All of this content needs to be presented on the site. Third-party authored content needs to be reviewed and approved prior to publication. The rollout of this content needs to be organized and coordinated either through administrative action or an automated process.
Sitecore dramatically increases developer productivity and business-user control in implementing this kind of a solution. It all starts with careful requirements. A high-level outline for understanding your requirements consists of content discovery, analysis and business rule definition. (An experienced Sitecore partner can help with this process greatly.)
Content discovery refers to identifying all relevant data sources and their attributes such as:
- Data source – Is the content in a database, an RSS feed a web service? Is it managed in-house or at a 3rd party?
- Updates – How frequently is the content updated? How are updates triggered? How are updates communicated?
- Owner – Who is the business owner of the content? Who is the content copyright owner?
- Administration – How is the content currently administered? Who handles the administration?
The content discovery phase is simply about getting clear on what content needs to flow through Sitecore as part of the orchestration process.
Content analysis involves identifying the existing business rules for each content source and determining what efficiencies can be engineered through content orchestration and automation. At this stage of the process, consider the following:
- How frequently are content updates received from external sources?
- Does content need to be approved before appearing on the site?
- How frequently does content need to be updated on the site?
- Are there dependencies between content from different sources?
Developing orchestration rules may be the most complicated part of the process, as it involves detailed inputs from both the technical team and business content owners. Apparently minor details or business requirements may shift the entire direction of the implementation or surface opportunities to achieve unforeseen efficiencies.
Defining business rules involves specifying – for each data source – rules for processing, approval and publishing. Processing rules describe how the content should flow through the CMS – Should the content be imported wholesale into the CMS? If so, on what schedule? How should the content be structured in the CMS? Or should only metadata be registered in the CMS, keeping the original content repository as the true content source? How should content duplication and versioning be handled?
Approval rules describe how content should be handled after being registered with Sitecore, but before being published. Should content be reviewed editorially? If so, who are the approvers? Do they need to be notified of pending content? Have content dependencies been identified? How should these dependencies be handled? How should conflicting dependency rules be resolved?
Publishing rules describe how content should be released to the public-facing website. Should content be released on a scheduled basis? Should it be driven by editorial processes? Will it be driven by dependencies on 3rd-party publishing schedules?
With these requirements in hand, Sitecore is ready to step up to the plate. An experienced Sitecore partner will be able to implement a solution that brings automation and ease-of-use to this otherwise complicated business scenario. Sitecore makes content import, metadata registration, workflow review and publishing straightforward tasks. Without question, these will require custom development based on unique business requirements; but Sitecore’s out-of-the-box features and built-in extensibility will mean implementation and deployment times measured in weeks rather than months.
The result is an orchestration system that puts power, flexibility and configurability in the hands of business content owners, marketers and product managers.
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