Alchemy Plugin for WEB8 Dashboard

This is in continuation of my previous post where we build Alchemy plugin to download and search CMS items.I have further enhanced that one and added new feature as CMS level dashboard where we have multiple data points options and multiple chart options to represent the data in pictorial form.

Let's see the new addition in this Plugin DASHBOARD.
Dashboards often provide at-a-glance views.A data dashboard is an information management tool that visually tracks, analyzes and displays key performance using pictorial representation of the data , with the help of this dashboard we can identity the usage of different CMS items based on date using charts.

Here,We have 3 filters.

Dashboard

Let's  run this and see how its looks like with all the charts and information which represent .Let's generate charts based on All the components created month wise using all three charts.
1.Bar and Column Chart.

Bar and Column chart

 2.All three charts representing the number of content created month wise in pictorial form we can have same information available year wise as well.

All three charts.

3.Similar to components right we can generate information for pages for month and year wise.
4. Schema utilization number of components created using any particular schema

Schema utilization

With the help of all these information when can do CMS DB forecasting, CMS clean-up activity,Content growth.I have used Core Service,JQuery and Google visualization API to create dashboard.

Let's see the enhancement in the existing report Plugin.

1. Download button to export the search data in .csv format.
2. <a> link to open any item in the CMS to verify or cross check.
3. You can open any Item in same or new window.
4. Improved UI
5. JQuery searching to filter data

Anchor tag with UI improvement

Download and Data searching .

Happy coding and keep sharing !!!!

Alchemy plugin to download report from SDL WEB8

We all have came a across from a situation where we need to deploy/port CMS items from one environment to another for that we have Content porter but we need to manually identity(list of items which got created or modified after a certain date) items which we need to migrate.We used Bundle Schema to clubbed all the items at one location but that is again what if we missed any item and as a result content porting might failed due to some or the other dependency.

Here, is an Alchemy plugin which will allow you to download report from CMS based on date.I have used coreService,jQuery to build this plugin and a .ASPX page which is for popup.

This plugin will help you in migration as well where you need to identify items from across CMS.

Steps 

1.    Download the Developer pack from visual studio gallery Link.

2.    Alchemy version that I have used can be downloaded from Alchemy4Tridion link.

3.    Create a project selecting "Starter Plugin Project" template change the project name .

4.    Build the project and navigate to the generated .a4t file.

5.    Drag and drop the file in alchemy window.

Alchemy Plugin Installed.

Let go to CME,

Plugin is installed and ready for use

Let run the plugin and get some records form CM Database.

Custom Popup to Download data

Using Jquery Table searching you can filter the records as well. It will look for the text in all the columns.With the help of Jquery searching you can filter data based on date as well.

Search

You,can download the sample code from here

Happy coding and keep sharing !!!!

View ALL Structure Group and Pages name in CMS in English

In my current project we are using SDL WEB 8.1 and DXA 1.5 ,client come up with the new request and wants to read all the items in CMS in english only, In the current implementation we have multiple locales, changing the component title to english from other multilingual language title is not the big challenge but when its come to changing the SG and Page name to english for multilingual site is an issue, because we are using DXA default implementation to render Sitemap,Breadcrumb and Navigation.

Client Requirement:- Client wants to read name of all the items in CMS in english, for content editor point of view and at the same time we need to manage the Navigation,Sitemap and Breadcrumb for the multilingual website.

One solution is that,we write our own custom TBB and push the output ,but its a lengthy process and time taking as well.What I did is I made the changes in the existing TBB code and its working fine.

Let's have a look

1. Approach I followed.
2. Changes required in the existing TBB and in CMS.
3. How to debug the TBB.
4. How to upload the updated TBB in CMS.
5. And some Pre-requisites. 

Approach I followed:- I decide to create a common metadata schema and have linked component attached in it for both page and structure group and will read component value in the Generate Sitemap TBB, we can always made code tweaks in the existing one.,rather than creating new TBB.

Changes required in the existing TBB and in CMS:- Create a common Metadata schema and add link component field assign it to Structure group and Page.Update linked component field(s) value.Then, we need to update the existing SitemapItemData.cs model and add new property project name Sdl.Web.DataModel. Next is go to the GenerateSiteMap.cs file you will find this file in project Sdl.Web.Tridion.Templates and populate the value by reading the Metadata returned by the Tridion.ContentManager for StructureGroup and Page type.

