Tagged: index

Coveo Computed Field for Retrieving Page Content and Renderings in Sitecore

I needed to index all text from the page content and its associated renderings, including single-line, multi-line, and rich text, into a single Coveo-computed field.

Let’s get started.

Text Extraction:

Created a TextExtraction class that inherits BaseComputedField.
GetComputedFieldValue: Computes the concatenated text from the item and its renderings.
GetRenderingSource: Retrieves the source item for a given rendering reference.
GetDatasourceItem: Resolves and retrieves the data source item using the pipeline manager.
GetAllReferencedText: Extracts text from fields and adds them to a result list.
GetReferenceFieldData: Handles reference fields and extracts text from referenced items.

Configuration:

Let’s add the TextExtraction computed field into the config file.

I published all the files, and it’s time to check.

I selected the page that has many renderings and hit Rebuild Tree (I set the indexing strategy as SyncMaster. If you have intervalAsyncMaster or onPublishEndSyncSingleInstance, publish the item to see the record in Index.)

If any issues, you can put a breakpoint in Visual Studio, and Rebuild Tree will hit the breakpoint to debug.

Let’s check the Coveo index – Yay! Its page content and its associated rendering content were extracted successfully.

Hope this helps.

Happy Sitecoring!

March 25, 2026

Sitecore

Algolia Search Provider for Sitecore 10.2.1

The Algolia Search Provider for Sitecore is a powerful integration combining robust content management capabilities with Algolia’s lightning-fast, full-text search engine.

This provider enables Sitecore-driven websites and applications to deliver instant, relevant, and highly customizable search experiences to end-users, ensuring faster content discovery and improved user engagement.

While exploring, I found that Dmitry Harnitski and Peter Procházka have implemented the Algolia Search Provider for Sitecore 9.1 and previous versions. Thank you so much!

https://github.com/dharnitski/Sitecore.Algolia

https://github.com/chorpo/Sitecore.Algolia/tree/sitecore91

Upgrading to Sitecore 10.2.1

The following are the steps taken for upgrading Sitecore 10.2.1 –

I forked from Peter Procházka’s Sitecore 9.1 branch

https://github.com/chorpo/Sitecore.Algolia/tree/sitecore91

Upgraded the Sitecore NuGet packages to 10.2.1.

Algolia.Search NuGet package upgraded 6.12.1

Started resolving build issues – many interfaces changed, and tons of changes on the following commit. https://github.com/chorpo/Sitecore.Algolia/commit/20baf2a5578cac474f16d15938f57068875b8915

Finally, able to build the solution successfully.

After the build was successful, I shifted the module to the existing solution.
I didn’t get a chance to upgrade the unit test project. If you have upgraded, please let me know.

The module is checked into the following repository.

https://github.com/Madhumidha/Sitecore.Algolia/tree/Sitecore1021

The repo has all the instructions on how to set up and configuration details.

Hope this helps.

Happy Sitecoring!

June 19, 2025

Sitecore

Sitecore Forms : Custom Submit Action to Create and Publish Content Item (Part 2)

In Part 1, we saw

Create Custom Submit Action in Sitecore
Create a code-behind class that inherits SubmitActionBase
Create a secure API that can create and publish an item

https://madhuanbalagan.com/sitecore-forms-custom-submit-action-to-create-and-publish-item-from-form-data-part-1

Now, let’s focus on

Create a separate Authorization in the Identity Server for Forms
Create a Controller to bridge between Custom Submit Action and API call
Set the Custom Submit Action fields

1. Create a separate Authorization in the Identity Server for Forms

Add the FormsServerClient node and its value to the Identity Server’s Sitecore.IdentityServer.DevEx.xml file. After making the change, make sure to IIS Reset for the change to be in effect.

Note: Don’t forget to add transforms for ClientSecret!

Ideally, you can call it in Postman to verify that it’s generating a token using Form’s ClientID and ClientSecret values mentioned in the Sitecore.IdentityServer.DevEx.xml file.

Now that the config is all set to have its own ClientID and ClientSecret, let’s set up the Authorize method with BearerToken specifically for Form’s Identity Credentials.

