Articles

Sitefinity Article

Your Next CMS Decision Could Make or Break Your AI Strategy

katie-austin

As we enter our second featured week here at CMS Critic, our focus turns to the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sitefinity.com/">Progress Sitefinity platform</a>.Recently acquired by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.progress.com/">Progress</a>, Sitefinity is an ASP.NET web content management and marketing platform. The solution is trusted by some of the world’s biggest brands, including Toyota, Audi, Kraft Foods, and NASA.Mike Johnston recently traveled to Telerik's California headquarters while on the CMS Critic North American Tour, where he <a href="/cms-critic-interviews-robert-mattson-of-telerik-sitefinity/">interviewed Robert Mattson, Telerik's Director of Product Marketing</a>. Mike was also given a highly detailed product walkthrough before his visit was over.Crowned winner of the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-enterprise-net-cms/">2014 Critics' Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise .NET CMS</a>, Sitefinity is a platform to be reckoned with.To kickstart our featured coverage, let's begin with an overview of the powerful features of the Sitefinity platform for both enterprise-grade content management and digital marketing.<h2 id="simple,-even-when-complex">Simple, Even When Complex</h2>“There’s usually an ease of use to complexity curve. You can be easy to use, but can you still be easy to use when things get tough and complex? That’s something I think [Sitefinity CMS] excels at.” – Robert Mattson, Director of Product Marketing, Telerik.On top of crisp presentation across the platform, Sitefinity CMS maintains its simplicity by making use of drag-and-drop interfaces for when it comes to general content management such as in-line page editing.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/web-content.jpg" />Furthermore, approval workflows, versions histories and granular permissions help to keep both content and marketers in check.When it comes to gleaning information from customers and visitors, marketers can enjoy the Sitefinity CMS intuitive form building features, which can once again be managed through the drag-and-drop interface.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/forms.jpg" />Sitefinity CMS also employs powerful digital asset management, enabling marketers to manage assets from a central location, giving them organizational features such as  hierarchical libraries, categories and tags.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/digital-assets835x0.jpg" />The platform also provides ample SEO features to help push websites further up Google’s rankings.Learn more about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sitefinity.com/content-management">Progress Sitefinity’s content management features</a>.<h2 id="a-digital-marketing-command-center">A Digital Marketing Command Center</h2>Since the latest release of Sitefinity back in March 2015, the platform now works in tandem with its standalone Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud (DEC), serving up what the company calls a, “Digital Marketing Command Center”.By using Sitefinity CMS and Sitefinity DEC together, organizations can benefit in the following three ways.1. Gather Omni-channel Information: With data connectors pulling information from Sitefinity CMS, Salesforce.com, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, mobile apps  or other sources of customer interaction, the customer journey repository in the Sitefinity DEC becomes a single source of truth.Having this extensive context enables marketers to see interactions between an anonymous site visitor, known prospect or existing customer, and all aspects of a company’s sales and marketing functions. Thus, the marketer can make far better informed decisions about how to hone the entire process.2. Enhanced Insight: The Sitefinity DEC uses machine learning to relate how groups of customers and prospects interact through all channels. Interestingly though, the platform then provides specific recommendations for how to move those customers toward their goals more effectively.3. Real-time, Actionable Data: The solution unveils trends that enable marketers to target their actions and run and adjust campaigns in near real time.The Sitefinity DEC provides predictions toward opportunity improvement, while the Sitefinity CMS enables marketers to personalize and optimize marketing programs, or restructure web properties on the fly, to guide people on a personalized customer journey.Hence, the two platforms working side by side help to streamline the job of monitoring and acting on incoming information.Additional Sitefinity DEC features include persona management, third party data source integration, advanced customer analytics, automated lead management, and more.Learn more about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sitefinity.com/digital-experience-cloud">Sitefinity Digital Experience Cloud</a>.For more details on Sitefinity <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sitefinity.com/">visit their website</a>. You can also explore more of <a href="/products/sitefinity">Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

An Overview of The Sitefinity Platform's Content Management & Digital Experience Features

mike-johnston

Today, I am announcing the winner of the 2014 Critics' Choice CMS Award for Best Enterprise .NET CMS.
<img style="max-width:188px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/bestenterprisenetcms2014.png" />
This is always a difficult category given the vast majority of enterprise CMS are written in .NET. We have, however, come to a decision this year as to which should end up taking the award. The winner for this year is none other than…
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com"><img style="max-width:400px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinitylogo_wtagline_rgb400x0.png" /></a>
Sitefinity takes the prize this year given their high level of activity in 2014. With all of their strong releases and their acquisition by Progress Software, they are poised to do some amazing things in the next few years.
Congratulations to the team at Sitefinity on their win. Learn more about Sitefinity in our CMS directory here: <a href="/products/sitefinity/">Sitefinity</a>

