The Aware Blog

Modal Windows and Sitecore - How to Give Content Authors More Flexibility

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:14:00 -0500

Some time ago, one of our clients expressed a need to use modal dialogs to display biographical information about the members of their governance committee. The expected end result was to produce a modal dialog (a kind of pseudo-popup, often referred to as a “lightbox”) whenever certain links are clicked. The dialog needed to display text in the title bar and rich text content in the dialog window’s body.

Sitecore DMS Demystified - 6 Must Have Marketing Features

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:28:00 -0500

Sitecore CEP, or Consumer Engagement Platform for the uninitiated, is the combination of Sitecore’s award winning Content Management System with their new Digital Marketing System (DMS). When used together, the two tools provide online marketers with a 360-degree view of a web visitor’s experience. The amazing new capabilities help to create a deeper level of user engagement to improve your understanding of your customers'. Tracking how that increased engagement impacts site performance will lead to better conversion rates thereby creating more value for your organization.

Customizing Sitecore’s Hyperlink Manager to Track “OnClick” Events

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:07:00 -0500

I was reviewing some code for a past client with a colleague of mine recently, and they became very excited about one particular feature. We had customized the Hyperlink Manager so that it would automatically include a Google Analytics tracking event when the link was rendered – allowing the client to maintain an extensive analytics store when transferring to a Sitecore-based site.

Sitecore Names Three “Awarians” to the 2011 Sitecore Most Valuable Professional (MVP) List

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 13:38:00 -0500

Aware is proud to announce Eric Nordberg (Solution Architect), Jason Hedlund (VP of Technology) and Ben Golden (Solution Architect) have been selected and honored with a Sitecore Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award. MVP nominees are evaluated by a special Sitecore panel for their technical expertise and voluntary community involvement in the areas of general technical advocacy, input via blogs and forums and content development over the past year. Aware received three out of the fifty-two MVPs named for 2011.

Ask Better Questions to Hire the Best Sitecore Partner

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:30:00 -0500

It can be a challenge. You’re about to begin a new project implementing Sitecore CMS and you’re interviewing potential Sitecore certified partners to help you.

So, where do you begin? How can you quickly cut through the sales speak, slick presentations and endless promises to arrive at the right partner for you and your unique project?

6 Ways to Optimize Your Sitecore Experience Today

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:55:00 -0500

Just beginning to plan a project using Sitecore? Already completed a Sitecore implementation? Ready to leverage Sitecore’s more advanced tool set (DMS)?

No matter what stage you’re in, there are ways to optimize your Sitecore experience.

Aware Awarded Site of The Year by Sitecore

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:30:00 -0500

Aware’s client, Ripon Athletic RiponAthletic.com, is named Sitecore’s North American Site of the Year for “Best Retail, Wholesale and Consumer Site”.

Sitecore Awards Aware Expert Level Certification in All Four Partner Specialization Categories

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:23:00 -0500

Aware is proud to announce certification in all four categories of the Sitecore Partner Specializations program.

Sitecore Hosting Architecture Considerations – How to determine the environment that best suits your needs - An interview with Eric Nordberg.

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:15:00 -0600

I recently sat down with Eric Nordberg, one of Aware’s Solution Architects. Eric wrote a blog post for us titled, “Sitecore Hosting Architecture Considerations.”

Sitecore Hosting Architecture Considerations – Consider the “why” and not just the “how.” - An interview with Eric Nordberg.

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:06:00 -0600

I recently sat down with Eric Nordberg, one of Aware’s Solution Architects. Eric wrote a blog post for us titled, “Sitecore Hosting Architecture Considerations.” This post has been well received and has consistently been one of our most popular posts on AwareWeb.com.

Congratulations to Lunds and Byerly’s

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:14:00 -0500

Congratulations to our long-term client partner, Lunds and Byerly’s on the grand re-opening of your all-new Byerly’s Ridgedale grocery store in Minnetonka, MN!

Customizing Sitecore’s Rich Text Editor Dialogs [video interview]

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:23:00 -0500

One of my cohorts recently posed a great question: How hard would it be to customize the hyperlink manager dialog in Sitecore’s rich text editor? While there is a well established protocol for creating a completely custom dialog, customizing one of the built-in dialogs was not something I had seen before. Of course, I couldn’t let the question go unanswered.

