What is "Projects & Sites"?

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Transcript

So What is the Projects & Sites feature?

In this training, we will answer that question by reviewing

• Instance configuration patterns
• New sites and projects
• How to request access

Projects and sites is a feature available in the CMS to support instances with a large number of sites and multiple implementation teams.

You might see a few projects and site roots in your current instance.

Sites are organized with Site Root folders for pages and Project Folders for the supporting the models, templates, library files, and also those options like site workflow and file naming management.

Basically, your rule of thumb is

Site roots are for content, and Projects are for code and configuration.

In addition to making easier to organize and keep track of multiple sites, using this feature allows you to branch and merge projects. There are separate videos with more detail later in this curriculum.

FYI, if you’re a developer maintaining an instance created before 2014, that’s when we released this feature, you’ll find the models, templates and library files located in the System folder.

Just keep in mind when you are creating a new site, even in a pre-2014 instance, you should create a new site root and when necessary, a new project to support it.

When I say site, I mean:

• Unique set of content: HTML pages, XML files, JSON
• All content is intended for a specific domain for example crownpeak.com versus crownpeak.co.uk
• And also In the platform, a specific set of publishing packages has been configured for tracking and DQM monitoring

You can create a site root by selecting the New > Site Root option in the File menu.

Once you have a site created, you have a couple of options.

You can now create a new project to create a unique set of code for the site.

Or you can associate the site with an existing project using the Site Root properties.

If you are don't see a Site Root or Project option in your new menu don't worry. This visibility is based on your group and instance configuration. So, you can request an update to these settings through the support community.

Just submit a support case to request that the Projects & Sites feature be enabled.

Also, be sure to specify the group of users who should have access for example, developers or admins since this type of access is based on group settings not specific user settings.

That’s a quick overview of the Projects & Sites feature.

You should now understand the purpose of the feature and the differences you might see in those pre-2014 implementations.

Also, you should understand how to create a new site root, and a project.

How to relate an existing project to a new site root.

And also what to do if you don't see any of those options.

For a deeper dive, watch the next video, showing how projects & sites can be organized in a few different combinations to optimize code reuse. It also shows how to share code from library files, even those library files in the System folder.