Sitecore is an experience platform that combines a content management system with marketing capabilities. It allows marketers to collect customer data from all touchpoints and channels to gain insights. These insights can then be used to deliver personalized experiences across channels. Sitecore provides an integrated platform to manage content and campaigns, profile customers, and measure experiences in real-time. It is designed for large enterprises and features personalization, workflow, security controls, and supports multiple devices and frameworks.
2. Marketing has changed dramatically over the last decade.
With customer insights and experience management across all touch points
becoming increasingly important, the need for a truly integrated marketing
technology is becoming more and more vital for the business.
3. About me
• Freelance Sitecore and .NET Developer / Consultant
• 15+ years of experience in the web industry
• In love with technology
4. 1. What is Sitecore?
2. One integrated platform
3. Under the hood
4. Why Sitecore as a CMS
5. Key features of Sitecore 8
6. Developer friendly
7. Demo
8. Q&A
8. Who is Sitecore?
• Sitecore was founded in 2001 in Copenhagen, Denmark and became a
global leader in customer experience management software
• Sitecore is rated as a top leader by both Gartner and Forrester analysts
35,000+
WEBSITES
4,000+
BRANDS
850+
EMPLOYEES
1,500+
PARTNERS
10,000+
DEVELOPERS
50+
COUNTRIES
13. There is little doubt that marketing efforts today has to be centered around
the customer. To succeed in the modern marketplace, you have to provide
personalized and compelling customer experiences.
To do this, you have to be truly obsessed with knowing your customers.
14. In this context, integration is the key
To have a truly complete view of the customer, we need to collect and
integrate relevant customer data from all touch points and systems across
the organization, be it website or mobile behavior, online or offline, CRM,
Call Centers, ERP
15. Collecting and analyzing this data is not the end goal.
We need this data to be actionable, to drive business decisions and to
automate processes – all in a intuitive and manageable way.
16. And finally we need those insights to drive the customer experience across
all touch points and channels. Effectively delivering the right content to the
right customer at the right time – and on the right channel.
And this is precisely what the Sitecore Experience Platform aims at.
21. Technology Landscape
Microsoft
SQL Server
Microsoft Windows
Server
Microsoft ASP.NET
MVC | WebForms
Microsoft
.NET
Lucene.NET
| Apache SOLR
Microsoft
Dy|namics CRM
Salesforce
iOS | Android Windows
Phone Xamarin MongoDB InDesign
Microsoft
SharePoint
Microsoft
Azure
Windows Active
Directory
22. A. Databases
Every Sitecore installation has at least three
databases that are stored separately and
have a predefined basic structure and
individual content trees.
• Core
• Master
• Web
23. Items
• Everything is based on an Item
• Comparable to object in OOP
• Unique IDs: GUID
24. Templates
• Items are defined by data templates
• Comparable to class in OOP
• Templates support multiple inheritance
27. Layouts
• Usually one per device.
• Defined in Sitecore (Layout > Layouts) and realized
as ASP.Net WebForms (.aspx) or MVC (.cshtml)
28. Placeholders
Define named regions ( placeholder keys ) of sublayouts or layouts to bind other
sublayouts or renderings.
@Html.Sitecore().Placeholder("main")
Or
<sc:placeholder id="Placeholder1" runat="server" key=“main"> </sc:placeholder>
29. Reusable components
• MVC: View Renderings and Controller Renderings
• WebForms: Sublayouts (.ascx) and renderings (.xslt)
* it’s possible to use Sitecore MVC components on WebForms pages
- use of standard ASP.NET components
- dedicated to the Microsoft Technology Stack and to its patterns and practises.
33. Why Sitecore as a CMS
Sitecore is highly scalable
… yet very easy to use
Sitecore & Windows Azure
34. Why Sitecore as a CMS
Real-time user experience
personalization with Geo-IP and
pattern-based responses
35. Why Sitecore as a CMS
Strong and customizable workflow processes for versioning,
approvals, incremental publishing, notifications, and archiving
36. Why Sitecore as a CMS
Multi-Site Deployment:
The architecture enables you to manage and deploy an
unlimited number of sites and share content, code, and
processes across any of your sites
37. Why Sitecore as a CMS
Control security access by role, user, and
group, and secure content down to the
component and element levels
38. Why Sitecore as a CMS
Full control over Sitecore.
