Configuration setting for HTML encoded field types

Following setting can be used to skip HTML Encoding of values, when they are rendered.
   
    <!--  RENDERING - HTML ENCODED FIELD TYPES
            Specifies a pipe-separated list of field types that should be HTML encoded when rendered by the <renderField> pipeline.
            Default value: text|single-line text
      -->
      <setting name="Rendering.HtmlEncodedFieldTypes" value="text|single-line text" />


Good articles :

http://sitecore.stockpick.nl/english/single-line-text-with-html.aspx
http://sdn.sitecore.net/Forum/ShowPost.aspx?postid=10087

Data Flow - Sitecore WebForms For Marketer (WFFM) - Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of the Data Flow blog series


1) Data Flow - Sitecore WebForms For Marketer (WFFM) - Part I
2) Data Flow - Sitecore WebForms For Marketer (WFFM) - Part II

In our Part 1 blog post, we discuss about the WFFM data flow from front-webpage to MongoDB database.

In this blog post, I will discuss about the WFFM data flow from MongoDB database to MSSQL Reporting database.

Fixing/Setting-up WFFM data transfer

1) WFFM Post-Installation SQL Script

Make sure that you have run the WFFM Post-Installation SQL Script in your Reporting database.
/data/...

this script will create following tables in your "Reporting" database.

2) WFFM Bug Fixes

Also, before we proceed to discuss Data Flow, we need to fix some bugs in WFFM 8.0 update-2/update-3 releases.
see Sitecore 8 WFFM Data Aggregation Error

Data Flow

MongoDB to MSSQL Reporting Database

Sitecore process data from MongoDB to MSSQL Reporting database in four ways

i.e. Aggregation, Continuous Update, Rebuilding the reporting database, Maintanence

More information on these process, visit sitecore documentation 

So, when data was written to MongoDB, Sitecore will Aggregate those data to suite into Reporting database tables. Then, by Continuous Update process, data will be transferred into Reporting database tables.

Below I tried to show the MSSQL "reporting" database tables structure.

Tables :

FormFieldValues  -  contain all the submitted form field values
    FieldValueId

    FieldValue

Fact_FormSummary  -  contain summary of the submitted form values   
    FormId
    FieldId
    FieldValueId
    FieldName
    Count

Fact_FormEvents  -
    ContactId
    InteractionId
    InteractionStartDate
    PageEventDefinitionId
    FormId
    Count

Fact_FormStatisticsByContact  -  all statistics of form submitions
    ContactId
    FormId
    LastInteractionDate
    Submits
    Success
    Dropouts
    Failures
    Visits
    Value
    FinalResult
   

Sitecore Incremental Publishing Revealed

After seen a post in Sitecore Community forum, I thought of writing this post.

I will try to explain how Sitecore Incremental publishing works internally in Sitecore


1) Sitecore item created/edited/deleted

Sitecore will write an entry to "History" table

Note : There is an exception in some cases, where entry was NOT written to History table.
See Cases where an Entry was not written to History table... (coming soon)


2) Incremental Publishing task executed

• In "Properties" table, there is an entry to store Last Incremental Publishing run time.
• Sitecore goes to "Properties" table and take the above setting value.
• Then, go to Publish Queue table and take all the entries which is entered into that table after the Last Incremental Publish runtime property value.
• Then, it publishes those items one after another, from oldest to latest
• At the end of the above task, Sitecore Updates the entry in the "Properties" table with the current timestamp.

Practical Scenario :

1) Edit "/sitecore/content/home" item

2) Entry added to History table

3) Run an Incremental Publish

4) Sitecore retrieves the Last Publish time for the language, and publish all the items/rows added to Publish Queue table after that time

 

5) After publish end, Update/Write Last Publish time entry in the Properties table

Extra Readings :

How Sitecore History table is Maintained...(coming soon)
Cases where an Entry was not written to History table... (coming soon)

Community Documentation Site for Sitecore

There is a very very useful documentation site which is written by Sitecore employees.

http://sitecore-community.github.io/docs/

Most of you may already knew about this site, but I found it today Only :-D

Hope this will help someone!!

Data Flow - Sitecore WebForms For Marketer (WFFM) - Part I

In this Blog post series, I will discuss about the Data Flow of Sitecore 8 - from front-end website to MSSQL Databases


1) Data Flow - Sitecore WebForms For Marketer (WFFM) - Part I
2) Data Flow - Sitecore WebForms For Marketer (WFFM) - Part II

Setting Up :

1) Create WFFM Form

2) Add newly created WFFM form to Item Presentation Details

3) Publish

4) View it in Front Website

5) Empty Forms Reports
As you can see from the below image, WFFM reports does not have any records. So, we will start with a fresh copy of WFFM.

Data Injection :

Enter Data to WFFM form fields and click "Submit"

Data Flow :

1)  Front Webpage to Session

User enters data into wffm form and click "Submit" button
You can view the data going from front webpage to server by using Fiddler tool (see Screenshot below)

2)  Session to MongoDB database

Sitecore migrate data from Session to MongoDB only when user session is ended.
By default session end time will be 30mins. You can adjust that time by adding "timeout" parameter to <forms ... > tag as below

    <authentication …> 
        <forms name=".ASPXAUTH" cookieless="UseCookies" timeout="2" />
    </authentication>

Refer : https://kb.sitecore.net/articles/345947

• Empty MongoDB - Before processing any data

As you can see in the below image, there is still no MongoDB collection related WFFM, inside the analytics database

• After processing WFFM form data to MongoDB

When the data was processed to MongoDB at the end of the user session timout, a new collection (FormData) is created inside the analytics database.