2014 Critics' Choice Award Winner - Best Enterprise .NET CMS

The fine folks at Telerik just released Sitefinity CMS 4.1 and with this release, they bring about a ton of cool new features and enhancements. Here is a breakdown of what you can expect from this release.
<h3>Ready for the cloud.</h3>
Sitefinity 4.1 now offers native support for Windows Azure and SQL Azure.  What does this mean to you? It means that all websites created with 4.1 are ready for the cloud. Since the Azure operating system runs on virtualized hardware, there are no hardware specific dependencies.
<h3>Faster than a speeding bullet (by about 35%)</h3>
This new version also offers a 35% boost in speed! This is a part of an ongoing initiative to refine and optimize the product with each new release. Furthermore, 4.1 includes several important improvements that enable non-technical end-users to automatically take advantage of Sitefinity’s existing performance engineering. All pages are now cached by default and Sitefinity’s Cache Expiration Monitor will automatically &amp; intelligently refresh the page cache when required.
<h3>New flavours!</h3>
Now you can enjoy Sitefinity in the following languages with the new language pack that has been introduced.
These new language packs enable content creators to be more productive by interacting with fully localized user-interface. The languages available out of the box are:
<ol>
<li>English</li>
<li>German</li>
<li>Dutch</li>
<li>Italian</li>
<li>French</li>
<li>Spanish</li>
<li>Portuguese</li>
<li>Turkish</li>
<li>Arabic</li>
</ol>
<h3>Reusable Content = More bang with less duplication</h3>
In order to avoid content duplication (which can have negative impacts on both speed, consistency and SEO performance), you can now use Share Content. Using Sitefinity Shared Content this text can be typed once and shared everywhere. If the content ever changes, it can be modified effortlessly in a single location.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/webstarts11-620x433_k4mvwy.jpg" alt="SharedContent" />
 
But that's not all! For a full list of new features, visit <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/asp-net-cms-features/whats-new.aspx">http://www.sitefinity.com/asp-net-cms-features/whats-new.aspx</a>

Sitefinity 4.1 - Ready for the cloud and a lot faster!

The Telerik Sitefinity team is excited to announce the release of the Sitefinity 4.0 Beta SDK (Software Development Kit). The SDK boosts developer productivity and facilitates the development of custom Sitefinity modules and widgets.  It is offered for free and includes various resources, such as developer tools and useful examples.
The Sitefinity SDK makes the work of the developers easier by providing articles and code samples for creating modules, widgets, and website templates.  Here is what is included:
<ul>
<li>Basic module – including Visual Studio project</li>
<li>ASP.NET widget –including Visual Studio project</li>
<li>Silverlight widget – including Visual studio project</li>
<li>Sample website template – including preconfigured Sitefinity 4.0 website with content</li>
</ul>
Along with all these resources, the Sitefinity SDK features comprehensive documentation targeted at different audiences. The Installation Guide and System Requirements, the User Guide, the Developer’s Guide, the Content Writer’s Guide, and the Designer’s Guide focus on different functionality and capabilities of Sitefinity. The guides provide helpful tips for developers, designers and content authors who work with Sitefinity on a daily basis.
Here is a screenshot tour of the SDK (click first image to begin):
<img style="max-width:100px" title="installing" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/installing-100x100_e8s1jy.png" /><img style="max-width:100px" title="SDK_Installed" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/sdk_installed-100x100_gmi6xm.png" /><img title="Running_the_Welcome.hta_-_welcome_screen" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/running_the_welcome_hta_-_welcome_screen-100x100_vn5cjn.png" /><img style="max-width:100px" title="VS_template_screen_and_Sample_project_loaded" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/vs_template_screen_and_sample_project_loaded-100x100_diew1g.png" /><img style="max-width:100px" title="Automatically_generated_code" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/automatically_generated_code-100x100_pdqmrf.png" />
Finally the Sitefinity SDK also includes the Telerik award-winning RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and RadControls for Silverlight. These productivity tools enable developers to deliver projects significantly faster.
To learn more about the Sitefinity 4.0 Beta SDK, visit <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/4.0/sdk.aspx">this page</a>.
To download the product and get started, click <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/account/free-trials.aspx">here</a>.

