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Best Practices for

Sitecore CMS
May, 2009

Author: Gaurav Bhatt, Technical Project Manager


Best Practices for
Sitecore CMS
Table of Contents

Executive Summary 3
1.0 Sitecore CMS Structure 4
1.1 Templates 4
1.1.1 Template Inheritance 5
1.1.2 Template Types 5
1.2 Backups 6
1.3 Media Elements 6
1.4 Content Trees 7
1.5 CMS from a Content Editor’s (Author’s) Perspective 8
1.5.1 Insert Options 8
1.6 Managing Workflows 9
1.7 Content Sharing 9
1.8 Content Archiving 11
2.0 Use of Sitecore Modules 11
2.1 SharePoint Connector Module 12
2.2 SEO Module 12
2.3 Forum Module 13
2.4 Newsletter Module 14
3.0 QA for Content Authors 15
4.0 Security 15
5.0 Content Approval and Publishing 16
About Oshyn 17
About Author 17
Executive Summary
Sitecore CMS is an extensive Web Content Management (WCM) platform for
the mid-market. It offers reduced IT expenditures, a streamlined content
lifecycle, and a return of content control to the subject matter experts. The
newest incarnation of Sitecore CMS version 6.0 is a mature product that
incorporates standard social media components such as wikis, blogs, RSS
syndication and “e-mail a friend” features.
Based on standard .NET technologies, Sitecore offers customers a seemingly
clear path to implementation. Though, like any other project implementation,
there is careful planning required. And only by planning carefully, you’re able to
execute to perfection. Every Sitecore implementation requires you to outline
the basic features and then create templates and components based on these
features. Oshyn has deep experience with implementing many content
management systems for various clients. This experience allows us to
understand the overall business goals and consequently create meaningful,
user-centric features that will help organizations achieve those goals. We
understand the key decisions that must be made prior to implementation and
have some valuable tips that will ensure your business and technical users
continued to have a positive and productive experience with the Sitecore
content management system. This whitepaper demonstrates some of the best
practices when implementing a Sitecore content management system
compiled from years of successful client implementations. These best
practices will help decrease the complexity of maintenance and increase the
ease of use, as your site grows and your business requirements change
1.0 Sitecore CMS Structure
All content in Sitecore is organized in the Content Tree, and all content items
are derived from a defined template structure. This ensures that the tree and
templates are well organized; provide flexibility for growth and promoting
usability for a successful implementation.
As a general guideline, you should follow the following steps:
 Template inheritance should be carefully used but fully taken advantage
of. You should be able to distinguish between page and non-page
content.
 Media elements must be stored on the file system or in an external
database.
 Avoid storing large amounts of data in Sitecore databases. An external
database should be used for storing large amounts of information.
 Perform periodic backups of data on an external drive.
 Developers should create well-defined Content trees and limit the number
of items in Content trees.
 Field orders and filed names should be appropriately defined. This makes
the CMS more user-friendly.

1.1 Templates
The template structures defined in your Sitecore project can greatly impact the
usability and long-term flexibility of your Sitecore implementation. The total
number of templates can easily get out of control unless time is taken to
design the system correctly. This results in a cluttered system with
unmanageable components. Oshyn suggests keeping the number of templates
as low as possible, between five and ten, and template structures as simple as
possible. Here is a screenshot of the template structure, created for one of our
complex websites. Notice the naming convention and the total number of
templates.

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