SaaS vs. Cloud

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:22:00 -0500

SaaS-man, meet your nemesis, Mr. Cloud

If these two were comic book superheroes, Mr. Cloud would have his heel on SaaS-man’s throat while covering poor SaaS-man in kryptonite.

Web Globalization Strategy. It’s more than just speaking the language [Video Interview]

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:00:00 -0500

There’s a lot of talk about web globalization these days. And rightly so. Doing business on a global scale is a real part of today’s worldwide economy, thanks in no small part to the ever spreading reach of the Internet.

Nine Strategic Web Globalization Considerations [Video Interview]

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:53:00 -0500

If you want some guidance on how to implement a globalization solution based on sound strategy and planning, this post is for you.

Ceremonial Groundbreaking Downtown

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:47:00 -0500

Congratulations Lunds and Byerly’s on the construction of your newest grocery store in downtown Minneapolis!

Should You Change Your Top Level Domain Strategy?

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 13:54:00 -0500

A generic Top Level Domain or gTLD is an internet extension such as .com or .edu. There are currently about 25 gTLDs in use today but with the expansion of the new program there could be an endless number of gTLD.

MIMA Event Recap – Mobile Relationship Management

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:55:00 -0500

MIMA (Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association) does a great job of hosting breakfast events with smart speakers on timely, relevant topics. With mobile getting as much buzz as it has, it was great to hear Julie Roth Novack of Vibes speak on integrating mobile marketing into existing mobile channels.

Four Considerations When Building a Mobile Strategy [Video Interview]

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:38:00 -0500

At this point in its maturity it is fair to say mobile use is an accepted and popular form of computing. Mobile may continue to change and mature as technology continues to advance but it is a preferred way of performing what used to be considered desktop computer-only tasks. The growth of the Android platform and the popularity of Apple’s iPhone have made mobile activities a need and not just a novelty. Many of our clients are aware of the growing need for a mobile-friendly site but are unsure where to start and how to plan for what seems to be a moving target.

Online Marketers, Time to Get Ready for EU Privacy Directive

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:51:00 -0500

On May 25, 2011, Directive 2009/136/EC, an amendment to a similar 2002 privacy directive, went into effect in the European Unions, requiring websites to seek permission from website users to place cookies on their browser.

Selecting the Best CMS Today - 5 Key Takeaways from the Online Marketing Summit [Video Interview]

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 11:50:00 -0500

Aware’s own Jeremy Ziegler (Chairman/CEO) and Deb Francis (VP of Client Engagement) recently presented at the Online Marketing Summit. Here are five key takeaways in case you missed it.

Profile Specific Style Sheets

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:31:00 -0500

When creating content within Sitecore, or any CMS for that matter, you would like to view the content exactly how it will appear on the live site. Sitecore allows you to specify a CSS file to load into the RadEditor. This lets you view the styles in Design mode as they would appear on the published site and also populates the Apply CSS Class dropdown list with available CSS classes. Unfortunately, the standard behavior only allows a single style sheet and any class defined within it will be made available in the class dropdown. Often times this is less than ideal. Frequently, certain pages or elements of a page have special style rules that are not shared across the whole site. In this post we will show how to extend Sitecore to allow you to specify a style sheet and the classes available in the Class dropdown as part of the editor profile.

Designing for Content Management Systems-Part 2

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:35:00 -0500

This is the second half of a two-part series about designing for content management systems. The first half, which focuses on Flexibility and Manageability, can be read here.

Designing for Content Management Systems Part 1

Mon, 06 Jun 2011 09:48:00 -0500

Part 1: Flexibility and Manageability
Today's robust content management systems can handle the implementation of even the most complicated website designs with very few restrictions, but that doesn't mean designers should feel free to go hog-wild, designing and coding with utter abandon.

In addition to the typical things a modern web designer must consider with each project (such as usability, information architecture, functionality, user experience, and basic aesthetic principles), we also need to focus on optimizing our designs and code for the following interrelated considerations when designing for implementation into a CMS system:

Are You Still Not Listening? How to Get Up to Speed in the Social World

Mon, 16 May 2011 11:33:00 -0500

If you’ve considered incorporating social media into your overall marketing strategy, but just haven’t quite pulled the trigger, listen up. The world (and most importantly, your competitors) is passing you by. For every moment that you stand on the social media sidelines, they are taking full advantage of the benefits you are not.