Sitefinity 4.0 Beta SDK released

<a href="http://www.telerik.com/" target="_blank">Telerik</a> have announced a brand new release of Sitefinity, bringing about productivity and information governance enhancements.
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">Sitefinity</a> is a Web Content Management (WCM) platform by Telerik with a 70,000-strong user base. It offers responsive web design, mobile websites and mobile apps – all from one CMS user interface.
Here are some highlights of the new release, along with some further details about the information governance and productivity enhancements:
<ul>
<li>The System Audit Trail which provides a measure of transparent protection and full accountability by helping organizations supervise processes while managing digital assets.</li>
<li>The newly-released Recycle Bin functionality complements the framework’s comprehensive versioning system by helping content authors archive and revert content items.</li>
<li>XML sitemaps to make content more discoverable, content duplication, which helps content authors copy and repurpose content items, and template thumbnails to help users quickly find the templates they need.</li>
</ul>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinitylogo_wtagline_rgb-1700x0.png" alt="Sitefinity" />
<h2>Enhanced Information Governance</h2>
Every day, more private critical business and customer information goes online.
Accordingly, using an automated and streamlined environment to manage digital assets and deliver digital experiences is now nothing less than a necessity.
The System Audit Trail – now available in the Telerik Sitefinity CMS – provides a measure of transparent protection and full accountability by helping organizations supervise processes while managing digital assets.
Additionally, Sitefinity's new Recycle Bin functionality complements the framework’s comprehensive versioning system by helping content authors archive and revert content items.
<h2>New Productivity Features</h2>
Alongside Sitefinity's newly implemented information governance enhancements, this new Telerik Sitefinity CMS release also boosts developer productivity.
The framework now offers XML sitemaps to make content more discoverable, along with content duplication which helps content authors copy and repurpose content items. Also, template thumbnails have been introduced to help users find the templates they need faster than ever before.
Regarding this new Sitefinity release,  Martin Kirov, Executive Vice President, Telerik Sitefinity, had this to say:
<blockquote>“With the current release of Telerik Sitefinity, we are aiding our customers in their quest to properly govern important customer data. Coupled with an array of productivity advancements, Telerik Sitefinity CMS is even more aligned with better business practices. These are not only practical in implementation, but also critical to business success.”</blockquote>
To find out more about Sitefinity's new features, check out <a href="http://www.telerik.com/company/press-releases/2014/07/22/telerik-enhances-information-governance-with-latest-sitefinity-cms-release" target="_blank">their announcement</a>, and their <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">official website</a>.
Also, be sure to explore more of <a href="/products/sitefinity/" target="_blank">Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

New Sitefinity Release Brings Improved Productivity & Information Governance

Shopify - The global commerce platform

Build your business with Shopify to sell online, offline, and everywhere in between.

The global commerce platform

#ffffff

Recently, Telerik released version 4.0 of their popular .NET based content management system, Sitefinity (<a href="/telerik-unveils-powerful-sitefinity-4-0-content-management-solution/" target="_blank">announcement</a>). Today, we delve in to this new release to see what is different and what has been improved upon in this Sitefinity Review.
Setting up a demo of Sitefinity for testing is very straight forward. They offer a sandbox edition which can be created from <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/download.aspx">this page</a> and takes about 10 minutes before you are ready to start using your own private hosted version of Sitefinity.
We set up our sandbox using the Charity (nonprofit) template for the purposes of this review.
The default look of the website using this template pack is shown below.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2012-07-16-at-5_57_51-pm-620x511_kubg0i.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
The dashboard (where the magic happens) is accessible by appending your sandbox URL with /sitefinity.
This should bring you to a login prompt. Once logged in, your dashboard should look similar to the one below:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/screen-shot-2012-07-16-at-5_58_14-pm-620x496_hlobbv.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Some things worth mentioning with regards to the dashboard. Telerik has done a great job with this setup. They've integrated numerous video tutorials right into the dashboard to provide quick and easy access to usage tutorials. This is a great idea and something that other systems should consider following suit on.
It's always interesting to see how the various contenders in the CMS marketplace work to alleviate customer apprehension when it comes to learning curves.
Once you've logged in to the back end, you have the option of working from within it or working directly off the site. Should you choose the latter, you can return to the main page of your website and you should see an icon on the right of the site similar to the one below. This lets you enable inline editing for the site.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity3.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
When enabled, a edit button appears in each content area to represent that the area is now editable by clicking on it.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/1-620x158_yplnjt.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Clicking edit will bring you to the editor for that particular content type:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity5-580x417.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Logging back into the dashboard, you will see several options in the menus across the top. Clicking on the Pages link brings you here:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/tablet-gallery-back-620x390_ag4kr9.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
From here you can manage and edit every page on your site. If we click on a page, we are then taken to a drag and drop interface where we can add and remove elements (as well as resize) from the pages.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity6-580x387.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
 
