Tag: Sitecore

Sitecore Symposium 2018 – All discounts in one place!

Warning: This is an old post – check a new one here: sitecore symposium 2019 all discounts in one place

EDIT: early-bird price has been removed – 01-08-2018
EDIT: it seems that early-bird is still available – 20-08-2018
EDIT: Sitecore Trial contest has been finished and the winner has been announced – 21-08-2018
EDIT: added information about visa invite letter – 21-08-2018
EDIT: added detailed information about hotel rooms discount
EDIT: removed early-bird price
EDIT: removed MVP code – 14-09-2018
EDIT: removed hotel discounts – 20-09-2018

Are you going to attend on Sitecore Symposium 2018 in Orlando and you still do not have tickets and accommodation? Great, this is post for you!

These days everyone complains for lack of time so I built a list of discounts which Sitecore has prepared for you this year – maybe it will let you to get tickets in better price.

I will try to continuously update that list to share with you all up to date information which I found.

Buy tickets sooner

It is nothing new – if you will buy tickets sooner you will get a better price. This year Sitecore has prepared three price levels:

  • Early-bird: 1295$
  • Advanced: 1495$
  • Regular: 1595$

It means that if you will buy tickets now (July) you will get
100$ discount.

Use referral links from MVPs

Every MVP can prepare a special link with code which lets you to by tickets 100$ cheaper than price at the moment is. Code expires Friday, September 14, 2018.

So currently it means – 200$ off.

Click image or this link https://sitecoresymposium2018.smarteventscloud.com/portal/registration/MVPLSKOWRONSKI to use my code.

Remember, in case of any problems you can use also code directly: MVPLSKOWRONSKI

Code expires: 14 September 2018

Share your experience and get ticket
for free!

On July Sitecore has announced new trial license for developers. If you have not heard about that – check details here: https://community.sitecore.net/technical_blogs/b/technical-marketing/posts/announcing-the-global-availability-of-the-sitecore-developer-trial.

Everyone who have tried that and will share what achieved with Sitecore during 60 days of tests, have a chance to win free ticket (regular price – 1595$).

Contest closes on August 03, 2018 so you do not have too much time. Check details here: https://community.sitecore.net/technical_blogs/b/technical-marketing/posts/developer-trial-symposium-ticket-contest

The winner of this contest has been announced. The winner is Mohammad Abujaffal – congrats! Check his story here: My Sitecore story.

If you want to check Sitecore’s announcement – visit this page.

Buy tickets in group

If you are coming with the team or you just want to organize with friends you can get discounts for groups.

Currently two levels of discount are prepared:

  • 5-9 people = 75$ off
  • 10 people and more = 100$ off

Tickets must be purchased together and cannot be combined with additional discounts.

Discounted rate in Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort

As always also this year Sitecore has organized better hotel prices for all Symposium attendees.

Use that link: https://www.swandolphin.com/groupres/site18/ to start booking process.

Worth to know that this year tracks will be split between Swan and Dolphin hotels, so if you would like to see:

  • non-technical tracks – make booking in Dolphin
  • technical tracks – make booking in Swan

Cost of a hotel room starts from USD $259 + $25 daily resort fee/night plus tax, currently 12.5% – offer expires on Friday, September 7, 2018.

Save time with Disney Resorts benefits

If you are going to stay in Swan or Dolphin you can enjoy special deals which will save your time – if you will decide to visit Walt Disney Wolrd.

On the list of benefits you will find:

  • FastPass++ reservation up to 60 days in advance
  • Extra hours benefit – Walt Disney World will be open for you before and after normal working hours
  • Possibility to order Disney tickets in advance
  • and more….

Check all benefits here: https://www.swandolphin.com/aboutus/benefits.html

Save time on US border

It is possible to get visa invite letter from Sitecore. With this letter will be easier to get visa. If you want to have it – write an email with following details to SitecoreSymposium@sitecore.com :

  • invoice number (you have to buy symposium ticket first)
  • job title
  • company name
  • company street
  • company city & postcode
  • country

 

Hopefully gathered information from this post will let you to save some bucks to spend them in Orlando!

Lifecycle of services and support

From time to time we all hear some rumors about Sitecore plans. People say interesting or sometimes strange things about incoming changes. Until today I was trying to filter what is true and what is just a gossip – but you know what? – we do not have to think about those things too much! At least in topics like cloud services and support.

