August London Sitecore User Group at Sagittarius

August London Sitecore User Group at Sagittarius

It was a pleasure to welcome the London Sitecore community once again to Sagittarius HQ here in Shoreditch for another catch-up, this time focusing on XM Cloud implementation and Content Hub.

I was delighted to speak at the event myself, along with the wonderful Dan Vella from Sitecore and Peter Clisby from SoftServe. The evening was MC’d by Remarkable Group CEO, Nick Towers.

Topics below!

XM Cloud: An Implementor’s Perspective – Robert McGovern, Sitecore Optimisation Consultant at Sagittarius

  • A high-level look at some of our main learnings and takeaways from working on XM Cloud implementations over the last couple of years.

Critical lessons learned from XM Cloud implementations – Dan Vella, Director of Professional Services at Sitecore

  • An overview of common challenges and solutions encountered in past projects
  • Proven strategies and methodologies to ensure successful XM Cloud deployments though Sitecore’s Best Practices
  • Extended Q&A and discussion session – How to plan an XM Cloud implementation?

Content Hub: Features for Marketers – Peter Clisby, Sitecore Architect at SoftServe

  • An outline of some of the features that enable marketers through the content life-cycle.
  • Peter will share his own journey understanding the use case for DAM, CMP, and other Content Operations modules, exhibiting functionality which impressed someone whose Sitecore Developer eyes saw it as a fancy media library.
Posted by Robert in Sitecore Events & Announcements, Speaking, 0 comments

What’s New in Sitecore XP 10.4?

As new Sitecore CEO Dave O’Flanagan said at SUGCON Europe last month, “XP is going nowhere”. In addition to the literal hundreds of updates that go live with XM Cloud in the background without the need for a platform upgrade (you can keep track of them at this link – you’re welcome!), XP is certainly not being left out with the launch of Sitecore XP 10.4 this week.

We’ve had to wait a bit longer than usual for this update (10.3 was released in December 2022) but it’s well worth the wait. Here are some of the highlights from the 200 updates that are coming with 10.4 (you can check out the full list here in the Release Notes).

Personalisation improvements

Along with the future-facing migration and integration tool updates, there are a bunch of new features that will help you create value straight away, specifically when it comes to personalisation. You will now be able to personalise more effectively by targeting specific audiences with custom languages, which is great for global companies targeting across different geographical locations. There’s also more intuitive customisation of visitor data tracking and targeting which can help marketers create personalised experiences based on behaviour, preferences, and demographics without the need for developer involvement.

Along with the above, there is the added ability to trigger campaigns or goals based on rules, which is great if you want to display content from a campaign only when certain pages have been visited. According to Sitecore, it’ll be easier to add new facets for segmentation, personalisation, analytics, and marketing automation too.

Easier composability

The integration updates in 10.4 will let clients connect XP more effectively into their composable marketing stack and more easily sync XP analytics data with third party CRM, CDP, marketing automation tools, and other marketing systems. Expanded integration with Sitecore Connect gives clients the ability to connect their XP instance with over 1,000 martech solutions.

XM to XM Cloud Migration Tool

This has been somewhat of a bugbear for clients who have been migrating to XM Cloud from XM / XP so far, so it’s great to see the addition of a tool to help with migrating content, media, and users from a source XM instance to an XM Cloud environment. According to Sitecore, this tool “provides an aid for the routine and sometimes recurring back-end migrations, so our customers/partners can focus on migrating and developing new front-end sites”. For clients who might not be ready to migrate to XM Cloud just yet, this gives them peace of mind that it will be easier to do so from 10.4 in the future if they so wish.

xDB to CDP Migration Tool

Similar to the above, for clients looking to take advantage of some of the recent suite of composable tools, this will make it easier to migrate your xDB data to CDP. According to Sitecore, this tool can be used for “transferring site visitor contact facets to Sitecore’s CDP and Personalize products, and also via Sitecore Connect to external systems”. This will let you use ready-to-go connectors to combine Sitecore xDB data with other data sets to enrich the migration and gain deeper insights by exporting and combining faceted contact data in Power BI.

Looking toward the future

The above only scratches the surface of course, but it’s some of the main highlights that jumped out to us. You can check out the full list of feature updates here. Mainstream support will be available until the end of 2027 and extended support will be available until the end of 2030 which offers peace of mind to clients that are considering upgrading from an older version of XP to 10.4.

If you’re thinking about moving to XP 10.4, or even if you’re weighing up the benefits of moving to XM Cloud, get in touch with us and we’ll help you make the decision.

