Sitefinity Customization Best Practices

Custom Modules

Sitefinity also gives users the ability to create custom modules for their sites, along with the set of modules that are already built into Sitefinity. Developers can use the Module Builder or Sitefinity Thunder to create custom modules. A custom module allows you to add more content and organize it in a way that best works for your business and for your customers viewing and using your site. Using SiteFinity's Project Manager and editing in Visual Studio, the possibilities for modules are endless. Custom modules can be used alongside of Sitefinity built-in modules. One simple example of a custom module might be something like an intra-site feedback form, where visitors on the front end can submit a form that asks them for feedback on a product or your customer service. Back end users are granted access to a custom page in the backend of Sitefinity that organizes the submitted feedback forms in a table, which can be sorted in various ways or edited by users with the correct permissions.

Custom Widgets

The capability to create your own custom widgets is another great feature of Sitefinity CMS. To build a widget, the developer would employ the simple widget designer. Widgets help you add and define more complex functionality and content on your site’s pages. Custom widgets enable you to go beyond the built-in widgets and create widgets that are specific to your site and help you display your content and have your business’s website operate in the way that you want it to. Custom widgets are created as simple .ascx files with standard HTML markup. The .ascx file can be placed anywhere in the project, but Sitefinity recommends placing it in the website templates folder. Sitefinity also provides guidelines for layout widgets that include HTML code for various standard layouts that can be modified or combined to create custom widgets.

Custom Workflows

Sitefinity comes equipped with built-in workflows, but also gives developers and users the ability to create their own custom workflows. A developer can help you easily extend workflows and create custom ones to work for your business. Custom workflows in a CMS allow you customize how your site’s content is produced, published, edited, and managed. Being able to customize content workflow helps you ensure that your content is accurate, engaging, and posted or updated regularly. Having the right custom workflow for site content can also help you more efficiently use Sitefinity's content sharing features, which reduce workload and help ensure consistent messaging across your site or sites.

Call in the Professionals

Customization can do wonders for your business, but only if it is done correctly. When adding a custom workflow, module, widget, or other feature to your Sitefinity CMS website, it is vital to use a developer to ensure that everything is done correctly. They may also have suggestions that could improve upon your plans and let you know about customization options that you didn’t even know Sitefinity had. An experienced developer will likely have worked with Sitefinity before and can probably complete your project in half the time it would take you to do it.