Sanjeev's Sitecore Blogs

Tag: Sitecore

Sitecore MVP Mentor Program

Mid week February this year, I received an email from Sitecore about this great Sitecore MVP Mentor Program. Exited about it did not waste any more time but sent an email to mvp-program@sitecore.com you can do that now too.

This changed my plans a great deal. I met great people but one of a lifetime friend, coach and more so a Mentor Dirk Schäfauer. If you receive an email or any communication from him saying he is allocated as your Mentor for the upcoming year. Just grab the opportunity and no looking back from there. To can learn more about him at on his profile here.

Apparently there have been many experiences I have heard that this might not work as there could be cultural, language and time-zone related issues. But do not let them distract you. This program works and I am so lucky to have specially Dirk in the whole process got me to speed in his first meeting and I was falling behind. To know more about him please read this 10 Years 5 Questions

How to Apply

Good News is the date has been extended so you can submit the applications even today. Go to https://mvp.sitecore.com/Application/Apply and submit your Applications today by EOD.

Eligibility

Anyone who are greatly involved in using Sitecore and passionate about it, and are very driven to share the knowledge on Sitecore. A proven track record of contribution to the Community will be identified for sure.

Opportunity

Without EPAM Systems and specially a cool leader like Walt guiding me and following up from time to time on my goals has given me this opportunity. I will always be thankful and grateful.

December 1, 2022
Sitecore Docker Compose Up
I was trying to get few of my experiments on Sitecore this afternoon, and spent a lot of time getting the Sitecore Docker Instance running on the lowest of Memories on an Oracle Virtual Box, Windows 10 VM, yes with 16GB RAM. This has been pending since I always got into issues running this. I thought may be it is Mac, or may be it is the 16GB or something else. And kept this project pending. So much for waiting. I thought this has to happen today. So I solved this issue. Hope this will be helpful to few of you.

The bare necessities to run Sitecore is the “License”, we cannot avoid that part. I always thought this was set (configured) properly. Found out that was not the case. I was under the impression that the content of the file when passed to the “compose-init.ps1” and it will run as expected when we pass in the file plain. Like below
```
.\compose-init.ps1 -LicenseXmlPath "C:\License\license.xml"
```
The Problem

This command execution just worked find, but when I started the instance “docker-compose up -d” will not work.

Yes, I did all the following
```
iisreset /stop
docker-compose stop
docker-compose down
docker-compose up -d
```
But the situation continued, traefik fails, so did a deep dive on to the logs to see what did happen. Try the right-click on the running docker instance in question like below, since Visual Studio Code makes it convenient

Visual Studio Code with Docker Extensions (very hand)

Learnt that the exceptions were thrown related with License, this was easy to fix. So made sure the files are in place, opened the file to view the content and everything was fine.

Run the “docker-compose up -d” again, nope. Same result.

Solution

This is how it is done and it worked for me
```
Set-DockerComposeEnvFileVariable "SITECORE_LICENSE" -Value (ConvertTo-CompressedBase64String -Path "C:\License\license.xml")
```
Read the Sitecore Link for more details. But I noticed that the “.env” file never got updated, however this worked for me. And no more traefik issues. Instances are running the successfully.

Happy Coding, Sitecore on Docker is the fun and all of us need to have this handy for any tests and development ofcourse.

Success on PowerShell

Visual Studio Code Extension for Docker is the best. I have been using this long enough and I recommend you all to use too.

All Green, but I am yet to find the solution for those small red squares

References
1. Sitecore Docker Tools
March 5, 2022
Sitecore 10 Developer Certification
This Certification has been a standard requirement for all of us who are active in Sitecore.

I would like to share few important insights about the Certification and what is important that you need to prepare.

First and foremost thing is to have enough practice on the product, then you need to read the latest developments.

Sitecore has been improving the platform its integrations with the parallel technologies and keep it powerful on every iterations. so each one of us should strive to keep updating their technical skills

What is covered in this certification is very clear, you can read them in the learning requirements for the Certification, at learning.sitecore.com.

Make a note of the competencies requires listed and explained in the study guide section.

There are few things which I am listing below to take keen note on
1. Sitecore has introduced and delivered a great developer tool Sitecore CLI so remember what are the advantages of using it one part, but what if you are trying to do a task and that is not working as expected and how will you fix it. Yes the plugin.
2. Sitecore has a come a long way in helping deployment of content from environment to environment, however to the developer workflow one cannot forget the best part of serialization, so Content Serialization is a better needed tool for us developers. Pay attention to what are the important configuration files, what if you do not do some important steps and the expected items did not end up in the right environment.
  - How the modules and its dependencies work together
  - which files (configuration) needs to be done right
  - where is the setting for dependencies
  - how do the rules work
3. During the first steps all of us will do an installation, we would not work without it. With SIF there were great learnings, however the cool GUI Installation tool always had those challenges, so remember those errors which can cause the situation. Don’t drop your learnings what happens if you don’t configure Solr right and still get your self ahead, this tool is going to stop you, right! read the error properly and you will understand the reasons well.
4. SXA all of us would expect that this will be the topic, I agree people said there is NO SXA in the exam. It is non-sxa. in order to answer questions which starts with “in a non-sxa site”… you need to know what is done in SXA and non-SXA too. The answers will help you to remove two obvious non related answers then the rest will guide you to answer. Don’t get trapped in loops just your experience is the answer.
5. “Back” button is your friend, one question which will confuse you or challenges your memory will connect and click in the next question. So get back and fix it.
6. The basics of Placeholders and Placeholder Settings are no exceptions,
  - what happens if you don’t have the settings right
  - why would both the components content is visible while you place them on a layout
  - importance of dynamic placeholders
7. Another basics is Rendering parameters, they will always be your friend so, what would you recommend to get this situation corrected when you a developer repeats sitting in the same project but in different rooms (silos), yes best practices angle is the right stuff for all your questions.
8. Docker has been our friend since many years, this is mainstream for non-developers too. The basics of environment files and their significance is very cool foundation items. Don’t miss them these are easy common items
9. If you wear your Best Practices hat, you will be looking at serious flaws in design and approach, why would this template inherit from that one vs why would you keep the fields organized when defining the order. These are basics often goes without saying.
10. Read the study guide you will get few practice questions, this will provide an idea of how the questions are framed. They will be showing you the answer in plain sight and try to mislead you at the same time.
Practice more and be confident, this will help you to get the high scores.

References
1. All details from booking the exam to planning is well documented in Bala’s Sitecore 10 Certification tips and Tricks
February 8, 2022