How to debug the TBB:- There is a complete article available on SDL docx on how to debug the TBB.

How to upload the updated TBB:- You need to use TcmUploadAssembly.exe to upload the TBB this will ask you DLL source,CMS url,Item folder location(tcmID),userId and Password.I have created a batch file for this.

TBB Upload

Pre-Requisites:- To build the TBB code you are required to add reference of following DLLs.

1. Tridion.Common
2. Tridion.ContentManager
3. Tridion.ContentManager.Common
4. Tridion.ContentManager.Publishing
5. Tridion.ContentManager.Templating
6. Tridion.ExternalContentLibrary
7. Tridion.ExternalContentLibrary.V2
8. Tridion.Logging
9. Tridion.TopologyManager.Client
10. Microsoft.OData.Client

Once all the above changes are done you have successfully updated the TBB and added new field in Navigation.JSON ,now we need to update the code at CD side in DXA.

You need to update the following files in order to read the new field.

1. Update the Link Model at Sdl.Web.Common.Models
2. Update the SitemapItem Model at Sdl.Web.Common.Models both are available in DXA framework .
3. Now, we need to assign the value in the updated model go to CreateLink() method at Sdl.Web.Tridion Class name DefaultProvider.cs and assign the new property.
4. Build your code and Run.
5. Debug Breadcrumb.CHTML and TopNavigation.CHTML page you will have new field value in the model returned.

Happy Coding and Keep Sharing !!!

Generic Storage Extension Solution with ElasticSearch,MongoDB and SOLR

In my last couple of blogs we have discussed on how to extend storage capability of SDL WEB 8. Today we are going to create one common solution where we can decide out of the following which one we want to use as a extended storage medium by just updating the configuration file.This will give you the flexability to select the storage medium you wanted to enable.

1. Elastic Search
2. MongoDB
3. SOLR 
4. You can also use Custom DB.

Let's discuss what is storage extension?

Storage Extension :-Is the capability of using custom storage medium to store the data.When we publish the data it goes in to the BrokerDB or on FileSystem as per the setting but we can extend this functionality by using storage extension technique.

How we do that :-We need to override methods which published and un-published(create,update and remove) component presentation to the Broker DB and need to update the cd_storage_conf.xml file to inject your custom storage extension code.

High-Level GenericStorageExtension Architecture Diagram

You can download the sample code from here

Happy Coding and Keep Sharing !!!!

Bypass Model dependency while indexing data in ElasticSearch

Based on the feedback given in SDL Web Dev Summit in Delhi,India.

This is in continuation of my previous blog where we have used ElasticSearch as storage while publishing components data is getting saved in it.

Earlier whenever we need to index any component we first need to create schema model,that creates model based dependency to bypass that we now Serialize the DCP (Dymanic Component preseatation)which is in XML format into JSON and Elastic Search .NET based NEST API has this capability to index JSON directly.

Now, we just need to allow the schema in Dynamic Component Template which we have created to index the data in ElasticSearch.

In NEST API we have used

         var json = @"{

    ""BookName"": ""Book1"",

    ""ISBN"": ""978-3-16-148410-0"",

    ""chapter"" : [

        {

            ""chapter_name"": ""Chapter1"",

            ""chapter_desc"": ""Before getting into computer programming, let us first                     understand computer programs and what they...""

        },

        {

            ""chapter_name"": ""Chapter2"",

            ""chapter_desc"": ""Today computer programs are being used in almost every field,               household, agriculture, medical, entertainment, defense..""

        },

        {

            ""chapter_name"": ""Chapter3"",

            ""chapter_desc"": ""MS Word, MS Excel, Adobe Photoshop, Internet Explorer,                     Chrome, etc., are...""

        },

        {

            ""chapter_name"": ""Chapter4"",

            ""chapter_desc"": ""Computer programs are being used to develop graphics and                   special effects in movie...""