The SitecoreRestServices handles authenticated HTTP requests to Sitecore’s REST APIs, managing access tokens and retrying requests if authentication fails. It uses dependency injection to configure the HTTP client and obtain the necessary settings.

2. Create a Controller to bridge between Custom Submit Action and API call

Let’s bridge the Custom Submit Action and API call – The CustomController class extends SitecoreController and uses dependency injection to obtain an instance of ICreateAutoPublishService.

It defines a CreateAndPublish method – HTTP POST endpoint that processes CreateAndAutoPublishModel, calls the service to create and publish content, and returns a JSON response indicating success or failure.

The method includes error handling to return appropriate HTTP status codes and messages for different exceptions.

3. Set the Custom Submit Action fields

The final step – Let’s set the Model Type and Error Message based on the class we created.

Publish the form and its related items. It should be good to go!

Hope this helps.

Happy Sitecoring!

April 20, 2025

Coveo / Sitecore

Coveo Computed Field for Extracting PDFs with Apache Tika in Sitecore

I needed to index the PDF file content in the Media Library, but when I tried to index it, the PDFSharp library couldn’t extract it.

Sitecore recommends using the following libraries: IFilter, Apache Tika, or SolrCell for indexing the media content.

I had a detailed blog on installing and integrating Apache Tika into the project.

https://madhuanbalagan.com/sitecore-apache-tika-integration-for-secure-media-file-indexing

Now that Tika is integrated, let’s get started on creating a computed field to extract PDF content using the Apache Tika service.

Media Extraction:

I created MediaExtraction class, which inherits BaseComputedField.
The GetComputedField method calls the ApacheTika service and extracts the text asynchronously.
Returns the text document.

Apache Tika Service:

The Tika Service class implements the IContentExtractionService interface
The main method ReadJsonObject sends the document to the Tika server and extracts the text content parsed JSON response.

Tika ConnectionString:

Please make sure that Tika is up and running.

<add name=”tika” connectionString=”http://localhost:9998″ />

When I checked, it wasn’t running for some reason.

Run the following Powershell script to restart the Tika.

cd c:\tika

java -jar tika-server-1.22.jar -s

Let’s check – Tika is now up and running.

Configuration:

Let’s add the MediaExtraction computed field into the config file.

I published all the files and it’s time to check.

I selected the PDF document in the Media Library and hit Rebuild Tree (I set the indexing strategy as SyncMaster. If you have intervalAsyncMaster or onPublishEndSyncSingleInstance, publish the item to see the record in Index.)

Let’s check the Coveo index – Yay! Its PDF content was extracted successfully.

The same computed field would work for Word and PowerPoint documents as well.

Hope this helps.

Happy Sitecoring!

April 12, 2025

Sitecore

Sitecore Forms : Custom Submit Action to Create and Publish Content Item(Part 1)

Problem

I encountered a situation that the website was internally facing, which needed a form that would not save the data in the Experience Forms database. Also the data needs to be saved as an Item in the master database so it could be published and consumed in a listing page.

At first, I considered creating a Custom Submit Action to create and publish an item. However, I later realized that the CD server lacked access to the CM server, preventing it from directly generating an item in the master database. So, I came up with the idea of creating a custom API service and combining it with a custom submit action.

Solution

To implement this followed this process

Create Custom Submit Action in Sitecore
Create a code-behind class that inherits SubmitActionBase
Create a secure API that can create and publish an item
Create an API authorization user in the identity server
Create a Controller to proxy between Custom Submit Action and API calls
Set the Custom Submit Action fields

1. Custom Submit Action in Sitecore

Create the custom submit action in the following path /sitecore/system/Settings/Forms/Submit Actions.

2. Create a code-behind class that inherits SubmitActionBase

Create a class that inherits the SubmitActionBase class and overrides the Execute method which calls the API asynchronously to create and publish an item.

The CreateAndAutoPublish class extends SubmitActionBase<string> and is designed to handle form submissions in Sitecore, creating and auto-publishing content items.

