This past weekend, while attending WAM2010, I noticed a couple of projects where Sitefinity was using an intimidating project name.  These project names are visible on Sitefinity’s login screen, as well as inside Sitefinity’s Admin. 

When the project name is too long, it can cause minor display problems:

Project Names are configured in the web.config file (this file sits in the root of your Sitefinity web site).

1.  Use Visual Studio (or another text editor) to open the ~/web.config file

2.  Search for the “<cms” section in this file

3.  Modify the projectName property of this section.  If missing, the projectName property can be added.

<cms defaultProvider="Sitefinity" pageExtension=".aspx" siteTemplate="" disabled="false" pageEditorUIMode="Overlay" projectName="SitefinityWatch">

4.  Now refresh Sitefinity’s Admin in your browser.

CMSWatch (an independent resource that evaluates content-oriented technologies) identified the 5 biggest mistakes in CMS selection.  Here is #2:

Not establishing a broad-based selection team

This may be the biggest mistake made in the selection of a Web content management system. Many times Web CMS product selection teams are formed in a casual manner, without actual implementation in mind. One typical situation is that either the content team or the Web site technical team manages the selection process independently without consulting their partner team -- or, more commonly, there is an imbalance between the two groups.

Developers obviously feel comfortable with web technologies and, consequently, tend to underestimate the value of end-user features.  Content managers, on the other hand, understand their business objectives but nothing about the technical factors that could potentially cripple a project.

As the quote from CMSWatch indicates, successful CMS selection involves input from multiple departments.  ...

Sitefinity CMS comes included with a powerful Lucene-based search engine.  Using Sitefinity, new search indexes can quickly be created.  Once the index is in place, search boxes & results can be easily dragged & dropped onto any Sitefinity page.

However, by default Sitefinity will index the entire contents of a page.  This includes elements that exist on all pages such as navigation, headers, footers, etc.  These site-wide elements can impact the search results and pollute the snippets associated with each of the search results.

Removing Unwanted Content from Search Indexes

Each time a new search index is created, Sitefinity creates a new new ~/App_Code/Search/[SearchIndex-Name] folder.  Inside this folder is a fieldsInfoProvider.xml file.  This file defines the content that gets indexed, ignored or emphasized. 

Sitefinity identifies content sections by matching HTML tags.  These HTML section are defined in the fieldsInfoProvider.xml file.  Here is some example HTML for a web page:...

Whew!  What a weekend.  Over the span of 48 hours I was frantically working for 42 hours…and I wasn’t alone.  There were 20 teams and 20 charities at the Dallas We Are Microsoft Charity Event and it was incredible to watch the final presentations made by each of the exhausted teams. 

Lots of great work was done by all.  Huge congratulations to everyone involved! 

Telerik/Sitefinity lends a hand to Charities

Just like last year, Telerik donated Sitefinity CMS to any charity team that decided to use it.  I was delighted that most of the charity teams decided to use Sitefinity for their projects.   

Easy to use?  Prove it!

One of key benefits of Sitefinity is that it’s easy to learn & customize for both developers & end-users.  These charity events are a great test of this claim. 

Over 48 hours .NET developers are introduced to Sitefinity CMS and then ...

What happens when you combine a bunch of developers and several charities and their IT needs over a weekend of caffeine-fueled sleep deprivation?  I guess we’ll find out this weekend at the Dallas We Are Microsoft: Charity Challenge Weekend.

Telerik participated in this event last year, and we’re participating again this year.  Like last year, we’re donating Sitefinity CMS to each of the charities.  However, we’re are also entering with a team of our own this year (Team Telerik).  We’ll be building a new website for WHO (We Help Ourselves), an organization that provides education to children to help them avoid becoming victims of abuse.

In addition to our project, I’ll be doing training for any charity teams who wish to use Sitefinity.  I’m anxious to see what the teams are able to do with Sitefinity.  We’ll be chronicling these adventures in blog posts that will ...

One of our Sitefinity Partners had a project that required them to migrate content from a legacy homegrown CMS to Sitefinity CMS.  To address this challenge they built a small WinForms application that was able to retrieve and parse information from the old web site. 

However, after retrieving information from the old web site, the remaining challenge was to use this information to create pages programmatically in Sitefinity.

Sitefinity Pages API + Web Services

Any task that can be done using Sitefinity’s UI can also be done using Sitefinity’s API [webinar].  However, this API is only available within the scope of the Sitefinity web site.  Consequently, Sitefinity’s API cannot be used directly from a WinForms application; doing so will result in errors as the API attempts to find missing resources. 

Thankfully it’s relatively easy to build a bridge to Sitefinity by creating a custom Web Service.  ...

During the past few months I’ve been pondering web analytics & reporting as it relates to content management systems.  The question I keep asking myself & others is “Why not just use Google Analytics?”.  Google Analytics is free, extremely good and easy to integrate with Sitefinity…so use it!   :)

When is Google Analytics not good enough? 

Over several weeks, I’ve collected many good answers to this question.  For example, here are just a handful of limitations with Google Analytics:

• Inability to track bots/spiders or web visitors with JavaScript disabled
• Impossible to secure individual reports or use CMS credentials for report permissions
• Inability to track file accesses (PDF’s, Images, etc.)

However, is overcoming these limitations worth the enormous effort it would take to re-create Google Analytic’s features inside Sitefinity?  Or would our time be better spent on other features? 

I mentioned in a comment to another blog ...

Happy New Year everyone! 

I’m finally resurfacing after a very hectic 4th quarter travel schedule.  Since October I’ve attended 3 conferences, relocated to Texas and spent a month in Sofia, Bulgaria at Telerik HQ. 

It’s been exhausting but extremely useful.  All this travel has enabled me to have countless conversations with colleagues, partners, potential customers, developers, business managers, consultants, marketing directors, IT directors and sales managers. 

Each of these people have a vested interest in how the web site is managed, but their perspectives & needs are incredibly diverse.  The lessons from these conversations are helping shape Sitefinity. 

Four

We’re not yet ready to publish a lot of Sitefinity 4.0 information [sorry].  A pre-BETA (CTP) 4.0 build is currently being distributed to Sitefinity Partners & Sitefinity MVP’s.  This feature-incomplete build is allowing us to get early feedback about the product.  However, CTP details are currently covered under the NDA.

The ...

Telerik/Sitefinity partner Falafel is offering a 2-day online course that explores Sitefinity CMS from the ground-up.  The course is conducted over two days (four hours each day) via GotoWebinar. 

Sitefinity – Online Training
January 11 – 12
$399.00

Attendees can see the trainer's desktop and listen to audio via phone or VOIP. Also included in the course materials are instructions and steps to assist your IT administrator in setting up your Sitefinity installation and Sitefinity project.

For More Information

Visit Falafel’s web site for more information or to register for this class.

This week, Telerik & Sitefinity CMS will have a presence at the Gilbane conference in Boston and the IMS conference in London. 

The Gilbane Boston conference is taking place at the Westin Copley Place from 1-3 December, 2009. The conference this year is focused on the business impact of content solutions. Drop by booth  #145  to learn all things Sitefinity. You will also have the chance to win a free CMS Watch web content management report.

The IMS London conference will take place at Olympia Grand Hall, December 1-3, 2009.  Visit us at booth #366 to learn the latest on Sitefinity CMS.  In addition, I’ll be giving a session on extensibility at the London IMS conference on Wednesday (Dec. 2nd) at 16:00.  Here is the session description:

Will your CMS evolve with your business? Why CMS adaptability empowers business

When choosing a CMS it's important to look beyond ...