Himmat Singh Dulawat (4x Sitecore MVP)

Problem Statement: I was following the article Download options for Azure AppService deployments to install Sitecore PowerShell and SXA modules on Sitecore Managed Cloud Service PaaS 2.0 instead of my local dev instance. Sitecore Version: Sitecore 10.4 XP Managed Cloud Service: PaaS 2.0 I have successfully installed both the PowerShell and SXA modules, and they appear correctly in the CM instance.  But after restarting the CM Web App, both modules disappear from the CM instance, their config file is missing from the App_Service folder, and require reinstallation to complete the setup again. Here, I have used Sitecore CM instance Development Tools -> Installation Wizard to install the modules. Solution:  To investigate this issue further, I have checked the logs generated in Application Insights to confirm the installation. Additionally checked the traces and verified that the module is installed in the correct path: However...

In this blog post, I will explain the Experience Edge for Sitecore Content Hub, Experience Edge for Content Hub APIs, GraphQL IDE, and GraphQL. Experience Edge exposes data through GraphQL APIs and media through a CDN. The CDN is responsible for routing and caching queries that flow to and from the delivery platform. Whenever Content Hub detects changes to approved content or the schema, it raises an event that triggers the automatic publishing process. Refer to the document for more details about the Experience Edge:  Experience Edge for Content Hub To start with Experience Edge IDE, we need to first understand the Preview Vs Delivery APIs: Preview API: A GraphQL API that exposes a preview of your content. This API provides access to all content, including drafts and other content that is not yet approved. Delivery API: A GraphQL API that exposes your published content. This API provides access to approved and published cont...

Sitecore Content Hub provides Taxonomy and Option list features to classify the data; both have their use case to choose the appropriate approach. At a high level  Use Taxonomy when the data contains more than 50 items. Use Taxonomy if you want to apply a security rule based on the values, as the option list does not support it. See the documentation for more information:  Choosing between taxonomies and option lists In this blog post, I will explain to you how we can create a Taxonomy, classify the data, and use the same taxonomy for search purposes.  Create a Taxonomy: Step 1: Click on the manage icon, top right corner Step 2: Navigate to the Taxonomy Step 3: Create a new Taxonomy called POC.Educational and fill in the values in the following fields. I am allowing manual sorting as it lets you manually sort taxonomy items. Step 4: It will create and open the Taxonomy management page and the Education taxonomy....

Sitecore Content Hub provides a feature to export Content items in Excel, and we can customize the export profile according to our requirements. You can find the blog post here: Custom Export Profile in Sitecore Content Hub Export User Profile in Sitecore Content Hub In this blog post, I am explaining how to export the Collection items in Sitecore Content Hub. If you go to the collection pages, you will not be able to find the export to Excel option. Find a screenshot. To enable this feature, perform the following steps: Step 1: Click on the manage gear icon and click on the pages. Step 2: In the left panel, scroll down to the collection and click on the collection. Step 3: In the right panel, choose the selection component. If it is not enabled, then click on the user icon and enable it. Step 4: Now enable the Export to Excel radio button to have one more additional tab. Step 5: Click on the Add Definition button, sig...

Sitecore Content Hub provides you with the features and functionality to create a trigger, an action, and a respective script to enhance your customization and implement your business logic. As we are aware, we can execute the Trigger, Action, and Script on the Save button of the content entity, but in case you want to update any field value example, date field values, once the author approves the content after final review, instead of the save button then we have to tweak our approach while setting up condition into the trigger.  As we know, triggers, actions, and scripts in Sitecore Content Hub are typically executed by clicking the Save button of a content entity. However, suppose you want to update a field, such as a date field, specifically when the author approves the content after the final review (rather than during draft, review, or version save). In that case, the trigger conditions need to be carefully configured. The business requir...

Problem Statement: As part of the cloud infrastructure monitoring activities, the Sitecore Cloud Operations team identified an event and shared an email regarding the Sitecore Cloud Alert 'SearchStax CPU Usage.' We received alerts indicating that high CPU usage was detected on all nodes of the Solr deployment. Upon further investigation, the following observations were made: High CPU usage and system load High indexing activities  Solution: A CPU Usage alert is a Threshold Alert that notifies you via email when the CPU of your SearchStax Managed Search service deployment exceeds a specified threshold for a certain number of minutes. This triggers an Incident in the Managed Search Dashboard. Here are some recommendations to enhance SearchStax performance and improvement: 1. ContentSearch.SearchMaxResults/Lowering &rows=1000000 This setting determines the number of search results the search provider is asked to retrieve...