It uses dependency injection to obtain instances of IHttpClientFactory, BaseSettings, and ISitecoreRestServices, which are lazily initialized. The ExecuteAction method validates the form submission context and parameters, then calls the Execute method to prepare a model from form fields, serialize it to JSON, and send it to a Sitecore API endpoint using an HTTP POST request.

The class includes helper methods to extract values from form fields and handles errors by logging them and adding them to the form submission context’s error collection.

3. Create an API call that creates and publishes the item

The API call does the following things –

Creates an item under a specified folder
Move and Sync the item into a bucket
Publish the item
Clear the Sitecore cache
Ensure the published item is indexed or force index the item
Clear the Vercel Cache for frontend

In Part 2, we will see how to

Create an API authorization user in the identity server
Create a Controller to proxy between Custom Submit Action and API calls
Set the Custom Submit Action fields

Hope this helps.

Happy Sitecoring!

March 1, 2025

Sitecore

2024 – Contributions

The 2024 year has been great with presenting at Sitecore Symposium, and various Sitecore User Groups worldwide.

Symposium Presentation:

Oct 18, 2024 – Building and maximizing the potential of your Sitecore community

Blog Posts :

Dec 14, 2023 – Integrating Sitecore website with Coveo rapidly

Jan 02, 2024 – My 2023 Reflections

Jan 31, 2024 – Sitecore Upgrade: The Update App Tool

March 16, 2024 – Sitecore Upgrade: Database scripts

April 24, 2024 – Coveo for Sitecore: Index Error Troubleshooting and Resolution

May 30, 2024 – Sitecore Serialization: Rapid CLI Setup and Configuration

Aug 28, 2024 – Sitecore: Apache Tika Integration for Secure Media File Indexing

Oct 21, 2024 – Sitecore Sidekick Installation and Setup

Presentations : 

Jan 31, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud 101 – A Beginner’s Guide – SUG Pittsburg

Mar 21, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud 101 – A Beginner’s Guide – SUG Columbus

Mar 27, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud 101 – A Beginner’s Guide – SUG Atlantic Canada

May 05, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud 101 – A Beginner’s Guide – SUG Jordon

May 18, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud 101 – A Beginner’s Guide – SUG Coimbatore

June 4, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud 101 – A Beginner’s Guide – SUG Los Angeles

Oct 30, 2024 – Join Us for an Exclusive Panel Discussion on Sitecore Symposium 2024: Insights and Innovations – SUG Columbus

Contributions:

Dec 22, 2023 – Feedback/Review for Sitecore Content Hub Administrator Certification Exam –

Dec 15, 2023 – Feedback for Sitecore MVP Program –

Dec 22, 2023 – MVP Application Review

Mar 01, 2024 – Sitecore CDP & Personalize Certification Exam Beta review

Mar 01, 2024 – Hackathon participation

Mar 21, 2024 – Website Creation and Management Survey

Mar 22, 2024 – Organize the content on our website feedback survey

April 19, 2024 – Reviewed Sitecore Dev 10 Beta Exam

Oct 22, 2024 – MVP Summit Feedback

Oct 28, 2024 – Symposium Feedback

Co-organized SUG-Pittsburgh Meetups:

Dec 20, 2023 – Abstracting personalization – CPA Australia

Jan 31, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud 101 – A Beginner’s Guide

Feb 21, 2024 – From Brainstorm to Brilliance: The Untold Story of Sitecore Hackathon

Mar 06, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud Forms

Apr 18, 2024 – Achieving Behavioral Personalization with XM Cloud Plus

May 02, 2024 – Sitecore Search and XM Cloud – Experiences and Learnings

Jun 05, 2024 – Tips and Tricks for Next.js and Sitecore Headless

Jul 24, 2024 – Content Hub Web Client SDK – Internal & External Integrations

Aug 28, 2024 – Sitecore Troubleshooting 101

Sep 24, 2024 – 8 Content Migration Pitfalls to Avoid and Lessons Learned

Oct 23, 2024 – Unleashing Personalization: Deep Dive into Sitecore Personalize SDK