I was not aware about fact that Sitecore provides clear information about their plans in terms of cloud services and support. Read on to know more about that publications.

Sitecore Cloud Services Lifecycle

In article about Sitecore Cloud Services Lifecycle you will find information about:

  • Sitecore Managed Cloud
  • Sitecore Email Cloud
  • IP Geolocation Service
  • Device Detection

And many others. What is interesting? Sitecore prepared new version of Device Detection service which replaced old one. It is not longer available for Sitecore 8 so if you want to use it you should upgrade your Sitecore to version 9. Google Apps and  Page Preview cloud services are not longer available.

More about that you will find here.

If you want to check extended information about changes in Device Detection you should check article here.

Sitecore Product Support Lifecycle

This part for some of you can be even more interesting than previous one. Why? Because partially it answers for question “when upgrade Sitecore to version 9?”.

Of course everyone who has bigger experience with Sitecore would answer:

  • “now”
  • “as fast as it is possible”

But if you need more time then in table “Support Phases For Specific Products” you will find the date when Sitecore will stop providing support for Sitecore 8.  I will not give you here the answer – you have got some time, but check particular dates here.

Summary

Both articles from links where updated week or two weeks ago. I believe they will be updated after every Sitecore update or even more often. That means that it would be good idea to add them to yours favorite links – I did that and recommend the same for you.

WFFM – incorrect formsRoot ID – Multisite

Today I want to share with you an solution for very unclear error which can occurs when we use Web Forms For Marketers in multisite solution.

You will see this error inside Experience Editor when you will be able to select forms:

Regarding to Sitecore documentation if you will add “formsRoot” parameter to the “site” node in configuration file – you will be able to define different forms root for every page.

But what will happen if ID which you will define will not exist in content tree or you will make a typo and it will not be properly ID? You will see following error:

Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. 

Exception Details: System.FormatException: Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.

Source Error: 

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.

Stack Trace: 


[FormatException: Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.]
   System.Text.StringBuilder.AppendFormatHelper(IFormatProvider provider, String format, ParamsArray args) +14649723
   System.String.FormatHelper(IFormatProvider provider, String format, ParamsArray args) +105
   System.String.Format(String format, Object[] args) +103
   Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.Sql.SqlDataApi.CreateCommand(String sql, Object[] parameters) +189
   Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.Sql.<>c__DisplayClass12.b__10() +30
   Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.NullRetryer.Execute(Func`1 action, Action recover) +286
   Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.Sql.SqlDataApi.CreateReader(String sql, Object[] parameters) +281
   Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.Sql.SqlDataProvider.ResolvePaths(String itemPath) +406
   Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.Sql.SqlDataProvider.SelectSingleID(String query, CallContext context) +126
   Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.DataProvider.SelectSingleID(String query, CallContext context, DataProviderCollection providers) +118
   Sitecore.Data.DataManager.SelectSingleItem(String query, Boolean& processed) +66
   Sitecore.Data.DefaultDatabase.SelectSingleItem(String query) +74
   Sitecore.Form.Core.Utility.SiteUtils.GetFormsSites() +620
   Sitecore.Form.Core.Utility.Utils.GetFormRoots() +138
   Sitecore.Forms.Shell.UI.CreateFormWizard.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +1109
   Sitecore.Forms.Shell.UI.InsertFormWizard.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +99

[TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.]
   System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethod(Object target, Object[] arguments, Signature sig, Boolean constructor) +0
   System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.UnsafeInvokeInternal(Object obj, Object[] parameters, Object[] arguments) +128
   System.Reflection.RuntimeMethodInfo.Invoke(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, Binder binder, Object[] parameters, CultureInfo culture) +146
   Sitecore.Reflection.ReflectionUtil.InvokeMethod(MethodInfo method, Object[] parameters, Object obj) +89
   Sitecore.Web.UI.Sheer.ClientPage.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +593
   System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +68
   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +3811

Do not loose your time for debugging – just check IDs for ALL sites – it is not important which site you are editing at the moment.

You can have there typo or root item does not exist in content tree. You have to verify all sites because during opening InsertFormWizard control – WFFM loads all configuration nodes.

