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Optimizely B2B Commerce – Learn CMS Spire 5.X Part-1

ERP Migrations: An Opportunity for Corporate Treasury

What is Spire?

Spire is a brand-new CMS as well as an entirely new reference site.

The basic concepts remain the same pages are built using CMS widgets, widgets are shown on the pages, and the CMS/JavaScript Framework uses APIs to obtain data but the technology is different from our preferred classic CMS.

The primary technical goals for the rewrite of the Optimizely B2B Commerce front-end and CMS are:

  • Improved upgradability for the front end
  • More composable commerce pages
  • Simple CMS Data Structure
  • Improved page editing experience
  • SEO/Server-side rendering
  • Lighter JavaScript payloads

Widgets will be smaller and more focused, so users have more flexibility with how they arrange their pages.

In the previous CMS a whole page could be just one widget, which was very limiting.

Difference between Classic CMS vs Spire CMS:

Both use fundamentally different technologies. Spire CMS is built on React/Redux and Classic CMS is built on Angular.js.

Feature/Capability Classic CMS Spire CMS
Technology Angular.js, Foundation, TypeScript React, Redux, TypeScript, Node
Front-End Upgrade Model Merge as desired Automated
Styling Approach Cascading Style Sheets, base.css Style Guide, user-configurable, styled-components
Structure by website Themes Content Library
Server/Front-End Load Heavy Front-End, API-only on back end Hybrid, some on front end mixed with some on back end
Widget Construction Custom created Built on Mobius and then customized
Widget Code C#/TypeScript TypeScript
Widget Extensibility New widgets New widgets, property injection or handler chain
Widget Sizing? reference site Larger widgets Smaller, more granular widgets
SPA (single-page app) Yes Yes
Supports GTM, Chat and other javascript-based extension Yes Yes
Build Process Grunt Webpack
Hot module replacement No Yes
SEO Page for bots Separate page No longer needed
Accessibility By extension Reference site includes accessibility features
Responsive Preview By resizing screen Toggle to change view

 

Optimizely support Classic CMS:

All clients may now benefit from our Spire CMS and Storefront technology, independent of cloud or on-premises deployment.

As a result, we are formally giving end of life notice for our Classic (i.e. Angular) CMS and Storefront technologies.

– Who is Impacted: Customers who have a website built on our Classic (i.e., Angular) CMS & Storefront technology.

– Who is Not Impacted: Customers that already have their sites on our Spire (i.e., React) CMS & Storefront technology.

The following timeline outlines the three-year end-of-life plan:

  • 2022 (Year One)– Continue to add new features to Classic
    • We will continue adding new capabilities to both Classic & Spire throughout 2022. This includes adding  new features and enhancements to existing features.
  • 2023 & 2024 (Years Two & Three)– Make bug and security fixes to Classic
    • New features and capabilities will be added only to Spire. We will then address base code bugs and critical security issues in Classic.
  • January 1, 2025– End of life for Classic
    • This will be the official end of life for Classic. There will be no base code changes made to Classic after this date.

Spire CMS Roles:

Spire CMS has the following permission roles:

  • CMS_ContentEditor,
  • CMS_SiteEditor,
  • CMS_Publisher
  • CMS_SystemAdmin
  • CMS_ContentDeveloper

Go to admin and navigating to Administration > Permissions > Roles:

Image1

Each role lets users perform some actions while blocking other actions. Choosing the roles, you want a user to have may be done by navigating to Administration > Users > Console Users.

Image2

CMS_ContentEditor

Content editors can do the following:

  • Content
    • Add widgets to a content page
    • Delete widgets from a content page
    • Rearrange widgets on a content page
    • Edit existing content widgets on any page (commerce and content)
  • Pages
    • Create new content pages
    • Delete content pages
    • Create a page variant
    • Delete a page variant
    • Copy a page
    • Rearrange pages in the page tree

CMS_SiteEditor

Site editors can do the following:

  • Content
    • All CMS_ContentEditoractions
    • Update content
    • Edit settings and content of commerce widgets
  • Pages
    • Compose commerce pages
    • Add widgets to a commerce page
    • Delete widgets from a commerce page
    • Rearrange widgets on a content page

CMS_Publisher

Publishers can do the following:

  • Approve content for users who do not have publishing permissions
  • Publish content, including:
    • Bulk publishes
    • Future publishes
    • Rollback
    • Immediate publish

CMS_SystemAdmin

System administrators can do the following:

  • All actions listed in CMS_ContentEditorCMS_SiteEditor, and CMS_Publisherroles
  • Edit a site’s global style guide.

CMS_ContentDeveloper

  • To assign this role, first enable the setting Advanced Spire CMS Features in the Admin Console under Administration > System > Settings > Site Configurations > Widgets.

Image3

  • Content developers can add and edit content in the Code Snippet Other user roles can view the Code Snippet widget.
  • Only CMS_ContentDeveloper and CMS_SystemAdmin can add and edit it.

Conclusion:

This is a summary highlighting how to learn Spire version in Optimizely B2B Commerce cloud. It is easy to understand the above points. In my next blog, I will explain Spire architecture and how to start spire project.

For more information, contact our commerce experts today.

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Shashikant Bhoyar, Technical Architect

I am a seasoned technical expert who offers guidance in the conceptualization, creation, and implementation of technology-driven applications and services, specializing in the Optimizely Configured (Insite) Commerce, CMS and zNode eCommerce frameworks in .NET technology.

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