Top 10.1 new features of Sitecore 10.1
Sitecore 10.1’s big release happened yesterday (2/25/2021). So, for all of you on Sitecore 7.x, 8.x, 9.x, the big question will be should you upgrade to Sitecore 10.1 and what is the benefit for the cost of the upgrade. Before you evaluate your upgrade, take a quick look at the top features of Sitecore 10.1, how to use them, and the potential ROI from using the feature efficiently. Without further ado here are the Sitecore 10.1 new features:
Horizon with SXA
This is arguably the best features of Sitecore 10.1. With the enhancements made to the Horizon editor in Sitecore 10 and 10.1 and the introduction of SXA into the editor, the Horizon editor is poised to take over from Content Editor and Experience Editor starting in this version of Sitecore.
The Horizon Editor is a combination editor with the most vital and used features from both Content Editor and Experience Editor. You have the content tree on the left, allowing you to easily navigate and create items and pages. When you edit your page, you can now do it in context, similar to the Experience Editor experience. You also have the form field layout for metadata fields. Publishing, switching between language variants, and sites are now available within the Horizon editor.
The biggest upgrade of Horizon, however, is the combination with SXA. With Horizon and SXA, marketers can now drag and drop components on a page, and edit the look and feel as well as the content of the component in context.
When and How to use:
Both the Horizon Editor and SXA are separate installs within Sitecore and require your site to be coded to work within their frameworks. However, for any new sites, redesigns, and even new content editors in Sitecore, this is the perfect tool. They offer you the ability to be more nimble as a marketing team.
Sitecore AI
With Sitecore 10.1, AI is now standard as part of your XP subscription license. It no longer requires the 1 million unique visit limit either. You can setup your Sitecore AI personalization in these 2 manners:
Targeted Experiences: A multivariate test of all your content for a specific component, and then you let the AI pick not just the winner, but the winner for each segment.
Recommendation Engine: Setup a folder of any content type, and point your AI personalization rule to the folder as the data source. Now Sitecore AI picks the best articles, products, jobs, etc to fit the visitors coming to the site based on their profile, behavior, and interests.
Additionally with Sitecore AI, you have dashboards that display the success of your AI determined variants and segments. The metrics to determine the success of the variants for the standard version of Sitecore AI are bounce rate or engagement value. Also, there is a maximum set of 20 components that can be personalized using Sitecore AI. The premium (paid) version of Sitecore AI removes the limits on unique visits and number of components, as well as offers more success metrics.
Sitecore Forms Enhancements
Sitecore 10.1 brings several enhancements to Sitecore’s drag and drop editor for creating forms, allowing even more flexibility with creating any type of form that a website may need, and putting all the control in the hands of the marketer/Sitecore content editor.
Simple Email Submit Action: This simple submit action is getting the most attention as it has been the one lacking feature that has made Sitecore Forms not so usable, until now. This submit action simple sends the form and any/all of the filled out fields to any email address. This submit action is perfect for lead or contact us forms, sending the form details to one or more email boxes, and including all the fields necessary to take the needful next steps with the information and the lead or contact.
Form Design Enhancements: Form designers can now create an autocomplete list of CSS classes that can be used to style any field on a form. This feature allows for brand governance with your forms, flexibility with form design, and makes it extremely easy for form creators to create forms using an approved style guide.
Custom Validation: Each field on the form can now be linked to a custom validator, using a regular expression. This allows for fields to be validated with whatever business rules are needed, giving content editors and marketers to create even complex forms right from Sitecore’s Form Builder.
Profiling via Content Tags and Content Hierarchy
If you have ever felt that bulk tagging your content with Profile Cards was difficult, the Rules Based Profiling via Content Tags and Content Hierarchy makes this a lot easier. Marketers, business users and admins will all be happy to know that you can now assign profiles quickly and efficiently to pages by setting up marketing definition mapping rules. While you could bulk assign profile cards using search before Sitecore 10.1, the marketing definitions allows you to retro-actively audit which content has been tagged with which profiles, and auto-assigns cards to new content that meets the rules as the content is created.
To set up your rules, head over to the Marketing Control Panel and find the Marketing Definition Mapping section.
Right-click on Rules > Insert > Rule
Name your rule and then edit the rule. And now you can assign multiple items to a profile card. For example, you can assign a profile card based on the hierarchy of your site by selecting all subsections within a certain “industry” or “service” have the same profile card. Or, you can assign a profile card to pages with specific tags by selecting where a specific tag is assigned to an item.
Combined with Open Calais (that auto-tags content), this could be a set it and forget it feature that auto-tags and assigns profile cards to content, reducing hours of content editor time previously dedicated to content profiling, and still getting the benefits of Experience Analytics and Personalization from well-profiled content.
Personalization via GeoIP for Sitecore XM users
Sitecore has brought back in-session Personalization for Sitecore customers with only an XM license (ie no xDB). So, you’re able to personalize by context, eg: location or even ISP or company. This is an excellent feature, especially for B2B companies that may have target lists and want to know which companies are visiting their website and showing interest in them, and additionally personalize their message to those companies. Google Analytics deprecated their GeoIP feature last year. This feature being out of the box and free now in Sitecore allows your analytics to be enhanced with GeoIP information including ISP and company name, even if you just have an XM license. There is no longer an excuse for not being able to personalize the experience for any Sitecore customer!