- Pipelines
- Processors
- Scheduled jobs
40. Web and Mobile Support
Through the power of the Sitecore presentation and personalisation engine,
Sitecore allows you to create a compelling experience across devices.
42. Sitecore® Experience Profile
Through the Experience Profile we can find and investigate each individual
customer and through the timeline, drill down into every individual interactions
across all touch points.
49. You Choose the Tools and Frameworks
TEAM DEVELOPMENT
FOR SITECORE
Sitecore
Unicorn
Sitecore
Instance
Manager
SlowCheetah
PowerShell
50. Sitecore ROCKS!
Directly integrated into Microsoft VS
2010/2012/2013, Sitecore Rocks
provides a fast and streamlined
development experience with tools
that developers are used to.
52. community.sitecore.net
Here is where you get answers,
discuss features and build your
reputation.
• More than 1850 new members in
less than 2 weeks
• Private or public groups
53. Research projects
Sitecore will be investing significantly in Machine Learning over the next couple of years.
• Machine learning frameworks, e.g. Azure ML.
• Built into Sitecore: E.g. Clustering
Native and external support for:
• Supervised ML
• Unsupervised ML
Marketing has changed dramatically over the last decade.
With customer insights and experience management across all touch points becoming increasingly important, the need for a truly integrated marketing technology is becoming more and more vital for the business.
My name is Adrian Iorgu and I would like to give you a conceptual and technical introduction to the Sitecore Experience Platform.
During this presentation I will try to cover the following topics and if we have enough time to have a speak peek at the Sitecore CMS
With Sitecore XP marketers can own the experience of every customer that engages with their brand, across every channel. It also lets non-technical people create and manage their content and marketing efforts in one single platform.
Thousands of public and private organizations have created and now manage more than 32,000 dynamic websites with Sitecore including ATP World Tour, CA Technologies, Comcast, Heineken, Microsoft, Omni Hotels, Siemens, The Knot and Verizon.
The marketing technology today is incredibly fragmented. This diagram spans over 1800 vendors but more notably spanning 43 categories. This often makes the marketing platform a patchwork, stitched together in a bespoke and complex manner. And IT often uses resources on keeping the platform running and upgraded – not extending and enriching it.
Furthermore the marketing organisation is stuck with tools which are hard to use together and often gives a fragmented view of the customer.
There is little doubt that marketing efforts today has to be centered around the customer. To succeed in the modern marketplace, you have to provide personalized, compelling customer experiences – to do this, you have to be truly obsessed with knowing your customers.
And in this context, integration is key.
For us to have a truly complete view of the customer, we need to collect and integrate relevant customer data from all touch points and systems across the organisation, be it website or mobile behaviour, online or offline commerce interactions, CRM, Call Centers, ERP or anything else.
Collecting and analyzing this data is not the end goal. We need this data to be actionable.
We need the marketing system to provide not only intelligent insights but actually drive business decisions and automate processes – all in a intuitive and manageable way.
Collecting and analyzing this data is not the end goal. We need this data to be actionable.
We need the marketing system to provide not only intelligent insights but actually drive business decisions and automate processes – all in a intuitive and manageable way.
And finally we need those insights to drive the customer experience across all touch points and channels. Effectively delivering the right content to the right customer at the right time – and on the right channel.
And this is precisely what the Sitecore Experience Platform aims at.
Sitecore is built primarily on the Microsoft Technology Stack and is dedicated to its patterns and practises.
The primary technologies powering the platform are Microsoft.NET, Microsoft Windows, SQL server and ASP.NET, but also industry leading technologies such as the search and indexing framework Lucene and the highly scalable NoSQL database MongoDB is part of the platform.
Secondarily, Sitecore has native connectors and integrations to many Microsoft technologies such as Azure, Sharepoint, CRM, AX and ActiveDirectory.
These technologies speaks primarily to our dedication and collaboration with Microsoft as a close technology partner, but also highlights the extensibility and breadth of the platform.