Below image displays how data is stored into MongoDB "FormData" collection

That is it for the first part.

In the next part, we will discuss some issues/bug with WFFM module and fixes, when migrating content from MongoDB to MSSQL "reporting" database as well as how these data is processed into MSSQL database tables.

see you soon!!

Sitecore 8 WFFM Data Aggregation Error

Issue : 

WFFM Data not aggregated (transferred) from MongoDB to MSSQL Reporting database

Error :

 8184 18:38:35 ERROR Error during aggregation.

Exception: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException

Message: T-SQL ERROR 242, SEVERITY 16, STATE 3, PROCEDURE (null), LINE 231, MESSAGE: The conversion of a datetime data type to a smalldatetime data type resulted in an out-of-range value.

Source: .Net SqlClient Data Provider

   at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection, Action`1 wrapCloseInAction)

   at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj,

.....

Sitecore Version :  

8.0 Update-2  & 8.0 Update-3

Solution :

Adding following configuration (if not exists) into /App_Config/Include/Sitecore.Analytics.Processing.Aggregation.config file

             <!-- Facts -->             

            <SqlMappingEntity type="Sitecore.Analytics.Aggregation.SqlMappingEntity, Sitecore.Analytics.Sql">

              <Table>Fact_FormStatisticsByContact</Table>

              <Routine>Add_FormStatisticsByContact</Routine>

            </SqlMappingEntity>          

     

 Run following SQL on Reporting Database

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[Add_FormStatisticsByContact]
  @ContactId [uniqueidentifier],
  @FormId [uniqueidentifier],
  @LastInteractionDate [datetime],
  @Submits [int],
  @Success [int],
  @Dropouts [int],
  @Failures [int],
  @Visits [int],
  @Value [int],
  @FinalResult [int]
AS
BEGIN

SET NOCOUNT ON;

  BEGIN TRY

    MERGE [dbo].[Fact_FormStatisticsByContact] AS t
    USING
    (
      VALUES
      (
        @ContactId,
        @FormId,
        @LastInteractionDate,
        @Submits,
        @Success,
        @Dropouts,
        @Failures,
        @Visits,
        @Value,
        @FinalResult
      )
    )
    as s
    (
      [ContactId],
      [FormId],
      [LastInteractionDate],
        [Submits],
        [Success],
        [Dropouts],
        [Failures],
        [Visits],
        [Value],
        [FinalResult]
    )
    ON
    (
      t.[ContactId] = s.[ContactId] AND
      t.[FormId] = s.[FormId]
    )

    WHEN MATCHED and (t.[LastInteractionDate] < s.[LastInteractionDate]) THEN UPDATE SET
      t.[LastInteractionDate] = s.[LastInteractionDate],
      t.[Submits] = s.[Submits],
      t.[Success] = s.[Success],
      t.[Dropouts] = s.[Dropouts],
      t.[Failures] = s.[Failures],
      t.[Visits] = s.[Visits],
      t.[Value] = s.[Value],
      t.[FinalResult] = s.[FinalResult]

    WHEN NOT MATCHED THEN
      INSERT(
      [ContactId],
      [FormId],
      [LastInteractionDate],
        [Submits],
        [Success],
        [Dropouts],
        [Failures],
        [Visits],
        [Value],
        [FinalResult]
        )
      VALUES(
      s.[ContactId],
      s.[FormId],
      s.[LastInteractionDate],
        s.[Submits],
        s.[Success],
        s.[Dropouts],
        s.[Failures],
        s.[Visits],
        s.[Value],
        s.[FinalResult]
        );

  END TRY
  BEGIN CATCH

    DECLARE @error_number INTEGER = ERROR_NUMBER();
    DECLARE @error_severity INTEGER = ERROR_SEVERITY();
    DECLARE @error_state INTEGER = ERROR_STATE();
    DECLARE @error_message NVARCHAR(4000) = ERROR_MESSAGE();
    DECLARE @error_procedure SYSNAME = ERROR_PROCEDURE();
    DECLARE @error_line INTEGER = ERROR_LINE();


      RAISERROR( N'T-SQL ERROR %d, SEVERITY %d, STATE %d, PROCEDURE %s, LINE %d, MESSAGE: %s', @error_severity, 1, @error_number, @error_severity, @error_state, @error_procedure, @error_line, @error_message ) WITH NOWAIT;



  END CATCH;

END;
GO

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note : Thanks Sitecore Support for proving the above Fix.

Sitecore Marketplace Module - Lang Item State Change Workflow Action

I have converted one of my earlier blog posts into Sitecore Marketplace module.

Marketplace Module Link :
https://marketplace.sitecore.net/en/Modules/L/Lang_Item_State_Change_Workflow_Action.aspx

This is a simple workflow action which can be used to take only defined language item to a defined workflow state.

Just installed this and Workflow action will be available in Templates/User Defined section
/sitecore/templates/User Defined/WorkflowAction/Lang Item State Change Action

This action can be added inside Workflow states to execute.

Hope this will be useful for someone!!