Email Experience Manager
The newest Sitecore release includes new email templates. In Sitecore 9, EXM had a few basic templates (sample newsletter, one-column, and two-column). Now we have a variety of layouts that allow you to change up the look and feel of your emails depending on the goal and audience. Marketers will be able to create email campaigns faster and with more flexibility. Here are the new templates in Sitecore 10.1 that should be able to accommodate most of your email campaigns and marketing automation journeys:
Announcement: A one column layout with section for a text, image, and call to action
Alternating Columns: This was the old “Newsletter” column layout. It has images and calls to actions side by side, alternating from left to right.
Call to Action Focus: This is a simple layout that has only one call to action that is the focus of the email.
Left Image Block: Similar to the Alternating Columns, this layout has one 2 column layout with an image on the left and the call to action on the right.
Right Image Block: Exactly the same as the Left Image Block, the only difference is that the image is on the right and the call to action is on the left.
Image Focus: This is a combination layout allowing one to two columns of image blocks, text, and call to actions.
Three Column Long: A layout that starts with a one column text block and allows for 3 calls to actions.
Three Column Short: Similar to its long counterpart, this layout simply doesn’t have the text block, but does include the 3 calls to actions.
Two Column One CTA: Starts out with a two column text block and one column CTA.
If none of these appeal to you, you still have the option of using your existing page layout to create a page or even import HTML and start an email using that HTML.
Sitecore Experience Edge
Sitecore Experience Edge is Sitecore’s first take on adopting a Sitecore SaaS deployment. There are 2 versions of Sitecore Experience Edge:
Sitecore Edge Delivery for Content Hub: With this version you can use Sitecore Content Hub for content planning, creation, and strategy, and then deliver the content via graphQL APIs to any channel, including a headless website.
Sitecore Edge Delivery for XM: Sitecore’s CMS on the backend, but your presentation layer on the front-end, using Sitecore’s Headless Services and any of the Frameworks and SDKs supported by Sitecore.
Sitecore Experience Edge is Sitecore’s first take on where they are headed as a company with a cloud-first SaaS model, and should certainly be a thought for customers standing up a new Sitecore instance or website.
Next.js and Jamstack
Sitecore Headless Services (Formerly JSS) now supports another framework along with React, Vue, Angular, and .NET Core - Next.js. Next.js is built on top of React and allows for development and production runtime parity, and simpler deployment requirements. There are some differences in terms of how the Next.js SDK for Sitecore works as compared to the other Sitecore Javascript SDKs, including the built-in pre-rendering and proxying support, as well as the not requiring a separate deployment for Experience Editor Integration. Overall, it seems that Next.js may offer a simplified Architecture and Deployment as compared to the other Sitecore Headless Services Frameworks and SDKs.
Data Purge tool for xDB
This tool within xDB allows developers to quickly get rid of unused, anonymous, or data following any custom condition. xDB collects a lot of data about your customers and their behavior on your digital properties, some times even making the database and the analytics difficult to use with potentially irrelevant data. This mechanism allows for a cleanup releasing space and purging irrelevant data. The data purge tool combined with custom conditions can:
Aid in Personal data laws to ensure you stay in compliance, such as getting rid of all data for a given user (Right to be forgotten)
Reduce infrastructure costs if run regularly by reducing space
Cleanup your analytics, such as if you have old data, like a deleted profile or goal affecting your Engagement Value Score
Simplified Upgrade Process
Sitecore has changed and simplified their upgrade process going to Sitecore 10.1, giving teams even lesser reasons to stall that upgrade. The simplified upgrade process is relevant for everyone going from Sitecore 8.1 or higher to Sitecore 10.1. The documentation now describes installing a new instance and upgrading the database, rather than the in place upgrades prescribed by Sitecore in previous versions. After the new install, you simply need to deploy your solution and attach your upgraded database
Once you’ve upgraded to Sitecore 10.x and utilized containers, this process gets even easier. For example, Sitecore has a separate container deployment upgrade guide upgrading the SQL databases within a container environment.
10.1 New Launchpad
Most obvious difference in Sitecore 10.1 is the color change. We went from Sitecore red to a nice mix of blues. Features are still broken up into 4 sections and now the sections are clearly labeled.
As for marketing applications, Sitecore 10.1 comes with Sitecore Forms (introduced in Sitecore 9.1), Marketing Automation and Campaign Creator. We now see PowerShell ISE and PowerShell Reports in our Content Editing tools and access to the Update Center under Control Panel. You will also notice Social, powered by Komfo and the App Center are no longer part of the Control Panel set.
In Summary
Sitecore has added some exciting new features in their latest version (10.1), enhancing both the marketing and developer experience. From Sitecore AI to Horizon + SXA, marketers can build their sites and pages with increased efficiency and personalize every experience from the start with minimal effort. With Next.js and Experience Edge, Sitecore has gotten closer to their promise of a SaaS headless solution, with the newest of technologies to entice developers. The ROI for Sitecore 10.1 is evident in these 10.1 features from Customer Value to increased efficiency for your marketing and development teams. Happy Sitecoring and upgrading as you get your hands on these features!