Core databaseThe core database is used by Sitecore to manage membership (as it builds on ASP.NET membership, this allows standard .NET membership controls to just work), handle system settings and hold the entire configuration for all applications in the CMS. This database can be accessed through the CMS, and you are able to configure any of the settings, override standard functionality, build your own applications, and add buttons and functionality to the ribbon in the editors.Master databaseThe master database is where all the content editor work is done. Whenever a new piece of content is created, edited or deleted it is stored here, including those in preview mode. The master database can have workflow enabled and customised, so sections of the site can be locked down to certain roles, or made to go through an approver or translator before they go live.Web databaseThe web database is where the live content for the web application is located. It differs from the master database in that it doesn’t contain anything in preview mode and only stores the latest live version of each item. When a content editor publishes some content it is then copied from the master database to the web database.
All the content contained in a Sitecore web application is stored in the content tree. There are different content types in the content tree, so we have Content, Templates, Layouts and Media Library.
Through the power of the Sitecore presentation and personalisation engine, Sitecore allows you to create a compelling experience across devices. The websites are built like a puzzle from different components, in the Presentation Details section.
Through the power of the Sitecore presentation and personalisation engine, Sitecore allows you to create a compelling experience across devices. The websites are built like a puzzle from different components, in the Presentation Details section.
Through the power of the Sitecore presentation and personalisation engine, Sitecore allows you to create a compelling experience across devices. The websites are built like a puzzle from different components, in the Presentation Details section.
The biggest differences between a layout and your component is that you are using a controller, and you will eventually have content-managed fields. Create a controller and a view like last time.
Through the power of the Sitecore presentation and personalisation engine, Sitecore allows you to create a compelling experience across devices. The websites are built like a puzzle from different components, in the Presentation Details section.
Sitecore provides multi site support and content sharing, and form data can be delivered straight to CRM or ERP systems. The platform has huge capabilities and is scalable for all organizations.
It's an object based CMS which means the content can be reused and repurposed trough out the sites. Sitecore also support all languages and has a every easy and intuitive interface that easily allows new language creation.
Through the power of the Sitecore presentation and personalisation engine, Sitecore allows you to create a compelling experience across devices. The reusable nature of the content database allows the same content and assets to be applied across devices both in a responsive and adaptive format. The power to shape the customer experience is in the hands of the marketing organisation and the creative teams – without restrictions
Real time editing without needing any knowledge on HTML or backend programming. Content managers can select from a set of predefined components and they can insert controllers in sets of predefined placeholders.
Through the Experience Profile in the Sitecore Experience Database, we can find and investigate each individual customer and through the timeline drill down into every individual interaction across customer touch-points. So the Sitecore Experience Database gives us a very granular view of the customer.
Sitecore offers marketing automation and email support as a native integrated channel. This means that segmentation and targeting of campaigns can happen though the Sitecore experience platform and will be powered by the same customer data which drives personalisation and insights.
Furthermore this allows the business to get insights into the true value of a campaign, not just click or open rates, and measure the value of the email channel all the way to purchase or acquision.
The Federated Experience Manager allows Sitecore to connect to non-sitecore websites or apps through simple javascript integration and rest services. The connection means that the behaviour and actions of a customer across all owned websites or channels can be tracked and can form the basis for personalisation and marketing automation.
The Federated Experience Manager also allows personalised content to be pushed onto non-sitecore websites, effectively expanding the reach of the marketing organisation onto websites outside their normal reach.
Acknowleging the business specific demands in the commerce space, Sitecore not only offers our own commerce offering, Sitecore Commerce Server, but also delivers an integration framework and vendor agnostic approach which we have called Commerce Connect.
Brings the commerce concepts into Sitecore. Orders, Products, Customers, Basket, Loyalty, Wish lists, Merchandise, etc. and allows you to manage and enrich the experience on your commerce channels.
Commerce Connect integrates commerce actions such as browsing products, putting products into the basket and the checkout flow into the Experience Database and customer experience platform and thereby lets you optimise and personalise the shopping experience.
Finally through Sitecore Social the organization can understand social ad spend, understand what you customers are doing on social channels and reuse content across social platforms.
Sitecore comes with a variety of applications and additional
free modules or connectors, developed by either Sitecore or certified partners which can be found on the market place.
Sitecore comes with a variety of applications and additional
free modules or connectors, developed by either Sitecore or certified partners which can be found on the market place.
Sitecore comes with a variety of applications and additional
free modules or connectors, developed by either Sitecore or certified partners which can be found on the market place.
At the Sitecore conference in Utrech, Netherlands this year in June, Sitecore announced they will be investing significantly in Machine Learning over the next couple of years.