Sitecore SXA first impressions

First Impressions

When I started working with Sitecore CMS, one of the most confusing parts was the lack pre-built components for simple stuff like adding page content, Facebook comments. This was due to my background in DotNetNuke what comes with lots of first party modules to be used out of the box, I assumed this would be the case with Sitecore. It is the case now with the introduction of Sitecore experience accelerator (SXA).

What is Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA)?

SXA is a set of re-usable templates and components that allows you to get your website quickly up and running. In order to achieve this goal SXA has these types out of the box:

Part of SXA components

• Components: varies from content to composite to media components, etc. They all can be dragged and dropped on place holders. Some components can also host other placeholders (They automatically solve the problem of dynamic placeholders that exist in current Sitecore layouts. In existing projects we have a custom solution for this)
• Partial Designs: Designs that are to be shared across different types of pages like copyright footer or a top menu or search box
• Page Designs: Designs that will be used across certain page templates. These designs have either page components or partial designs. There is a mapping between which template should use which page design in the ribbon of the experience editor. Of course you can add components directly on the page but page designs allows you to maintain consistency among all pages with the same template
• Rendering Variants: Allows the admin to create rendering variants of components that include both html and CSS changes.These variants can be selected in the experience editor in the properties of the component.
• Creative Exchange Export/Import: Allows the admin to export the whole design to send it to web designers to modify the look and feel of HTML+CSS and the re-imported again to the website.

From what I saw, SXA looks very promising with simple sites can be totally be done with little to no custom development. But from my experience, you will never know till you use SXA in a real life project.

Important links:

SXA at the time of writing is version 1.1 and requires either Sitecore 8.1 or 8.2. 

• Prerequisites: Sitecore powershell extensions
• Download and release information: SXA version 1.1 
• SXA documentation
• SXA Webinar: This webinar is the best resource I found to demo the SXA capabilities. To view the recording, just enter your info and click Register

License Considerations:

SXA requires extra license key "Sitecore.SXA". This key is not in Sitecore license files generated before August,25th 2016. To be able to use SXA, you will need to get a sitecore license file that is generated after this date. Also this means extra money to be paid by the companies purchasing Sitecore.

Final Thoughts and Questions:

1. This is a really promising technology. It can reduce site development time and comes with lots of useful components out of the box.
2. This is a new technology that involves some risk and learning curve to master.
3. I was not able to make the export/import work as expected. I think I missed one of the steps.
4. Custom development will be needed to meet your requirements that are not fulfilled by the existing SXA components but it is not mentioned in the webinar other than that we should inherit controllers from certain class. And it is not that clear from the documentation.
5. I don't think we can limit the content of the toolbar depending on the template but I am not sure. This feature will be useful as we may need to limit content authors from adding certain components in certain templates