Next big thing is to assess the various Upgrade Approaches available and choose the right fit for your project.
Analyze and Pick: The Sitecore Upgrade Approach
Brainstorming and Defining: The Future State
"Give me 6 hours to chop a tree, I'll spend first 4 sharpening the axe." - Abraham Lincoln
Assessing and Documenting: The Present State
Until and unless you belongs to that rare breed of an IT team which have everything well documented,
A Blog Series about – How to upgrade Sitecore?
Incessant improvements, keep on introducing something new and regularly fixing the existing bugs are the key qualities
Things to consider – Sitecore and LINQ
The Linq to Items layer does not implement all of IQueryable. Below are list of supported and not supported LINQ items. Supported: All Any Between — with an extra overload for including or excluding the start and end ranges. Boost — makes this part of the query more important than the... Continue Reading →
Best Practice – Users and Roles
Sitecore recommended practices for security (users and roles): Break inheritance rather than explicitly deny access rights. Apply security to roles rather than users. Limit access to the parts of the content tree that are relevant to the user that is logged into the system. Limit access to the ribbon items by disabling features that are... Continue Reading →
Best Practices – Workflow
Sitecore recommended practices for workflow: Avoid email notification of every workflow state. Only provide email notification where it makes sense for a critical workflow event. Alternatively, you can use of the RSS feeds instead of email. Limit workflow publishing to specific roles and users. In the workflow, provide a default final step with the publish... Continue Reading →
Best Practices – Solution Code
Sitecore recommended practices for solution code: Sitecore highly recommends using C#. All of the Sitecore programming examples are in C# and C# is the language spoken by Sitecore Support. Use GUIDs where possible instead of path / name. This will improve performance, as well as prevent any breakage if you move content to a new... Continue Reading →
Best Practices – System Architecture
Sitecore recommended practices for System Architecture (hardware and software): All servers — Web and Database, should run on Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit. The Web server(s) should run IIS 7.x with the latest security updates. Use IIS 7.x Integrated mode. The Database server(s) should run Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 64 bit with the... Continue Reading →
Best Practices – Templates and _Standard Values
Sitecore recommended practices for templates and _Standard Values: Naming conventions —Use simple, relevant, and easy to understand names for templates, fields, and sections. By default, Sitecore displays the names you provided to both technical and non-technical users. Choose names that business users, such as content authors, will easily recognize and understand. Folder structure — Provide a folder... Continue Reading →
Sitecore Competencies 