Using Stakeholder Interviews to Create a Winning IA

Mon, 09 May 2011 10:51:00 -0500

For most companies, the website is a constantly-evolving tool serving multiple audiences and supporting a variety of internal initiatives. This complexity can make the development of an information architecture challenging when so many groups have a seat at the table. In these situations, stakeholder interviews during a redesign project discovery phase can go a long way towards helping the strategy and design teams better understand the overall goals of the project while creating buy-in and alignment within the client’s organization.

Sitecore Multilingual Solution Considerations

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:18:00 -0500

At Dreamcore North America 2011, I attended a presentation by Alex Shyba titled "Building Successful and Efficient Multilingual Solutions with Sitecore". Overall, the presentation was great and Alex is to be commended for the topics he highlighted. About 1/4 (or 1 div 4 for you xsl gurus) of the way into the presentation Alex started mentioning architecture and strategy considerations and I couldn't help but notice a number of nodding heads and "light bulb" moments around the room. As Alex alluded, an effective multilingual strategy is not as simple as turning a key (nor should it be). Consequently, my goal with this post is to outline a number of key considerations you may need to address when implementing a multilingual solution.

Sitecore Rules Engine - Managing Top Level Navigation Inclusion

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:02:00 -0500

At Dreamcore North America, I was excited to see how Sitecore is applying the Rules Engine to introduce conditional logic. Specifically, they demoed it in combination with DMS (digital marketing system – aka OMS v2) to handle personalization. This was ridiculously easy in the Sitecore 6.5 Page Editor. Also, it was used for mobile browser detection in the Mobile Device Detector shared source module.

Insights on Sitecore 6-5 previewed at Dreamcore

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:52:00 -0500

Wow, what a great couple of days at Sitecore’s Dreamcore 2011 in Boston, where many great topics were discussed, new features were unveiled and great conversations were had. As Deb alluded to in a previous post, Sitecore’s new Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) will take how you interact with your site visitors to a whole new level. There are some very exciting things on the horizon!

Sitecore Announces Its Customer Engagement Platform at Dreamcore

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:42:00 -0500

Digital intimacy – A True Attempt at Managing the Customer Experience

Michael Seifert , Co-Founder and CEO of Sitecore, kicked off today’s Dreamcore conference with the announcement of Sitecore’s next generation platform, the Customer Engagement Platform, this morning during Dreamcore’s keynote address. Michael says “This is the beginning of a journey down the road of digital intimacy”. The platform is an attempt to truly bridge the gap between the online and offline customer. The fully baked platform promises to remove the complex technology barriers that exist today through traditionally disconnected systems.

Aware knew of the pending launch and was afforded a sneak peek at the platform weeks back during technical preview. The announcement gave way to a day chock-full of sessions centered around the next generation release and with it; a few new acronyms were born.

So, let’s break it down.

Sitecore Hosting Architecture Considerations

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:17:00 -0500

There are many considerations when planning a Sitecore hosting architecture. In this post, we will discuss the key concepts behind planning and creating an effective and scalable Sitecore environment.

Meet the Aware Team at Dreamcore 2011

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:18:00 -0500

Aware is excited to have a team of consultants attend Dreamcore this year including several Sitecore solution architects and two Sitecore MVP's. If you would like to meet with anyone from Aware Web Solutions while at Dreamcore, let us know. Contact us, or call (877) 214-5690. We would be happy to discuss your project and share our experience.

Aware Co-Founder to Present at Dreamcore

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:03:00 -0500

Jeremy Ziegler will co-present with Sitecore’s Suzy McKee in a Dreamcore session titled “Partner First Look: From Online Marketing to Customer Engagement with the Newest Sitecore Release”. Jeremy will share thoughts on Sitecore’s latest release of new Online Marketing Suite features including tips and tricks for implementation. Dreamcore is a Sitecore Partner and Development Conference held in Boston, MA April 19-20.

