Sitecore CMS 6.2 Features Workflow Notifications, Web Forms

By Irina Guseva (@irina_guseva) Oct 26, 2009

Sitecore (news, site) has unleashed the latest version of its web content management system. Among the new features in version 6.2 are RSS feeds for workflows, MS Outlook integration for workflow notifications, Web forms and some asset upload functionality using WebDAV.

While many of these features may sound a bit yesterday in the world of web content management, Sitecore users will probably welcome them with open arms. Better late than never, as they say.

Web Forms in Sitecore 6.2

The new Web forms functionality is targeted at non-technical marketers, who need to create web forms, carry out online campaigns and fight the good fight of web content optimization.

According to the company, using Sitecore CMS 6.2 Web forms tool, content editors can build forms and utilize reports to track and monitor conversion goals and user behavior for usability analysis and optimization. The tool also allows to capture data on abandoned forms and track dropout statistics.

Workflow Integration With Outlook

Sitecore now integrates with MS Outlook to allow users to receive workflow notifications via e-mail. This feature — admittedly quite popular among content editors — is a common means of workflow notification in the content management space.

In the case of Sitecore 6.2, the notifications go beyond simple informative updates. Users can get e-mail notifications and take workflow-related actions directly from their Outlook client. The alerts contain workflow actions, statuses and version comparisons.

Workflow Item RSS Feeds

Sitecore added RSS feed capability for items in workflows, allowing editors to subscribe to any changes that are made to a workflow-dependent item in Sitecore, selecting a specific workflow or workflow state as filters.

More information on this feature is available in Sitecore’s official documentation: the "Content Author's Cookbook", the "Client Configuration Reference" and the "Content API Cookbook" (not available to unregistered users).

Assets Upload Using WebDAV

While Sitecore calls this new feature “Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Media and Document Management,” in reality, it is a touch less exciting than it sounds.

WebDAV has been used by other CMS vendors in the past for scenarios when, for example, a batch upload of assets was in order. Using the Windows Explorer interface content editors can copy/paste or drag and drop images, MS Office documents and other binaries from a network share drive or their local computer to the CMS repository.

There are a number of ways to get media files into Sitecore. Content managers can upload them one at a time, create a structured .zip archive and then upload the full archive to Sitecore, or they can use the new WebDAV functions to transfer one or more files via typical Windows file move scenarios.

Sitecore CMS v6.2 ImageEditor
Sitecore CMS v6.2 — Native Image Editor

In Sitecore's WebDAV case, the assets can be uploaded to the CMS media library, and from there content managers can embed those files into editable content elements. The company's use of WebDAV here is pretty straightforward, and frankly speaking, given the broad utility of such a function, we’re surprised they didn't get around to it earlier.

Also, keep in mind that if you want to use WebDAV, you’ll need to configure your browsers and the IIS following the mandatory client configuration instructions provided by the vendor. The provided v6.2 documentation contains the details.