        }

    ]

}";

var indexResponse = client.LowLevel.Index<string>("fromelasticstoweb8", "esnews", json);

And Link Resolver TBB is used to generate the Link e;g i have multimedia component attached ,when you published it will resolve the link below is the DCP XML.

<blog Title='Testing of model' Id='tcm:6-13290' xmlns:xlink='http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink' xmlns:tcm='http://www.tridion.com/ContentManager/5.0'>

  <blogTitle>Testing of model</blogTitle>

  <blogDescription>Remove model dependency</blogDescription>

  <image Title='skyline' Id='tcm:6-291' Path='/DigitalAssets/skyline.jpg' xmlns:tridion='http://www.tridion.com/ContentManager/5.0'></image>

  <publication Id='tcm:0-6-1' Title='400 Example Site'></publication></blog>

Happy coding and keep sharing !!!

Mircoservice over SDL WEB 8 Coreservice

Self Hosted REST Microservice using OWIN and ASP.NET Web API 2

Open Web Interface for .NET (OWIN) defines an abstraction between .NET web servers and web applications. OWIN decouples the web application from the server, which makes OWIN ideal for self-hosting a web application in your own process, outside of IIS.

ASP.NET Web API - CORS Support in ASP.NET Web API 2. Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specification (commonly considered part of HTML5) that lets JavaScript overcome the same-origin policy security restriction imposed by browsers.

For more details on how to setup and create Microservice read it here.

This service is used to get the data from SDL WEB 8 CM Database

Methods which are available 

1. GetComponentByTcmUri
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/getComponentByTcm/{tcmuri}
2. GetSchemaByTcmUri
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/getSchemaByTcm/{tcmuri}
3. GetAllCategoriesWithInPubByTcmUri
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetAllCategoriesWithInPubByTcmUri/{tcmuri}
4. GetKeywordByCategoryID
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetKeywordByCategory/{tcmuri}
5. GetPageTempletByPubID
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetPageTempletByPubID/{tcmuri}
6. GetComponentTemplateByPubID
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetComponentTemplateByPubID/{tcmuri}
7. GetTemplateBuildingBlockByPubID
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetTemplateBuildingBlockByPubID/{tcmuri}
8. GetPageByPubID
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetPageByPubID/{tcmuri}
9. GetStructureGroupByPubID
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetStructureGroupByPubID/{tcmuri}
10. GetMultimediaComponentByPubID
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetMultimediaComponentByPubID/{tcmuri}
11. GetPublicationList
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetPublicationList
12. GetUserList 
• http://127.0.0.1:8080/Coreservice/GetUserList

You can download code from here.

Happy Codeing and keep Sharing !!!1

ElasticSearch Module in DXA

In my last two blogs we have discussed how to create components by consuming the data from Elasticsearch and then how to index data in Elasticsearch when publishing components.

Today,We are going to discuss and create Elasticsearch module in DXA which will have following features .DXA Modules allows us to extend its Functionality via creating new modules. Here we can create new modules which gives us flexibility & re-usability.

Features and Advantages :- 

• Free text search .
• Tag based filtering.
• Lighting fast response powered by Elasticsearch.
• Pagination and sorting based on fields.
• Article detail page.

In order to use the Elasticsearch module we need to setup the storage extension and Elasticsearch which we already discussed in my previous blog here.
Once that is done using Elasticsearch module in DXA we can search the content from Elasticsearch and render on DXA based application .

Let's discuss the CMS part first.

Elasticsearch Module structure 

1. Define module's folder structure
2. DXA gives us predefined structure where we can keep all the building blocks of the module.
3. For each new DXA module, we need to create a new folder in Modules Folder
4. The name of folder is usually module name.

Next is creating the Schema and Component Templates. I have create dynamic components and index them in Elasticsearch and render on the DXA based web application.

1. Publish all the dynamic components and index them in Elastic.
2. Create new area in you DXA web Application.

   

   DXA Module

3. We can call Elastic RESTFul API to get the data.
4. Data will be returned in the form of JSON.
5. Create model to deserialize the JSON.
6. Let's search for the text SDL.
   
7. Result can be further filtered based on tagging as well.
8. Compare the search result with the data index in Elastic

   

   Elastic Search RESTFul API

.Happy Coding and Keep Sharing !!!