Integrating External Data Using Sitecore Wildcard Items and Temporary Items

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:46:00 -0500

A recent Sitecore implementation required the retrieval and display of knowledge base articles from a 3rd party vendor. In another word: (pause for dramatic effect) Integration. An innocuous word in and of itself, but with seemingly infinite definitions and a complexity belying it's singularity. Fortunately, there are a number of avenues available to Sitecore developers when determining the best approach for weaving external data into the fabric of a website. Depending on requirements, you may find yourself using data providers, custom item editors, wildcard items, data importing, magic or some other technique.

TL;DR: Tips for Writing Web Content

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:30:00 -0600

TL;DR is a sarcastic internet acronym for "too long; didn't read," generally used to lambast loquacious bloggers and opinionated web-forum trolls. But it's also a mantra that should be chanted with each paragraph of web content you write.

An average user will read only about 20% of the words on any given page, randomly culling these words as they hastily scan their eyes across your site. So here are some tips to help format your content in a way to make your users get the most out of their impatient scanning.

Aware Awarded 2nd MVP

Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:39:00 -0600

It's official. Aware is proud to announce our 2nd Sitecore Most Valuable Professional (MVP) designation. Congratulations Adam!

Experiencing Web Globalization by Traveling Abroad

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 13:42:00 -0600

On a recent trip to Italy, I was a bit surprised by some globalization usability issues I ran into while trying to navigate web sites and applications as a foreign visitor. But before we get to all of that, a little background first.

I’m a bit passionate about web globalization. I began being stirred by global issues like poverty and the environment more than 20 years ago as a late teen – right around the time I was really getting into technology and software in my college coursework. My eyes were opened through several different events to how vast and diverse our world really is. Those interests along with a few international experiences have collided with my decade-plus long career in the web and resulted in a strong personal concentration in web globalization, or as I like to think of it, web usability on a global scale.

Fast forward to Italy. It’s fair to say that I felt pretty confident in my web-user abilities before embarking on the trip. While there, I was accessing various Wi-Fi hotspots using my notebook and all was going just fine for a few days. Then I became a victim of geolocation coupled with poor global navigation.

eCommerce/WCM Integration - What are your options?

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 09:48:00 -0600

We often receive requests from clients or prospects who are weighing their options for providing eCommerce capabilities on their WCM managed website. While this can be a daunting task, we usually present a few options to help determine which solution best fits their need. A few initial questions can help drive the conversation:

Will eCommerce functionality be an integral part of your website?
Is the main purpose of your website to sell products, to tell your story or drive traffic to your brick and mortar store?
Will you be looking for a single interface for content entry, including managing your products and managing fulfillment?
How can you leverage your ERP system to be the source record for your products?
How can you tie your customer record back to your CRM to continue to build that relationship?

Once these questions have been answered, we begin to look at three possible scenarios:

Sitecore and SEO – Seven Low Cost, Quick and Must Do Tasks

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:47:00 -0600

There’s a plethora of so called experts blogging, tweeting and chatting on everything web from soup to nuts. I have a select few experts that I loyally follow, however, and one such person is Jill Whalen, a true SEO expert.

I’ve been a loyal subscriber and reader of her SEO newsletter, High Rankings Advisor, for over seven years. The only subscription I’ve held onto longer is my local newspaper. I can’t seem to shake the paper version just yet, plus its make good fire starter. Jill has practical, no nonsense and a good old fashioned approach to SEO. She’s witty and her newsletter is a fun read.

Interoperability and Platforms vs. Products

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 07:42:00 -0500

Analyzing the WCM Analysts

Great new updates from WCM analysts have come out lately and Aware is always in large agreement with many of the assessments and quizzical at others. There is a ton of great information that can be gleaned from the Gartner Magic Quadrant (get a free copy here). CMS Watch (now called Real Story Group) has recently posted a new Quadrant-like graph here in addition to their extensive report on all major WCMS tools.

Sitecore Data Access – Some Extension Methods

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:58:00 -0500

Recently, I had a client that did not wish to use the Page Editing controls provided by Sitecore. They were only interested in the Content Editor. This greatly simplified our data access needs. We were able to grab field data and not worry about field names, etc…

Once field render controls were not needed, our CMS access scenarios were VERY simple and VERY repetitive (for example, getting the value of text field X). To meet this need, we created a set of simple extension methods.