Posted by Robert in Sitecore Tools, 0 comments
My Highlights from SUGCON Europe 2024

My Highlights from SUGCON Europe 2024

It was a real thrill to welcome the Sitecore community to my home town of Dublin last week for this year’s SUGCON Europe, and it proved to be an incredibly interesting couple of days hearing from the Sitecore team and Partners from around the world, not just Europe.

Not only did I get to attend my first SUGCON Europe, but I gave a talk on the major elements and functionality of XM Cloud. Hopefully the first of many.

Over the two days there was lots of talk about XM Cloud, of course. And lots of talk about Ai, which is also not a surprise, but this was not just fluffy, hyperbolic chatter that tends to flood LinkedIn. But some very practical and actionable real world examples. Along with some sneak peeks at upcoming functionality.

Here are some of my highlights.

DAY 1

Dave O’ Flanagan, Sitecore CEO

It was pretty special for Dave O’Flanagan’s first public appearance as Sitecore CEO to be in his home town of Dublin (snap, Dave!). Referencing his new role, Dave highlighted Sitecore’s renewed focus on the product, made apparent by the board’s decision to put a ‘product guy’ in charge. And while XM Cloud is definitely the future, Sitecore XP is going nowhere.

There was a great analogy of the monolithic versus composable approach being compared to the battle between fossil fuel cars and electric vehicles, i.e. there are a lot of people moving to EVs, and they will ultimately be the future, but many people still like their current internal combustion engine motor, and that’s OK too.

Dave also teased some of the upcoming A/B testing features coming directly to XM Cloud, which is some very welcome functionality.

Roger Connolly, Sitecore Chief Product Officer

With Dave taking the big job, Roger has moved up to CPO and, as part of the keynote, he gave us a fantastic run-through of some of the AI capabilities coming to XM Cloud, such as being able to import your brand guidelines and getting suggestions for everything from page layouts and components, to personalisation and testing ideas. This stuff genuinely looks really impressive.

Pieter Brinkman, Sitecore VP Product Marketing & Developer Relations

We were also treated to a barnstorming demo from Pieter on how easy it is to build and connect Forms in XM Cloud. In the space of a few minutes, Pieter built out a basic landing page, a Form, created a web hook using Sitecore Connect (with some help from OpenAI), set up an Email List in Sitecore Send, and set up a Campaign to send to subscribers. There was a competition with a Wheel of Fortune and some prizes to keep the audience engaged. I didn’t win the Sitecore-branded hammock though, but we won’t talk about that.

Timothy Marsh (EPAM Solution Architect) and Beatrice Bobillon (Sitecore Customer Success EMEA)

Any successful project is built on a foundation of collaboration. Without the right people, doing the right things, and being able to work together, a project can be doomed.

Tim and Beatrice talked us through how a CSM, a Partner, and a PTA – the “trifecta of a successful project” of the session title — can work together to deliver success. 

  • CSM – Retention and Customer Adoption
  • Partner – Project implementation and project management
  • PTA – Assist the Partner with technical advise

Vaishali Dialani, Konabos Senior Customer Experience Strategist

Vaishali kept the momentum of the afternoon going with a high-energy look at the importance of customer experience on brand perception and how you can use relevant content to continuously improve the customer experience with personalisation. 

Rick Bauer (Sitecore Global Director of Customer Transformation) and Corey Smith (Corey Smith Consulting)

Finishing up Day 1 in the Marketing Breakout room, Rick and Corey had the audience in their pocket with some real world, tried-and-tested advice for how to use ChatGPT to create campaign content via Content Hub Operations, with lots of practical tips on what to do, and just as importantly, what not to do. As impressive as this was, the caveat that was hammered home throughout the talk was that AI-generated content should only be used for a first draft, and that a human touch is always needed to take things to the next level.

DAY 2 

Jacqueline Baxter, Sitecore Director of Experience Design & Content Strategy

Sitecore content guru Jackie (and her haunted laptop) took us on a journey of how modular content can be used across pages and channels to improve content engagement, while also making it more efficient on the brand side. Lots of useful advice, including how important it is to audit your content every now and then, even if it is a pain. As Jackie says, “If Rome can build a Metro, you can do a content audit”.

Sarah O’Reilly, Sitecore Sales Engineering Team Lead

I’ve been to Sarah’s demos before, and this one was as good as ever. In the space of a 15-minute lightning talk, Sarah took us through how Sitecore Personalize and CDP can be used to personalise content based on Audience using custom conditions, how to personalise on a one-to-one level using decision models, as well as what the new A/B testing features of XM Cloud can do. Brilliant stuff.

