High Score Labs News   •   July 24th, 2019

This year Sitecore has released a new version of Sitecore XP version 9.1. Sitecore has defined three areas of focus:

• Innovation – Java Script Services (Headless, JSS) and Sitecore Cortex (IML)
• Time to market – rapid release through new tools like experience accelerator and other partnership integrations
• Enhancements in the platform and forms – Sitecore has worked hard on creating an supportive community and eco system to support its partners

Sitecore Content Management

At Sitecore, they believe in staying close to the community of users and developers and listening to their feedback and ideas. This of course leads to improvements in CMS. Over the years Sitecore has gradually improved its content management system to be one of the best on the market. From Experience Editor’s ability to create fully personalized content directly on the page, to its ability to automate the entire site optimization process using MV testing, which ensures that your site is always delivering the right content to the right channels.

Sitecore in Azure

Gone are the days when setting up a new Sitecore infrastructure required weeks of tricky, often undocumented, processes to create a fully scalable system. With Sitecore in Azure, one can use ARM templates to quickly create a fully scalable, micro-services built Sitecore system in a minimum amount of time. Integration into a well-developed DevOps process is also easier to implement and integrate.

Sitecore JavaScript Services (JSS)

JSS is a new tool from Sitecore that smooths out the process of creating new online experiences. Communication between front-end and back-end developers used to be complicated; however JSS helps streamline the process by providing front end developers the freedom to build your UX the way that they need to, while simplifying the process of integrating this with the Sitecore system. It provides access to Sitecore features and services that used to require a more traditional development process, which also includes xDB/xConnect and even Experience Editor. Sitecore JSS allows developing mobile or single-page apps with all of Sitecore’s capabilities. In addition, client-side JSS components are open source.

Sitecore Cortex

Sitecore Cortex is Machine Learning tool that helps users integrate their data into personalized content. Two key features, Suggested Personalization and Predictive Outcomes, provide this functionality, which can analyze the behavior of your customers to find the perfect way to create a better online conversion, empowering your content to remain relevant.

Sitecore Accelerator Framework (SxA)

The Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA) was released about two years ago and it has been updated to industry standards known as WCAG 2.0 (set of standards that provides access to web content for users of all backgrounds). It gives marketing teams the ability to create, modify and push web content across different channels using several different deployment paths.

Some additional notable features in Sitecore 9.1:

• Sitecore has made enhancements to their content search mechanism. Now it supports native indexing of Word and PDF files in Azure (Azure Search) as well as OnPem (SOLR).
• Sitecore has launched a federated authentication service. This new authentication system enables single sign-on with Sitecore Experience Manager, Sitecore Commerce, and Horizon.
• Sitecore’s third party updates include NET Framework, Newtonsoft.JSON, Telerik and Solr.Net.

Sitecore is constantly enhancing its services to better empower its users and developer community and help drive innovation by automated marketing, creating relevant personalized content and delivering it in real time to the right channel.

Stay tuned for our in-depth review of Sitecore 9.2, which was recently released!