Problem Statement: Due to certain business requirements, we create fields read-only or hide them from the author to avoid unnecessary confusion while ensuring business logic is implemented.  In Sitecore Content Hub, we create a field property from the Content-Type option, there is no way to hide it during the creation process. Solution: There are two types of members for content types: content members and detail members . Content members represent individual pieces of content and are editable on the content detail page. Detail members represent content metadata and can be hidden from the content detail page. To meet the above requirements, you can change the member type from content to detail by moving the member to the M.Content schema page. Next, you can update the entity details component to ensure this member does not appear on the page. Happy Sitecoreing  😊

In an organization, the Password Policy is key to securing the platforms, preventing unauthorized access, and protecting sensitive media and metadata etc. In this blog post, I will let you know how you can update your password policy in the Sitecore Content Hub product by enforcing users to reset their passwords every 90 days. Sitecore Content Hub provides the configurable option to enforce the organization's standard-based password policy.  You can configure the password policy from the security settings section of Manage Launchpad.  Click on the Manage Icon and choose the Settings option: From the left panel, search for Authentication or click on the Authentication under Portal Configuration: The default setting of the expired password is set to 2147483647 minutes, and other default values can also be seen in the other settings in the PasswordRules example: RequiredLength, RequiredLowercase, RequiredUpercase, RequiredDigit, etc. To c...

We are aware of the export of the Content and Asset entities in Content Hub, but no such OOTB option is available to export the User profiles. This requires customization. In this blog post, I explain how we can export the User profiles in Sitecore Content Hub.  Step 1: Create a Custom Export Profile See the blog post about the detailed steps on How you can create a Custom Export Profile in Sitecore Content Hub , Refer to the Export Profile Section. For exporting the user profile use the following export Profile script: In the above example, I am exporting ID, Identifier, Username, UserGroup, Module, and System Properties. You can customize it as per your requirements. Step 2: Create a Custom Export Page: Click on the Manage icon and choose the Pages option. Click on the Plus icon and create a new blank page. Provide a name, leave other fields as it is, and click on save. Step 3: Add the component to the Page: Click on the Export User ...

Problem Statement: When a user logs into the Sitecore CMS, the system will first check the age of the user's password. If the password is less than 60 days old, the user will be redirected to the Sitecore CMS dashboard. However, if the password is 60 days or older, the user will be redirected to the "Change Password" page. This page includes fields for: The current password A new password Confirmation of the new password Then user must enter their current password, input a new password, and confirm it. The system will validate the entries: If the validation is successful, the user's password will update. Then user will be redirected to the login page and sign in with the new password. Solution: To have a solution to this you need to write a pipeline and processor within your project that handles the logic of password expiration. Step 1: Create a Custom Pipeline and Processor: Write a custom pipeline and pr...

Problem Statement: After setting the default values in the content entity, it gives me an error when I attempt to create a new content type. However, it also creates a content entity after an error, and it works if I create a content entity, but while creating a content entity, it returns me an Elasticsearch request failed error. Error: Solution: Sitecore has investigated and identified this issue. It involves an issue with the Elasticsearch request and requires a graph rebuild to resolve. See the documentation for more information: Schema changes, inheritance, and the graph server FAQ: 1. Duration of Graph Rebuild and Downtime: How long does the graph rebuild process typically take, and how much downtime will be required for the PROD CH environment? The graph rebuild activity is estimated to take up to 2 hours to complete. During the process, Sitecore will back up the main index in the Elasticsearch deployment, as well as the ...

Problem Statement: Display the validation error message when the save button is clicked. While creating or updating entities in Sitecore Content Hub, we may have requirements to validate the author inputs based on a pre-defined condition, such as image extensions not being allowed except PNG and JPEG, checkboxes must be checked, or field values not being empty. In this blog, I am taking an example of a validation message that triggers if a field value is empty. Solution: To implement this functionality, you need to perform the following steps: Step 1: Create a Script, paste the following script, and check whether the field value is null or empty. You can modify it as per your requirements. See the blog post to Create a Script, Action, and Trigger in Sitecore Content Hub . Step 2: Create an Action and choose the above script. Step 3: Create a Trigger and choose the execution type as “In process”. Select the condition using the respective ...

In continuation of utilizing to Sitecore Content Hub feature, one of our requirements was to embed the Brightcove video in Content. To integrate video in Sitecore Content Hub, the Content Hub Rich Text editor named the CKEditor provides functionality to upload the video to Content Hub and insert the video using the following button. Content Hub utilizes CK editor to edit the HTML content. After further analysis, I found that CKEditor tool only supports certain media providers, such as YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, and Spotify. It will not work with custom video links. More information is available here:  Media providers Unfortunately, we do not have any OOTB option to embed the Bright Cove video URL in Content. To work around that I decided that I would embed the video URL using <iframe> tag into the content or other HTML runtime on the save button click. Step 1: Create a new field in the Content Hub to allow the author to enter the video...