Anna Pokorna, ACTUM Digital Key Account Manager

Anna took us through two really interesting real world examples of using AI in an automatic translation tool integrated with Sitecore Content Hub, as well as a cool chatbot that substituted for the search function of an XP website.

Megan Mueller Jensen, Portfolio Specialist at Perficient

Megan had the room in the palm of her hand with some really practical SEO tips for a Headless world, including using canonicals for components used on multiple pages and schema tags for things like product specs so that search engines know what’s what. Megan also showed us things like Google’s Search Labs tool and graced us with some pearls of wisdom like “One of the most important things you can do is make your client feel smart”.

Chris Purcell (Sitecore Senior Product Marketing Manager), Surya Shanmugam (Sitecore Product Marketer) and Sana Kamalmaz (Kajoo Director of Digital Strategy)

Chris and Surya took us through some of the new AI features coming to XM Cloud, building on what Roger Connolly had teased the day before. We were also treated to a really impressive demo from Sana Kamalmaz of Kajoo’s visual development platform, and in particular, their XM Cloud migration tool which can even import from Figma. Some incredibly useful functionality is coming down the track.

Emanuel Popescu (Platform Lead, Zurich) and Katharina Luger (Sitecore Solution Architect)

Zurich Insurance Group has a LOT of websites, so migrating from XP to XM Cloud is a truly gargantuan task. Emanuel and Katharina presented an impressive case study on how Zurich went about this, the challenges they faced, and the lessons they learned. 

— — — — — 

Overall, it was an incredible few days, with some brilliant content from the Sitecore team and Partners. Great things having been done. And some great things coming down the track.

Posted by Robert in Sitecore Events & Announcements
Three in a row Sitecore Strategy MVP

Three in a row Sitecore Strategy MVP

I’m absolutely delighted to make it 3 years in a row as a Sitecore Strategy MVP!

Especially so being able to share it with my fellow Sagittarius and Remarkable Group colleagues, Ian MacArthur, Christine Bookless, Issy Stephen, and Shahla Matar.

Really excited to get stuck into some of the new features and tools over the next year!

Posted by Robert in Sitecore Events & Announcements
Forms come to Sitecore XM Cloud

Forms come to Sitecore XM Cloud

I wrote this article for the Sagittarius blog.

Forms are one of those fundamental parts of a website that let your customers do things like get in touch with you, sign-up to your newsletter, book an appointment, register for an event, the list goes on. They’re an integral part of your marketing tool kit, regardless of whether you use a standalone tool or a one built into your DXP or CRM etc.

However, if you are a Sitecore customer, ever since XM Cloud came roaring onto the scene in 2022, there has been a Forms-shaped hole missing in the platform. For some clients migrating from Sitecore XP to XM Cloud, this has proven to be somewhat of a bugbear.

While such a feature has been teased for a few months, Forms in XM Cloud was finally launched last week.

Here’s what you need to know.

  • The new Forms tool on XM Cloud lets you design and create forms which you can then add to your website in XM Cloud using Pages, Components, or Experience Editor.​
  • An intuitive, drag & drop form builder lets you quickly create any form and include features like field validation, conditional logic, and multi-page experiences.
  • You can personalise forms for individual users based on preferences and behaviours.
  • Export your form data for analysis or trigger journeys in other platforms based on events like when a member joins your email list.
  • XM Cloud Forms works with any web front-end regardless of whether it’s powered by Sitecore or another CMS, so it’s incredibly versatile.
  • You can also use Forms to send data to third-party systems using easily configurable webhooks.

While this is the first iteration of the tool and it may have some limitations, all-in-all, it looks like XM Cloud Forms is going to provide a lot of value to XM Cloud customers and it’s a very welcome addition to the broader Sitecore toolset.

How to access it

If, like us, you’re eager to get in and have a play around with the new feature, you can access it from your XM Cloud dashboard under the Build section (below).

If you’re familiar with using Sitecore Send, the Forms dashboard should seem relatively familiar to you:

  • The left-panel is used for managing Layouts, individual form Items, and Styling.
  • The elements of your Form sit in the middle and you can simply drag-and-drop the Items into the centre from the left panel.
  • The right-panel is for managing the Settings of whatever Item you have selected at any given moment.

If you would like to explore your options with upgrading your tech stack to XM Cloud, or indeed making the move to Sitecore from another platform, Sagittarius can help you on the way. Get in touch with us today and we’ll help you on your journey.