Should you need to make changes to any of the individual components that already exist on the page (or new ones you add), you can do so using the edit or more menus as shown above.
Adding blocks of content is very easy. You may notice in the screenshot above that there is another button labelled “Layout” in the top right of the screen. Clicking this switches you to layout mode where you can drag and drop various sized content blocks. Once thing noticeably missing here is the ability to resize the existing ones. If the option is available, we weren't able to find it easily.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/papyrs-review-1-620x431_qxzkht.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Taking a look now at the settings menus, there are two difference views. Basic, as shown below, or advanced, where far more settings are available to tweak.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/papyrs-review-2_f0awve.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Sitefinity also has built in workflows that can be added and altered in the dashboard.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/papyrs-review-4-620x62_l8dxoc.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
These work as one might expect and are a very welcome addition.
Under the content menu, you will find the various types of content that Sitefinity has been configured to manage.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/papyrs-review-4-1-620x435_icl6c7.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
We won't cover these all too in-depth as that would take the fun out of exploring for yourself in your own sandbox demo but some of the new additions here include the forms and (unless we are mistaken) the newsletters option.
The new forms builder is very intuitive and easy to use. As you can see, once you've created a new form and named it, adding components if just drag and drop and done.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/papyrs-review-6_sxyhsv.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Using the new form builder was a pleasure and works like a charm. There is also a new settings button which allows you to further manage the form by restricting the number of submissions per IP address and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/papyrs-review-7-620x114_suqt58.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
The newsletter builder worked quite well considering it's in beta status at the moment. Adding a new mailing list was quick and intuitive and once done, we were able to see and manage our campaigns from the screen below:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/papyrs-review-8-620x414_nen5wo.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Creating new campaigns are very simple. Click the create a campaign button, choose your mailing list and to/from details and you are taken to a screen where you can choose one of three available formats for your newsletter:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/papyrs-review-invite-620x452_knbjho.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
The first two types of fairly common place. Should you choose the third, you are given drag and drop content types just like you would if you were creating a web page within the dashboard:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/papyrs-review-theme-620x639_tqhnt3.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
How well this third type displays in conventional email clients remains to be seen but it's a very interesting option, for sure.
Under the administration menu, there are a number of choices.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity8_2.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
You'll notice under the heading Alternative Publishing that there is an option called Feeds &amp; Notifications. Within here, you are able to create various types of content feeds.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3_3_0-timeline-620x472_hiujf2.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
What's especially interesting here is that you can also choose how to publish them. Some of the choices at the moment include Twitter, RSS or as Content within Sitefinity.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3_3_0-photo-theater-620x284_preheb.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Next in line to take a look at is file management. Sitefinity comes with very well done file management using an interface very similar to windows explorer.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3_3_0-membership-compare-620x272_cwvvf4.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Adding/removing and modifying various types of content is very straight forward and works without a hitch from our testing.
Last, but certainly not least, is the Analytics.
For testing purposes, we were not able to test this functionality as it requires a link between a Google Analytics account and Sitefinity to be present in order to display analytics information. From what we have read in the Sitefinity release announcements, however, it sounds like a great addition and what better tool to use than Google's own?
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3_3_0-share-item-on-wall-620x474_be7bbj.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Conclusion
We'd say that this is one of Sitefinity's best releases to date. They've put a lot of work into simplifying the interface as much as possible and reducing new user anxiety. Nothing will put off a new user more than a feeling of being overwhelmed with options and Sitefinity has found a good balance between usability and extendability.
If you haven't yet had a go with their <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/download.aspx" target="_blank">sandbox</a>, we highly recommend you do so.
To learn more about Sitefinity, visit their website: <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com" target="_blank">Sitefinity.com</a>

Sitefinity Review: First look at Sitefinity CMS 4.0

<img style="max-width:100px" title="sitefinity" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/sitefinity1_y0ruw2.jpg" />Telerik, a leading vendor of development tools and solutions for the Microsoft .NET platform, is happy to announce the first community preview of Sitefinity 4.0, introducing many technology improvements, performance optimizations, and exciting capabilities.
“The Sitefinity 4.0 CTP is a milestone release combining new and unique functionality with an intuitive User Interface” says Boyan Rabchev, Sitefinity Product Architect. “With this release, we would like to present our latest developments and progress and receive feedback from the Sitefinity community. Everyone is encouraged to experiment with this CTP release and provide feedback.”
The Sitefinity 4.0 CTP introduces many new features like content classification (taxonomy) which is critical for organizations with high data volumes. Other important highlights of the release are advanced security and granular permissions, integration with Google analytics, and complete personalization of the administrative interface. The Sitefinity 4.0 CTP offers new capabilities for business users who can freely experiment with various styling options provided by the powerful Page Layout Builder.
Beyond the new functionality, Sitefinity 4.0 CTP offers a highly intuitive and visually appealing interface, which is the result of continuous research and testing with numerous Sitefinity CMS users. The administrative interface of Sitefinity 4.0 is built according to usability best practices, and it follows Web 2.0 guiding principles. It also provides improved performance thanks to the ajaxified backend and personalized navigation.
The Sitefinity CTP release signifies the first major step in the development plans for the major release of Sitefinity 4.0,  which will include even more innovations and enhancements. The Sitefinity team would like to hear your feedback which will be instrumental for shaping the final version, expected to ship later in 2010. The Sitefinity CTP release is available for download <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/account/free-trials.aspx">here</a>.
Read more about <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/4.0/asp-net-features.aspx">Sitefinity CMS 4.0 CTP</a>.