Nov 12, 2024 – Building Dynamic RAG Applications with Vertex AI and Sitecore

YouTube – Videos published for SUG – Pittsburgh

Jan 02, 2024 – Abstracting personalization – CP

- https://youtu.be/QFOEw7vjkbs

Mar 20, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud 101 – A Beginner’s Guide

- https://youtu.be/TjQAZndlYh0

Apr 03, 2024 – From Brainstorm to Brilliance: The Untold Story of Sitecore Hackathon

- https://youtu.be/EEblvWsZcjw

Apr 12, 2024 – Sitecore XM Cloud Forms

- https://youtu.be/TSNZSNKTqBE

May 6, 2024 – Achieving Behavioral Personalization with XM Cloud Plus

- https://youtu.be/oi7nYzWHVhA

May 22, 2024 – Sitecore Search and XM Cloud – Experiences and Learnings

- https://youtu.be/DzrZabKY13w

June 11, 2024 – Tips and Tricks for Next.js and Sitecore Headless

- https://youtu.be/IHr8m-4QtJI

Aug 5, 2024 – Content Hub Web Client SDK – Internal & External Integrations

- https://youtu.be/u_klShQ7S4I

Sep 3, 2024 – Sitecore Troubleshooting 101

- https://youtu.be/yuiWnQm1Q0c

Oct 8, 2024 – 8 Content Migration Pitfalls to Avoid and Lessons Learned

- https://youtu.be/pP88ltgFFyk

Co-organized SUG-Philadelphia Meetups:

Aug 29, 2024 – The Architecture of $ (contentReplacementTokens) in Headless SXA with Next.js

YouTube – Videos published for SUG – Philadelphia

Sep 18, 2024 – The Architecture of $ contentReplacementTokens in headless SXA with Next.js

Conferences I attended:

Symposium

MVP Summit

MVP Lunches

MVP Webinars

All SUG Pittsburgh and Queen City meetups

Many SUG Boston/ Columbus/ Atlantic meetups

Plans for 2026:

Learn and contribute:

Composable DXP

Sitecore Saas Offerings

Containerization

Co-organize :

Monthly SUG-Pittsburgh meetup

Quarterly SUG-Philadelphia meetup

Present:

SUGCON EU/Symposium

SUG Meetups

Happy New Year! Happy Sitecoring!

December 22, 2024

Sitecore / Solr / Tika

Sitecore: Apache Tika Integration for Secure Media File Indexing

Problem

We have some secure PDFs in Media Library that were not getting indexed in Solr – They couldn’t be extracted using the PDFSharp library.

The logs were showing the error while extracting secure files

16804 12:04:53 ERROR DefaultMediaItemTextExtractor: Cannot extract content from media item with id ‘{442006A5-8CB6-4ABE-8855-786D2A870201}’.
Exception: PdfSharp.Pdf.IO.PdfReaderException
Message: The PDF document is protected with an encryption not supported by PDFsharp.
Source: PdfSharp
at PdfSharp.Pdf.Security.PdfStandardSecurityHandler.ValidatePassword(String inputPassword)
at PdfSharp.Pdf.IO.PdfReader.Open(Stream stream, String password, PdfDocumentOpenMode openmode, PdfPasswordProvider passwordProvider)
at PdfSharp.Pdf.IO.PdfReader.Open(String path, String password, PdfDocumentOpenMode openmode, PdfPasswordProvider provider)
at Sitecore.ContentSearch.ContentExtraction.Readers.PdfSharpReader.ReadAll(String filePath)
at Sitecore.ContentSearch.ContentExtraction.Common.DefaultMediaItemTextExtractor.ExtractTextFromMedia(MediaItem mediaItem)

38536 12:04:53 ERROR DefaultMediaItemTextExtractor: Cannot extract content from media item with id ‘{442006A5-8CB6-4ABE-8855-786D2A870201}’.
Exception: PdfSharp.Pdf.IO.PdfReaderException
Message: The PDF document is protected with an encryption not supported by PDFsharp.
Source: PdfSharp
at PdfSharp.Pdf.Security.PdfStandardSecurityHandler.ValidatePassword(String inputPassword)
at PdfSharp.Pdf.IO.PdfReader.Open(Stream stream, String password, PdfDocumentOpenMode openmode, PdfPasswordProvider passwordProvider)
at PdfSharp.Pdf.IO.PdfReader.Open(String path, String password, PdfDocumentOpenMode openmode, PdfPasswordProvider provider)
at Sitecore.ContentSearch.ContentExtraction.Readers.PdfSharpReader.ReadAll(String filePath)
at Sitecore.ContentSearch.ContentExtraction.Common.DefaultMediaItemTextExtractor.ExtractTextFromMedia(MediaItem mediaItem)