Sitecore 9 development with Visual Studio 2015

If you have been using Visual Studio 2015 and now you want to start new project with Sitecore 9 you might have a small issue with supported by VS .Net Versions because VS2015 by default supports .Net up to 4.6.1 and Sitecore 9 works only with .Net 4.6.2.

There is an easy solution for this issue – install following “Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6.2 Developer Pack” which will add 4.6.2 support into yours Visual Studio 2015.

Sitecore 9 – set up SOLR SSL step by step

I’ve noticed that many people have many issues with set up of SSL for SOLR instance. In this blog post you will find everything what you need to know to do this. Just follow all steps which you will find below.

  1. Download SOLR 6.2.2
    If you want to install SOLR on Windows get zip file from following page: http://ftp.ps.pl/pub/apache/lucene/solr/6.6.2/
    then extract files into (you can choose different directory if you want).

    C:\solr\solr-6.6.2
  2. Download Not Sucking Service Manager and install Solr as a service
    You will find zip here: https://nssm.cc/download – just extract it somewhere and go to this path in your PowerShell window. Then call

    .\nssm.exe install NameOfSolrService

    and you will see new window with some settings. Set there following values:

    - Path: C:\solr\solr-6.6.2\bin\solr.cmd

- Startup Directory: C:\solr\solr-6.6.2\bin

- Arguments: start -p 662 -f -v

    After form submission you should see new service on the list of services (Windows > Run > Services) . If your service is not running – just run it from services windows – it will start automatically after restart.
    We have chosen port 662 so our SOLR instance currently will be available under url http://localhost:662/solr/

  3. Generate SOLR Certificates
    We use approach from this website https://lucene.apache.org/solr/guide/6_6/enabling-ssl.html#EnablingSSL-BasicSSLSetup
    At the beginning you should check if you have JRE installed – if not install it and then in the path

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_141\bin\keytool.exe

    you will find keytool.exe which will generate certificates for you (you might have different path – depends on version of JRE).
    Then open again PowerShell and enter into SOLR directory

    C:\solr\solr-6.6.2\server\etc

    and run following command

    & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_141\bin\keytool.exe' -genkeypair -alias solr-ssl -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -keypass secret -storepass secret -validity 9999 -keystore solr-ssl.keystore.jks -ext SAN=DNS:localhost,IP:127.0.0.1 -dname "CN=localhost, OU=Organizational Unit, O=Organization, L=Location, ST=State, C=Country"

    You should notice that we have got there keypass equal to “secret” which can be changed on local, and should be changed on other environments.
    Then we need to convert key to PEM format with command:

    & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_141\bin\keytool.exe' -importkeystore -srckeystore solr-ssl.keystore.jks -destkeystore solr-ssl.keystore.p12 -srcstoretype jks -deststoretype pkcs12

    You will be asked few times for password – use “secret” or your own.
    Then we need to convert generated key for next format with OpenSSL – download OpenSSL from here https://indy.fulgan.com/SSL/openssl-0.9.8r-x64_86-win64-rev2.zip and extract into

    C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenSSL

    and run command:

    & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\OpenSSL\openssl.exe' pkcs12 -in solr-ssl.keystore.p12 -out solr-ssl.pem
  4. Import certificate to the trusted certificates
    Opem “Windows > Run > mmc” and manage certificates. Import created certificate to the list of trusted ones.
  5. Change SOLR settings
    In final step you need to change yours configuration for SOLR. Open SOLR server directory

    C:\solr\solr-6.6.2\bin

    and open to edit of solr.in.cmd file. Then add at the end following settings:

    set SOLR_SSL_KEY_STORE=etc/solr-ssl.keystore.jks

set SOLR_SSL_KEY_STORE_PASSWORD=secret

set SOLR_SSL_TRUST_STORE=etc/solr-ssl.keystore.jks

set SOLR_SSL_TRUST_STORE_PASSWORD=secret

REM Require clients to authenticate

set SOLR_SSL_NEED_CLIENT_AUTH=false

REM Enable clients to authenticate (but not require)

set SOLR_SSL_WANT_CLIENT_AUTH=false
  6. Test
    To test if it works you need to restart yours SOLR service. After restart SOLR will not longer work with http protocol – so you need to go into “https://localhost:662/solr” to check how your SSL works.

And now you are ready to install Sitecore 9 and xConnect. Have a good fun with it!