News Sitefinity 4.0 CTP is Now Available

<a href="http://www.telerik.com/" target="_blank">Telerik</a> – the company behind <a href="https://www.progress.com/sitefinity-cms" target="_blank"> Sitefinity</a> – have released major mobile advancements to its award-winning <a href="http://www.telerik.com/devcraft" target="_blank">DevCraft</a> suite of UI controls.
Notably, approximately 130,000 customers from 40,000 organizations across 94 countries make use of Telerik products, including 450 of the Fortune 500. DevCraft is of course one such product.
With this update, Telerik is aiming to optimize mobile development for <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank">ASP.NET</a> projects by providing responsive, adaptive and elastic capabilities; mitigating the challenges of developing for multiple devices and screen sizes.
The release also includes document processing and cloud capabilities for UI, as well as additional updates designed to meet the ever-evolving needs of today’s .NET developers. Let's take a closer look at what's new.
<h2>Responsive, Adaptive and Elastic</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/devcraft700x0.png" alt="DevCraft" />
Here's an overview of what you can expect to see in the all new DevCraft Q2’14:
<ul>
<li> Responsive, Adaptive and Elastic:  With the latest Telerik DevCraft release, UI for  <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank"> ASP.NET </a>  AJAX controls will gain responsive capabilities in Rotator and Slider, adaptive capabilities in Lightbox and Slider and elastic capabilities in several controls to help developers build applications with a professional UX, tailored for any device.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> Document Processing:  Now standard in Telerik UI Controls for  <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank"> ASP.NET </a>  AJAX, WPF, Silverlight and WinForms, new APIs for processing the most common document formats: DOCX, RTF, XLSX, CSV and PDF, enabling developers to embed, load, create, convert and print documents directly within the app, without Microsoft Office or other external libraries.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> New Controls: In addition to the more than 420 controls currently available within the DevCraft suite, Telerik is adding new Map, Gantt and Diagram controls for  <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank"> ASP.NET </a>  AJAX, making it highly customizable for individual projects.</li>
</ul>
In addition to the advancements listed above, Telerik is releasing additional improvements in Silverlight, WPF, Cloud, the Just product line, WinForms, Reporting and Data Access, all based on user feedback collected throughout the year.
In relation to the release of Telerik's Q2'14 DevCraft, Todd Anglin, EVP at Telerik, made these comments:
<blockquote>“Our development community is asked to do more with less, every day. Our focus at Telerik is to make development a more productive experience in which quality apps can be created and deployed across multiple screens, with minimal rework. With the latest DevTools release, our one million-strong developer community is further empowered to focus on the core of their applications, with the knowledge that Telerik has their back with industry leading UI.”</blockquote>
All of the details of the DevCraft Q2’14 release will be expanded upon during Telerik’s online conference series, “ <a href="http://www.telerik.com/campaigns/devcraft/q2-2014-release" target="_blank"> Be Responsive: .NET UI for Any Device </a> ,” June 24 beginning 11:00am EST.
The three-part series will introduce a wide range of capabilities now available in Telerik DevCraft to help build .NET apps using any technology—established or evolving. The full lineup includes:
<ul>
<li>Tips for Building Mobile-Optimized  <a href="http://asp.net/" target="_blank"> ASP.NET </a>  Projects.</li>
<li>Manage Documents within .NET Apps.</li>
<li>Build Line-of-Business Apps with Maps, Gantt and Diagram Controls.</li>
</ul>
For more details, and to register for Telerik's upcoming online conference series <a href="http://www.telerik.com/campaigns/devcraft/q2-2014-release" target="_blank">right here</a>.
You can also find out more about DevCraft via the <a href="http://www.telerik.com/devcraft" target="_blank"> Telerik website</a>.

New Telerik DevCraft Release Brings About Enhanced Responsive Design Capabilities

<img style="max-width:100px" title="sitefinity" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/sitefinity1_y0ruw2.jpg" />The new release of Sitefinity 3.7 Service Pack 3 is now available with impressive performance improvements and several new features.  Among the highlights of this release are: improved performance for large, enterprise websites, ability to store images &amp; documents on the file system (instead of the database), streaming for large files and the latest version of Telerik RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX.
Full details on what's new in this release are available <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/VersionNotes.aspx?id=2183" target="_blank">here</a>.
You can download Sitefinity v 3.7 SP3 from <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/account/downloads.aspx" target="_blank">your account</a>.
If you're upgrading from a previous version of Sitefinity, review the <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/support/upgrade-instructions.aspx" target="_blank">Upgrade Notes</a>.