Solution

If you would like to disable the media indexing by applying the following patch – Sitecore.Support.DisableMediaIndexing.config

If you like to index the media content, Sitecore recommends using the following libraries IFilter, Apache Tika, or SolrCell.

Azure web apps have a limitation in using the IFilter library so I ended up using Apache Tika.

Steps to Integrate:

Download the Apache Tika server file –tika-server-1.22.jar.
- Sitecore recommends Apache Tika version 1.22 refer to the compatibility table for your version
Save the server file in a folder on SOLR server e.g: c:\tika
In PowerShell navigate to the path and execute the following command to install.

java -jar tika-server-1.22.jar

Note: The default hostname is localhost and the port is 9998.

If you would like a specific hostname and port number that could be included in the installation command as parameters

java -jar tika-server-1.22.jar –host=<Tikahostname> –port=<portnumber>

After the installation is completed open the following URL http://localhost:9998 to see if it is working as expected. You should see the welcome message!

Add the following patch file into App_Config/Include/zzz folder to replace DefaultMediaFileTextExtractor from Sitecore.ContentSearch.ContentExtration.

Last step – Let’s add Tika URL into ConnectionStrings.config file.

<add name=”tika” connectionString=”http://localhost:9998″ />

Let’s test quickly – Rebuild a Tree in the Developer Ribbon for one item or you could Rebuild the entire index.
Once the indexing is completed check and see if we have the media item available in the index.

Quick Tip: To search for a particular item in Solr, use the following query in the parameter q on your index page

_uniqueid:*[item id in lowercase without braces]*

Secure PDFs are indexed successfully in Solr! Yay!
If you are using SearchStax Solr Cloud, reach out to the support to get it added to your instance.
- https://www.searchstax.com/docs.hc/can-we-use-apache-tika

Hope this helps.

Happy Sitecoring!

August 28, 2024

Coveo / Sitecore

Coveo for Sitecore: Index Error Troubleshooting and Resolution

I installed Coveo 5.0.1039.1 on the Sitecore 10.1 instance locally.

After Coveo activation, the indexes weren’t loading and threw an error.

The logs showed ‘The parameter ‘p_ApiKey’ must not be an empty string’ error.

Exception: System.ArgumentException Message: Precondition failed: The parameter 'p_ApiKey' must not be an empty string Parameter name: p_ApiKey Source: Coveo.Framework at Coveo.Framework.CNL.Precondition.RaiseArgumentException(String p_Message, String p_ParameterName) at Coveo.Framework.CNL.Precondition.NotEmpty(String p_Parameter, String p_ParameterName) at Coveo.CloudPlatformClientBase.Communication.CloudPlatformHttpClientFactory.CreateAuthorizedJsonHttpClient(String p_ApiKey) at Coveo.CloudPlatformClientBase.CloudPlatformClient..ctor(CloudPlatformConfiguration p_Configuration, ICloudPlatformHttpClientFactory p_CloudPlatformHttpClientFactory, IPipelineRunnerHandler p_PipelineRunnerHandler, ISerializer p_Serializer, ICoveoSettings p_CoveoSettings, IStaticTTLCacheFactory`2 p_StaticTTLCacheFactory, ICriticalExceptionHandler p_CriticalExceptionHandler) at Coveo.CloudPlatformClientBase.CloudPlatformClient..ctor(CloudPlatformConfiguration p_Configuration) at Coveo.CloudPlatformClientBase.Communication.CloudPlatformClientFactory.GetCloudPlatformClient(CloudPlatformConfiguration p_Configuration) at Coveo.SearchProvider.Licensing.CloudLicenseRetriever.GetCloudLicense() at Coveo.SearchProvider.Licensing.CloudLicenseRetriever.GetLicense(Boolean p_ForceRetrieve) at Coveo.SearchProvider.Licensing.Cloud.LicenseRetriever.GetLicense(Boolean p_ForceRetrieve) at Coveo.SearchProvider.Licensing.LicenseManager.RetrieveLicense(Boolean p_ForceUpdate) at Coveo.SearchProvider.Licensing.LicenseManager.EnsureValidLicense() at Coveo.SearchProvider.Licensing.LicenseManager.GetLicenseInformation() at Coveo.SearchProvider.Rest.SitecoreRestHttpHandler.InitializeLicenseSettings() at Coveo.SearchProvider.Rest.SitecoreRestHttpHandler.OnInitializeSettings() at Coveo.Search.Api.Proxy.ProxyHttpHandler.OnInitialize() at Coveo.Search.Api.Proxy.ProxyHttpHandler.EnsureInitialized() at Coveo.Search.Api.Proxy.ProxyHttpHandler.ProcessRequest(IHttpContext p_Context) at Coveo.SearchProvider.Rest.SitecoreRestHttpHandlerDispatcher.ProcessRequest(HttpContext p_Context) at System.Web.HttpApplication.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStepImpl(IExecutionStep step) at System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously)

