out string target))
{
try
{
if (this.Execute(target, formSubmitContext))
return;
}
catch (ArgumentNullException ex)
{
}
}
formSubmitContext.Errors.Add(new FormActionError()
{
ErrorMessage = this.SubmitActionData.ErrorMessage
});
}

protected override bool Execute(string data, FormSubmitContext formSubmitContext)
{
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(data, nameof(data));
Assert.ArgumentNotNull(formSubmitContext, nameof(formSubmitContext));

//Prepare model here
var model = new EmailModel()
{
Email = GetValue(formSubmitContext.Fields.FirstOrDefault(f => f.Name.Equals("EmailAddress")))
};

// Call any API service call

return true;
}

private static string GetValue(object field)
{
return field?.GetType().GetProperty("Value")?.GetValue(field, null)?.ToString() ?? string.Empty;
}

protected override bool TryParse(string value, out string target)
{
target = string.Empty;
return true;
}

Step 3: Set the custom submit action fields

Update the ModelType and Error Message on the button shown below.

Bind the custom submit action to Submit button like below.

Publish the button. The submit button on form should now trigger the custom save action! Any questions, let me know.

Happy sitecoring.

September 16, 2018
2
Sitecore

Sitecore 9 Forms: Success message


Sitecore 9 form feature is awesome and simple to work with. It is more like Visual Studio Toolbox and you can drag and drop the fields.

I had a requirement from Client asking for Ajax form and wanted to show Confirmation/Success message after the form is submitted. Out of the box, this is achievable with the Form.

Here is a small guide on how to create a form with confirmation message:

1. Select Forms from Dashboard.

2. Click Create button.
3. Select blank form.

4. Drag a page for main content.
5. Drag a another page for confirmation message.
6. Design the fields according to needs. Here I’m doing Email Signup form. You can add field validation and css-class as needed.

Please make sure you have these scripts in Layout.cshtml.

@Html.RenderFormStyles()
@Html.RenderFormScripts()

7. On the submit button, set the Navigation step to Next instead of submit. This does the trick to show the confirmation page.

7. Save the form.
8. Now you can see the form in Content Editor.

Don’t forget to publish the form and place it on a web page under MVC layout. Here is Sitecore documentation on Adding a form to webpage.

Happy Sitecoring.

August 30, 2018
0
C#

Pattern Matching in C# 7.0 Switch Statements

I was trying to figure out what would be the best way to list out partial views based on Model type and found C# 7.0 new feature ‘Pattern matching in switch statements’ would be great fit for the scenario.

Before only string/integer can be compared, now you can compare on any type of object. Below is the example shows switch case based on Model Interface type.

@model Synthesis.IStandardTemplateItem

@switch (Model)
{
case INavigationColumnItem nci:
//Take any action
break;
case IColumnNavigationFolderItem ncfi:
//Take any action
break;
case IHeaderLogoItem hli:
//Take any action
break;
case IHeaderNavigationLinkItem hnli:
//Take any action
break;
case IHeaderPhoneNumberItem hpni:
//Take any action
break;
}

Checkout more cool new C# 7.0 features here. Happy coding.

August 17, 2018
0
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