Sitefinity 3.7 Service Pack 3 is now available

Sitefinity 5 is the latest release from web content management vendor, Telerik. This new release introduces a <a href="/sitefinity-cms-5-hits-the-web-brings-cutting-edge-mobile-tools/">number of new features</a> and we've decided to do a Sitefinity Review and take a look at the system and how it functions.
On the first visit to the site, we were greeted with an attractive demo site for the fictitious Telerik International University. In order to enable our editing tools so that we can use the on page editing capabilities of Sitefinity, we need to first authenticate with the system, we can do this by appending our URL with /sitefinity to get to the dashboard login.
Once we log in and see the dashboard (shown below) we can visit the main website and begin making changes. We’ll come back to the dashboard about later in this article.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/phpfox-emblem_akin2i.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" /> 
Sitefinity’s Dashboard
Visiting the main website, we see that there is a new icon floating on the right side that says “Tools”:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/phpfox-emblem-1_jbpjiz.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Clicking on this icon, followed by “Show editing tools” turns on a number of editable regions within the site. To edit any of them, we just click the edit link and the applicable module or WYSIWYG editor loads with the relevant content.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity3-450x276.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
The editor is easy to use, loads fairly quickly and has the majority of options I’d need by default. There is also a “More formatting options” link which enables more functionality but I did not find a need to use it. All changes once saved are applied to the site. For multi-language sites, there is an option to save to all translations as well.
Of the various regions within the site, I didn’t find any instances where the editor failed to load or the functionality was not up to par. Front end editing is generally more for quick changes and for those who like to see the results instantly. The more in-depth work is done through the dashboard so lets take a look at how things work from within.
One thing I really enjoy about Sitefinity’s dashboard is the amount of help it provides to newcomers with the many links to video tutorials, the documentation portal and getting started links. Visually, the user interface is clean and has pretty much everything someone would need to feel confident about using the product. I like the touch of adding the phone numbers at the top as well for when frustration or confusion sets in. Sometimes digging for these can become difficult and this all adds to the overall customer experience nicely.
Managing Pages within the CMS is very easy and straight forward. There are many ways you can work with them from simply dragging and dropping them to change the order or hierarchy to viewing each page with the handy “view” link which launches in a new window. Under the actions menu, there is the ability to further manage with version history and more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity4-450x251.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Once again, the Sitefinity team have shown their focus on the customer experience by ensuring that enough help is always available with easy relevant links to help on the bottom right of each area within the dashboard. This is a thoughtful and appreciated addition. The ability exists to edit each of the translations directly from the one site as well with easy edit links under each.
Modifying pages within Sitefinity is a treat with easy drag and drop widgets in a WYSIWYG view of the structure of the page. Adding content is extremely easy and there are more than enough widgets available to work with.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shortcode-template-editor_vaa3yu.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
I can see users having fun creating their pages and having a feeling of control which is a great thing to be able to say.
Further to adding content, you can also switch to layout view which allows you to quickly drag and change layout elements or, as shown, change the entire template.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/features_fbifmb.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Outside of the Pages area of the CMS is the Content section where one can add News, Blog entries and much more. This is all done from a handy drop down and, depending on the type of content you try to add, each content template differs accordingly.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/woocommerce_ppmv81.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
I won’t go to far into the News, Blogs of Events contents section as we’ve covered this in earlier reviews but I will say that all three are similarly intuitive and easy to use.
Sitefinity has some nice image management functionality which lets you upload bulk or individually, sort your images within libraries and do basic image editing tasks such as cropping, resizing and rotating.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/monstroid-featured-img_bvuwa5.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Again, you can have multiple images depending on your translations as well. Video, document and file management works in a similar way (minus the editing capabilities, obviously).
Moving on to Forms, I can safely say I’m a big fan of how easy they are to build and they work similarly to Pages within Sitefinity. You are able to drag and drop widgets (textbox, multiple choice, etc) onto the page and modify layouts as well. Form functionality is an important aspect and this system handles them nicely.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/sitefinity9-450x301_fawkny.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Where I can see some improvements are within the settings for the forms. Currently, they are very basic with the following options:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/monstroid-support_gsdf2r.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
It is not clear by watching the forms video tutorial how to change to whom the form goes, what email it’s coming from or whether a copy should be sent to the user, to name a few. It would also be nice to see a widget in the dashboard showing responses that have not been attended to as it’s rather tedious to go to the Content Menu-&gt;;; Forms to see submitted content.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/sitefinity11-450x38_ggbjpq.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Hopefully, Telerik can take these suggestions into consideration for a future release.
Email campaigns can be managed within the CMS as well which eliminates the need for third-party integrations.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/monstroid-featured-img-1_fjenzh.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Adding mailing lists is very simple with an easy interface that also allows you to pull in data from either the users within the system or those who have submitted forms.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/mailing-lists-google-chrome_2012-03-27_10-52-26-450x747.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
To add people to the list, you can choose to connect the list to form responses by clicking on Add Connection.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sabrina2_250x0_sovswo.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
