Sitecore Docs - Tech Tips by GS

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Moving Content Between SitecoreAI Environments: A Look at the Content Transfer API and Item Transfer API

Moving content between Sitecore environments is a common task. Content created in development often needs to be moved to staging and then to production. Depending on the project, this can become a regular part of the development and release process. In traditional Sitecore XP implementations, we often used Package Designer to package content and install it in another environment. But with modern Sitecore SaaS solutions, we need approaches that fit better into automated workflows. In my session at Sitecore User Group France, I discussed how the Content Transfer API and Item Transfer API can be used to move content between Sitecore environments. I also walked through a Postman collection to demonstrate how these APIs work together. Let's look at how the APIs work, how to use them, and what to consider before building an automation solution around them. Why Do We Need Another Way to Move Content? The usual content promotion process looks something like this: Development → ...

Sitecore XP: How to use site specific workflow when global workflow assigned on template standard values?

The Problem We were working with Sitecore XP 10.1 using ASP.NET MVC. Our solution had more than 100 Sitecore sites, and all page items and datasource items used the a Base workflow. The workflow was assigned globally through template standard values. However, some sites needed a simpler workflow with fewer states. We decided to introduce a new workflow called Simple Workflow for these sites. The plan was to create a script that would run against the sites requiring the simpler workflow and update the workflow and state fields of their existing items. This would move the existing content to the new workflow. However, there was another scenario to consider. Since the old workflow was still configured on the standard values of all item templates, any new item created on these sites could inherit the old workflow instead of Simple Workflow To address this, we planned to implement a custom processor that would update the workflow of newly created items to match the workflow used by...

How to Hide or Disable Publishing Targets in the Sitecore XP Publish Dialog

The Problem We had a requirement in Sitecore where content authors should not be able to uncheck publishing targets in the Publish dialog. Sometimes, content authors accidentally uncheck the publishing target and then report that publishing is not working. We wanted to avoid this situation by ensuring that the publishing target always remains selected. One option we considered was to deny Read access to the publishing target using Sitecore security. However, our setup had only one publishing target. After denying Read access, the entire Publish button in the Experience Editor ribbon became disabled. This was not the expected behaviour. We wanted to restrict changes to the publishing target selection without affecting the publishing functionality. There are two possible approaches worth considering. Option 1: Hide the Publishing Targets The first approach is to keep all publishing targets selected and hide the target checklist from the dialog. The customization is in the foll...

SitecoreAI Page Designs, Partial Designs and the local: vs page: Datasource Problem

One of the things I like about SitecoreAI is that you can build a fairly sophisticated page composition model using Page Designs, Partial Designs and Page Branches. But when you start combining all three, there are a few concepts that are easy to misunderstand. I recently worked through one such scenario where we were setting up Page Designs and Partial Designs and ran into questions around: Template to Design Mapping Page Design standard values Page Branch insert options Partial Design datasource locations local:/ versus page:/ Editing datasource content on individual pages Individually, each feature makes sense. The confusion starts when they are used together. The Page Design Structure Our intended structure was something like this: Page Template | v Page Design | +-- Header Partial Design | +-- Content Partial Design | | | +-- Hero Banner | +-- Footer Partial Design The id...