Thoughts on Adobe acquiring Day CMS

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:22:00 -0500

Big announcement today in the CMS world that Adobe has bought Day for $240 million. A significant acquisition on a lot of fronts. Adobe’s enterprise suite now consists of Day, Omniture and LiveCycle. The Alfresco/Livesite piece may be marginalized over time by this acquisition. The Day - Omniture marriage is a pretty attractive option for enterprise Web sites assuming that there is even minimal effort to marry these tools over time. The press releases all mention Flash and the other Adobe desktop software, but those seem like a smaller part of the story vs. the Day, Omniture and LiveCycle suite.

Sitecore Advanced Topics – An Example Configuration Plan

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:20:00 -0500

There are some configuration concepts for Sitecore that require some planning. This is especially true for larger environments.

Below are parts of the planning document we created for a recent client. The site being considered here is characterized by the following: staged environments (development, QA, production), multiple content delivery servers in QA and production, a large content authoring team, all running Sitecore 6.1.

An early version of this plan was discussed with a contact in Sitecore USA. His feedback has been applied to this document. Sitecore was very helpful, even providing code samples for some of our needs.

Aware Web Solutions Featured In Star Tribune

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:23:00 -0500

Aware Web Solutions is featured on the front page of Monday July 12 Star Tribune Business section. Aware’s approach to empower its clients and steady focus on implementing content management systems seems to be paying off. Read more about how Aware continues to grow despite the economic downturn. The complete article can be found here - Aware Web Solutions Featured In Star Tribune Business Section.

Sitecore Massive - Should we wait?

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:07:00 -0500

After attending the Sitecore roadmap session in Boston a few weeks back, I've been wondering if we should recommend to our clients whether they should wait until the new version comes out? There are many exciting new possibilities that the new software provides. Mainly, these include unstructured content and lots of it. Along with faster database performance, and we've suddenly got a CMS that can truly scale to the largest of sites, yet have all the modern day features that most of the CMS granddaddies don't have.

Presentation Inversion of Control (part 2)

Tue, 25 May 2010 09:08:00 -0500

In my previous post, I introduced the concept of presentation inversion of control. In this post, I will show a few ways that this concept can be implemented.

Inline Item List Field

Thu, 20 May 2010 11:26:00 -0500

The Problem (note: this is not a character on MTV's Jersey Shore)

Content Author: "Why do I have to create [page-related item] in some obscure location before adding it to a page?"
Developer: "Because, [page-related item] is not actually "part" of the page, it's simply referenced by a field in your page item and rendered at runtime according to the presentation settings we've established for your page item."

Content Author (eyes glazed over): "What? So I always have to remember to go to this other place in the content tree to create [page-related item] before I can add it to the page? I thought Sitecore was supposed to make my life easier as a content author? Grumble grumble..."
Developer: "Sorry, that's just how the Sitecore authoring tools work."

Does that conversation sound familiar? If so, you're in luck, there is now a way to change the conversation or avoid it altogether! The Inline Item List field aims to empower content authors with the ability to create/edit/delete related items without leaving the item they're currently editing.

Presentation Inversion of Control (part 1)

Thu, 06 May 2010 22:32:00 -0500

I recently had the honor of speaking at Dreamcore North America. Due to time constraints, I had to run through the details pretty quickly. In this series, I will go into the topic in more depth than I could in the 15 minutes I had for the Dreamcore presentation.

Proving the ROI of Social Media

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 15:28:00 -0500

As social media transitions from its infancy to a more strategic and integrated endeavor, marketers and CEOs are placing an emphasis on capturing its return on investment. Like all components of the online experience, social media is trackable but understanding the cost implications of social media is difficult. There are a number of online social media calculators out there but none allow you to determine what your return may be prior to investing in social media outlets. In most cases companies are finding social beneficial but how beneficial? If you are currently trying to determine if social media makes sense for your company here are a few key indicators Dag Holmboe recommends tracking and I feel should be included in your ROI calculation.

Signs You Need a Mobile Site

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:43:00 -0600

While 2009 heralded the rise of social media on the Web, 2010appears to be the year of mobile. If you don not believe me - look here, and here and even here. Like social media, I do not think this is going to be a fad but something that will evolve as new technologies come online. But what does going mobile really mean and is it right for your business? Here are a few signs you may be ready to jump on the mobile train in 2010.