This is a great start but would be much more useful if you could bring in subscribers from an excel spreadsheet or CSV file as now, it seems there is no way to do so or at the very least, it’s not readily apparent. There may well be a module that enables this ability as well, but that remains to be seen.
For basic use, it does the job well enough, but could use some improvements. Message templates can be created in rich text, plain text or web page format and there is basic campaign management as well as A/B testing.
** Update **
I’m told that Telerik has plans to introduce a number of module enhancements for email campaigns in their next release, due around June, 2012.
The Ecommerce module within Sitefinity 5 is a nice inclusion and gives users the ability to add products, types of products, attributes and departments using simple content templates.
This similar to the news &amp; blog entry modules, it’s simply done with different fields and is easy to use.
Shipping methods, payment methods, taxes and discounts are managed from within the module through easy to use interfaces, such as the one below.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/shipping-methods-google-chrome_2012-03-27_11-04-41-450x501.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Adding products can only be done on a one by one basis from what I can see and similarly to the mailing lists module, it would be nice to be able to bulk add products and map the fields accordingly from an excel sheet or CSV file as it’s easy to imagine customers of a larger size being hesitant to manually enter each individual product one at a time into the system. While I’m sure this can be done (or automated somehow) by the team at Telerik, it would be nicer to see the ability within the CMS itself.
Users are given the ability to choose how prices are displayed on the site via the following screen.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/configuration-google-chrome_2012-03-27_11-09-14.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
If you need to work with multiple currencies, you’ll be happy to know that the system lets you add and manage them by geography easily. The same goes for length and mass units.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/unnamed_olppla.gif" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
To see orders by customer, simply click on Customers under the Order management section and you’ll be greeted with the following screen.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/strikingly-1_pbo02j.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Clicking in a customer name presents you with a list of all orders by that customer with totals and payment status.
The orders screen is similar:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/strikingly_l2eyhf.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Clicking on an order shows you a list of all items purchased, by whom and their amounts as well as details on the customer.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/orders-google-chrome_2012-03-27_11-24-10-450x631.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
There is also the ability to view a number of reports regarding sales and orders. Here is an example of one such report:
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/orders-reports-by-region-google-chrome_2012-04-02_11-13-08-450x150_bv2loh.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Under the Design menu, users have the ability to modify and add Page templates, Widget templates and responsive and mobile design. Let’s explore the latter.
Within the responsive and mobile design section, you can add sets of rules that determine how content is transformed based on screen size and other settings. This can be done for a variety of devices such as tablets, large screens and smart phones. The interface is simple and easy to understand, much like the rest of the modules within Sitefinity.
<img style="max-width:450px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/spider-monkey-637062_1280-1_n0vazp.jpg" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Moving to the administration area within the CMS, amongst the basic settings, Sitefinity allows you to specify which networks you’d like to include within your social sharing options. The number of available choices is pretty decent and even includes the new Google +.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity12-450x165.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
Twitter integration with URL Shortening is also available and multiple accounts can be used.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/speedw_acmsau.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
In addition to the basic workflow scenarios that are available out of the box, there is the option to upload a custom workflow that you have previously created in Visual Studio. Custom workflow is a really powerful option and allows you to:
Set conditional approval steps;
<ul>
<li>Apply safeguards to ensure that certain words or phrases will not be published;</li>
<li>Receive notifications if someone is away or if there is content pending approval;</li>
<li>Many additional features built on top of Windows Workflow Foundation 4.</li>
</ul>
More information is available here:
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/pavelskvirski/posts/11-01-21/sitefinity_4_0_automate_translations_with_custom_workflows_and_google_translate.aspx">http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/pavelskvirski/posts/11-01-21/sitefinity_4_0_automate_translations_with_custom_workflows_and_google_translate.aspx</a>
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/ivan/posts/10-11-19/sitefinity_4_0_rc_deep_dive_workflow.aspx">http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/ivan/posts/10-11-19/sitefinity_4_0_rc_deep_dive_workflow.aspx</a>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/speedw-1_drlquk.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
A nice feature that exists is the Interface labels and messages module which allows users to bring in language packs (import or export) and modify each individual label within the CMS to their needs. While the interface can be initially overwhelming, we can’t fault them for making it expansive.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/localization-google-chrome_2012-03-27_11-45-29-450x486.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
For advanced users, Sitefinity even has the ability to completely modify backend pages within the CMS right down to deleting them as desired. There is a good large warning before you are able to click through to that section of the CMS, however, and rightfully so. It’s good to see that they aren’t afraid to add the ability for those who desire it.
Lastly, we come to the Analytics module in Sitefinity, which is tied heavily to Google Analytics and on your first visit, kicks off a first time visitor configuration wizard. Once configured using this easy to use wizard, the system brings in and repurposes your analytics data in an easy to view set of charts and graphs.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sitefinity15-450x228.png" alt="Sitefinity Review" />
With that said, that is a look at Sitefinity 5, the latest release from Telerik. Overall, my impressions from the CMS are that they have done a good job of packing in the features in this version. The overall experience for the customer should be a positive one given the consistency of functionality throughout the product. The system is easy to navigate and use; even for the average user; and should require minimal training to get started.
I like the expansive help system but noticed in a few of the more advanced modules, it’s not as prolific so it still needs some work. They are definitely on the right track and I’m comfortable recommending this version of Sitefinity as an option to consider if you are in the market.