After researching, came to know there are two API Keys in Coveo.CloudPlatformClient.Custom.config needs to match with Coveo Platform.

1. apiKey
2. searchApiKey

When I logged into the platform, the keys were not visible since it was secure (not sure where I saved it!), decided to create new keys.

1. SearchApiKey

To create the Search API Key, we must ensure the correct permissions are in place.

Ensure that Impersonate -> Allowed is selected to limit the scope of the API Key, which can be selected from the drop-down list.

2. ApiKey

To create the ApiKey, we need to set multiple privileges.

Content Tab:

1. Fields -> Edit
2. Security Identities -> Edit
3. Security Identity Providers -> Edit
4. Sources -> Edit all

Organization Tab:

1. Organization -> Edit

Search Tab:

1. Search Page -> View all

When the keys are created, make sure to save them in a secure place!

It is time to update the new config keys.

Modify the apiKey and secureApiKey values in Coveo.CloudPlatformClient.Custom.config under AppConfig/Include/Coveo folder

Let’s reload Coveo Index Manager and no more errors.

Indexes are loaded and rebuilt successfully. Yay!

Hope this helps.

Happy Sitecoring!

References:
https://docs.coveo.com/en/2484/coveo-for-sitecore-v5/activate-silently#creating-the-api-keys

April 24, 2024

Coveo / Sitecore

Coveo for Sitecore: Troubleshooting and Diagnostics

Coveo’s Diagnostics page is super helpful when troubleshooting any Coveo issues. It is listed in the Coveo Search menu in the Sitecore control panel or can be reached directly with the following url –

https://[CMS Site]/sitecore modules/web/coveo/admin/coveodiagnosticpage.aspx

Coveo for Sitecore components state

This section shows the status of all services related to Coveo. Here is the healthy state, but when it errors it shows the detailed error message

Healthy Component State

Errors in Component State

Coveo for Sitecore version information

It comes in handy for checking Coveo and Sitecore versions and their compatibility.

Current Coveo for Sitecore version: 5.0.1153.1

Current Sitecore version: 10.2.0.6766

Compatibility status: these versions are compatible

Coveo for Sitecore organization information

This section is about the Organization and it is usage details.

Coveo for Sitecore configuration files

Basically shows all Coveo-related config files that are currently loaded in the system.

Coveo for Sitecore published items

It shows if the Coveo-related Sitecore items are published or not, it’s time to publish them 🙂

Coveo for Sitecore Indexing test

This section comes into handy when indexing an item or a path, really helpful when an Item has been published but it’s not available in the Coveo index.

Coveo for Sitecore log viewer

This section is my favorite – I typically use it on Production environments to view the logs when we don’t have access to the server or without logging into the Production servers. We can quickly view the log and troubleshoot the issues.