Posted by Robert in Sitecore Tools
Featured in the Best of 2023 Sitecore content

Featured in the Best of 2023 Sitecore content

I was delighted to feature in Jonathan Corely’s roundup of the best Sitecore Marketing and Digital Experience content of 2023 along with my fellow Sagittarians James Gray and Issy Stephen.

We had a serious output of Sitecore-specific content in 2023 at Sagittarius and the content that made it onto Jonathan’s list covers a broad spectrum ranging from Sitecore Send (myself), Sitecore XM Cloud (Issy) and Artificial Intelligence (James).

Read the full list here: Best of 2023: Top 20 Assets for Sitecore Marketers and Digital Experience Strategists.

Posted by Robert in Sitecore Events & Announcements

What is XM Cloud Plus?

Sitecore DX in Minneapolis last month was an exciting affair, not just because it filled the gap where the annual Sitecore Symposium gathering would usually take place, but also because it was where Sitecore launched XM Cloud Plus and Sitecore Accelerate.

As Sitecore continues to enlarge its SaaS offering we’re seeing new and expanded cloud products and tools coming to market such as Sitecore Search, Content Hub ONE, and Sitecore Connect over the last twelve months.

But with XM Cloud essentially being the Hero product in the portfolio, taking over the mantle from Sitecore Experience Platform (XP), what actually is XM Cloud Plus?

Well, as the name might suggest, it is essentially a beefed-up version of XM Cloud with a bunch of added features and capabilities that make it even more useful to clients, enabling them to deliver experiences that convert to their own customers.

XM Cloud Plus includes XM Cloud (obviously) but adds built-in site search, AI-powered personalization, omnichannel content channels, comprehensive analytics as well as seamless integration and connectivity:

  • AI-powered Search features enable intelligent search recommendations and access to an extensive array of personalisation development tools enables omnichannel personalisation targeting (utilising features associated with Sitecore Search and Sitecore Personalize).
  • An omnichannel content centre lets teams manage all their digital customer touchpoints from a single content repository that ensures streamlined workflows and brand consistency across channels (utilising features associated with Connect Hub ONE).
  • Seamless integrations and connectivity features offer easy implementation within an existing tech stack to create connected customer experiences across channels (utilising features associated with Sitecore Connect).
  • A drag-and-drop Form builder provides customers with an easy way to add data capture forms to their pages and components.

Think of XM Cloud Plus as a more direct upgrade to Sitecore XP as opposed to the more streamlined standalone XM Cloud. As Sitecore say themselves:

“XM Cloud Plus is designed to answer the needs of Sitecore XP customers who have enjoyed a powerful solution in a single product and are ready to make their transition to the cloud, and for brands that want to leverage a composable technology stack but use a proven product combination to simplify deployment and accelerate time to value.”

We’ve seen this ourselves from some clients that are currently on Sitecore XP and considering a future upgrade to XM Cloud but with the standalone version not quite offering feature parity with what they currently had.

This is a smart move from Sitecore and we think that XM Cloud Plus will come to be the Hero product that most clients will adopt over the next few years.

If you would like to explore your options with upgrading your tech stack to XM Cloud Plus, or indeed making the move to Sitecore from another platform, Sagittarius can help you on the way. Get in touch with us today and we’ll help you on your journey.

This article appears on the Sagittarius blog.

Posted by Robert in Sitecore Tools
Sagittarius welcomed the UK Sitecore User Group community for last night’s event

Sagittarius welcomed the UK Sitecore User Group community for last night’s event

It was fantastic to welcome the UK Sitecore User Group community to our new(ish) London office in Shoreditch last night for the lastest SUG UK meet-up featuring some fantastic talks from the below Sitecore gurus:

  • ‘Sitecore Content Search: Building a frontend for Sitecore Search results’ – Sean Carter, Head of Sitecore Development at Sagittarius
  • ‘Streaming Seamlessly: Integrating Content Hub with your existing video streaming platform’ – Julius Angwenyi, Sitecore Architect at Avanade
  • ‘From JSS to Headless SXA’ – Alex Washtell, Freelance Sitecore Consultant at Kasaku
Posted by Robert in Sitecore Events & Announcements

Everything you need to know before getting started with Sitecore Send – Part 2

In Part One of ‘Everything you need to know before getting started with Sitecore Send,’ we laid the foundation for harnessing the power of Sitecore Send in your email marketing endeavours, exploring Sitecore Send’s Email Lists and Campaigns. Let’s continue our journey by delving into Sitecore Send’s email marketing automation and analytics with Segments, Forms, Automation, Reports, and Integrations.

Read the full article on the Sagittarius blog at this link.

Posted by Robert in Sitecore Tools