cd %windir%\system32\inetsrv
%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd list site > c:\sites-list.txt

Thanks Azadeh Khojandi who encouraged me to present and share experience & solution in the Sitecore Sydney meetup group.  We did a dual presentation and it’s my first public presentation.

It was definitely great experience and it was successful and people understood and like the solution.  For those who did not be able to attend that night.  You can still view the PPT shared online with the link below:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NFhT4Ou6x5yQwfH_A4be56O_hkGYLVIlCyvU4O-V6uM

Thanks for anyone who attended the meetup.  Hope you all enjoyed.

In my previous post – Leverage Sitecore xDB fro newsletter subscription I wrote last year, I talked about how to use EXM segment list to create newsletter subscription function.  If you haven’t read yet,  I recommend to read it first before starting to read this article.  In this article, I’m going to explain how to update user subscriptions by creating a form with WFFM and sending an EXM confirmation email with WFFM.

Recap the requirement

I’m going to start with a recap of the requirement.  Basically, client wants to manage their newsletter  subscriptions within Sitecore, and allows users to update their newsletter subscriptions on the website.

What has been architected

I created a form with WFFM for updating user newsletter subscriptions, and content editor is allowed to update the opt ins  i.e. Kids in the park (shown in screenshot above) as well as to map the opt ins with the custom newsletter subscription facets so as to automatically segmented user into corresponding email group. How to segment users  in EXM is not part of the scope of this post, but you can always refer back to my previous post.

Also, I created a custom action for sending the confirmation email which is defined within EXM, as well as a custom save action for updating contact subscriptions facets.

Here is the overview workflow diagram

Three Main Challenges

• Initial form value based on contact subscription profiles on form loading.
• Allow content editor to map option in with subscription facets in xDB.
• Send confirmation email that defined in EXM.

Solutions for achieving each of the above listed challenges

• Initial form value based on contact subscription profiles on form loading.

By default, WFFM allows you to initial the field value by passing value in query string. But we think it’s not best solution for rendering value with query string as :

1. Potential safety issue
2. Limitations in the length of query string
3. Limitations in the filed type of WFFM

Therefore, we come up with the solution by creating custom field rules. How to create custom rule is not in scope, but you can find information on Sitecore documentation portal and it was also explained by Jeff Darchuk in here.

• Allow content editor to map option in with subscription facets in xDB.

For mapping the optins, we create custom checklist field and utilizing the values as text feature for mapping the contact facets with each of the options in the checkbox list.

• Send confirmation email that defined in EXM

A custom action has been created and here is the sample code for sending the EXM messages programmatically.

Heard Sitecore Connector long time back, but never really got a chance to use it for any client solutions until now.  The settings are quite straightforward, and the main purpose for this article is to demo how to setup Facebook account with the Social Connector Module.

Steps for settings social accounts

• Going to System-> Social (shown as below)

Firstly, I created Applications for staging production separately, so that I can switch to the correct application easily after deploying to the target environment.  There are three fields on the Application template

• Application ID
• Application Secret
• Public API Key (ONLY for Google+)

Next, I created account which will be used when post a message.  To create a specific account i.e. Facebook Account, you will have to select the corresponding Application that you just created in the previous step.  and select a page you wish to post to.

Once you’ve done above, select a page in Content tree, and click Message button in Publish Tab.  Create a message and post it.

There are more about how to track the campaign performance and how to setup the workflow etc. These will be all addressed in the future blog.

Thanks Gruden for sending me to this great conference, It wasn’t too technical, but really inspired me with not only the improvements Sitecore have been working,  but the exciting vision that Sitecore has. I want to share some of the key points from today’s session for those that missed it.

What’s new

• Sitecore Experience Accelerator

It provides reusable, templated UX layouts and components to help developers to speed up their development life cycle.

It is accessible directly from the experience editor, which allows you to drag-and-drop to the page easily.  It also offers import and export HTML features, which allows front-end developer to create more themes. You can find more details from www.Sitecore.net

 

• Express Migration tool  1.0

The express migration tool supports migration of any version of Sitecore 7.2 to the initial release of the Sitecore 8.2.  You can download from here.

• New Publishing service with significant performance improved

The new publishing service is build on .NET Core and works only with 8.2. It’s an optional replacement for the existing Sitecore publishing engine.  It provides much faster publishing service, which offers greater data consistency and reliability. Once the publish service is installed it will automatically replace the existing publishing engine.

You can find the installation here.

• New EXM 3.4 (combined campaign management with email experience management)

• New Sitecore Commerce

As we known, Sitecore commerce has three models Sitecore commerce , Sitecore commerce connect, and  Sitecore commerce server. Sitecore is going to reduce the complexity and provide an all-in-one service.

• New Sitecore Dynamics

Offering a seamless experience between online and brick-and-mortar channels, Sitecore Commerce powered by Microsoft Dynamics lets retailers analyse and personalize online experiences from the Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) in real time, while also delivering advanced back-office capabilities from Microsoft Dynamics, like support for loyalty programs, gift cards, call centre management, and order management.

Future

In future versions, forms capabilities will be built in and supercharged.