Sitefinity Review - A Look at Sitefinity 5

Today, Telerik announced that their leading CMS solution Sitefinity is to be boosted by some direct improvements to the way users manage, view and interact with their own content, as well as analytical data.
<a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/" target="_blank">Sitefinity</a> is a powerful ASP.NET website management platform, primed to enable its 70,000 business users to execute quickly and independently. Thanks to the minimalist approach taken by Sitefinity, developers, marketing end-users and IT managers are able to work more effectively, helping to grow their business.
Currently, no less than 49 of the Fortune 500 companies currently trust Sitefinity with their web content. Now, Sitefinity 6.2 will seek to change the way everyday users interact with their websites, hoping to give those same enterprises a smoother, more user-friendly experience.
<h2>Inline Editing Introduced</h2>
The Sitefinity content management system now comes equipped with a browser-based HTML5 environment for creating and updating content. That means that authors can now edit title fields and body fields in a true WYSIWYG format.  Everything from headers, sub-heads, and body content and images can be created and modified in context of the webpage.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/4.png" alt="Sitefinity" />
This highly user-friendly method of updating content means that users will be able to tailor their content as they view it from the end-users perspective. This doesn't just simplify the content publishing process, but it also makes it a whole lot more efficient. The additional ‘Full Details Mode' allows users to edit all the pieces of a content node such as keyword tags, image alt tags, URL, and publication date.
Martin Kirov, the Executive Vice President of Telerik’s Sitefinity division, had this to say regarding the newly implemented inline editing feature:
<blockquote>“The ability to execute is becoming a bigger and bigger differentiator for the success of online marketing teams. Making digital marketers more effective by authoring content in the context of the presentation was the main driver behind the revolutionary inline content authoring experience we’re delivering with this release. Content is still in the center of the online customer experience and enriching it with context, coupled with amazing authoring experience will enable our customers to deliver compelling online experiences and grow their business.”</blockquote>
<h2>Google Analytics &amp; Admin Dashboard Enhanced</h2>
Sitefinity users will also notice that the Google Analytics web analytics service module has also been upgraded to HTML5. Based on this rich, standards-based environment, users can easily take full advantage of the Google Analytics service, in new, more effective ways.
For example, as users edit webpages, they can leverage analytic reports, including daily visits, visit duration, and unique visitors – all whilst making adjustments to the webpage for search engine optimization purposes.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/3.png" alt="Sitefinity" />
What's more, is, the Sitefinity CMS now offers its users a dynamic Administration Dashboard that gives business users visibility into areas such as website interactions, pending tasks and recent content added by either themselves or other users. This holistic overview of the website in question will almost certainly benefit enterprises and individuals alike to ascertain important information as soon as they log in to their admin panel.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/2.png" alt="Sitefinity" />
The dashboard also benefits from integration with Google Analytics. Users can personalize the display to present metrics such as daily visits, visit duration, bounce rate, traffic sources and more. Alternatively, the dashboard can be set to display content items last edited as well as type and status.
To find out more about Telerik's improvements to their popular CMS, you can have a read of the <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/product/see-also/what's-new" target="_blank">official release notes for Sitefinity 6.2</a>.
Additionally, you can learn more about <a href="/products/sitefinity/" target="_blank"> Sitefinity via our CMS Directory</a>.

Telerik's Sitefinity 6.2 Arrives With a Host of Improvements

Power your CMS on AWS

Manage your websites & apps in the most trusted cloud.

A new release of Sitefinity ASP.NET CMS has been released. Version 4.3 brings a number of new features to the table including:
eCommerce
Sitefinity ecommerce offers the flexibility and all the features needed to manage a successful online business.  It has been enhanced with multiple language support, a new payment provider model, a departments widget, and much more.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/subrion320_presentation_plans_pa18ej.png" />New Widgets
This release also contains a number of new widgets such as a blog list, Facebook feed, and Facebook likes.
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/facebook-feed.png" />
Add to all of this a new migration module and upgraded developer tools and this is a very good update to an already excellent platform.
To read more about what's new in Sitefinity 4.3, visit the website: <a href="http://www.sitefinity.com/asp-net-cms-features/whats-new.aspx">http://www.sitefinity.com/asp-net-cms-features/whats-new.aspx</a>

New release from Sitefinity brings plenty to the table

Call Tracking + AI 

Call Tracking + AI that Turns Calls into Leads

Explore a wide range of informative articles on Sitefinity, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry