Balaji Kandasamy - Bala Blog | Sitecore MVP | Coveo MVP | DX MVP

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Balaji Kandasamy

Debugging Tips and Best Practices of Coveo Custom Computed Fields in Sitecore

Debugging Tips and Best Practices of Coveo Custom Computed Fields in Sitecore

Debugging Tips Log Browser Navigate to the Coveo cloud platform and select Log Browser in the content section, which is essential for troubleshooting indexing issues. Each log in the Log Browser represents an item at a stage of the indexing pipeline. Coveo Logs Coveo for Sitecore uses log4net and generates

Enhancing Coveo Search with Custom Computed Fields in Sitecore

Enhancing Coveo Search with Custom Computed Fields in Sitecore

Problem When working with custom data in search, you often need custom computed fields. For example, I had a scenario where I needed to convert a zip code into latitude and longitude calling Google Location API to do the conversion, so it could be used in geo search. In another

Enhancing Coveo Search with OOB Computed Field

Enhancing Coveo Search with OOB Computed Field

Coveo provides powerful indexing and search with Sitecore. What Are Coveo Computed Fields? Computed fields in Coveo allow you to perform calculations on indexed data at query time or during indexing. These fields are particularly useful when you need to pull values dynamically * Full name (Combining First name and last

Sitecore.20241129.114115.log

Sitecore.20241129.114115.log

This year has been truly remarkable, filled with meaningful contributions to the community. It’s been a year of tremendous growth, especially in mastering a new technology stack that includes headless architecture, XM Cloud, and Sitecore Search. It was a pleasure connecting with the community and meeting virtual friends in

Troubleshooting Sitecore Indexing with SOLR: Common Issues and Solutions

Troubleshooting Sitecore Indexing with SOLR: Common Issues and Solutions

HTTP ERROR 404 Not Found URI:/solr//admin/cores STATUS:404 MESSAGE:Not Found SERVLET:default Exception 2: ManagedPoolThread #6 11:34:41 INFO Job started: Sitecore.ContentSearch.SolrProvider.Agents.IndexingStateSwitcher ManagedPoolThread #6 11:34:41 WARN IsOnline: Test connection has failed with an exception. Type: 'SolrConnectionException', Message:

Sitecore Content Tree Search Slow and Freezes

Sitecore Content Tree Search Slow and Freezes

Issue In Sitecore Content Editor, certain search keywords will cause the browser to freeze, eventually displaying a dialogue asking if you’d like to "Wait" or "Exit" the page. The issue can be frustrating for content authors some times it would even crash. This issues occurs

Transforming MVC to Headless Content with Sitecore Powershell

Transforming MVC to Headless Content with Sitecore Powershell

Recently, I ran into a project involving the migration from MVC to Headless, which required updating layouts, renderings, and placeholders. I wrote some PowerShell scripts to handle these updates efficiently. Overview This PowerShell script performs the following tasks: * Updates the default layout for items in a specified content tree path.

Using a Coveo Search Page on a website

Using a Coveo Search Page on a website

In the previous blog post, we discussed creating a Coveo search page. In this post we will explore how to integrate the Coveo Search page in a website. How to Use the Coveo Search Page in Sitecore? Prerequisites * Design a search hosted page on the Coveo platform. * Ensure the Coveo

Coveo Search Pages for Sitecore

Coveo Search Pages for Sitecore

Coveo search pages are a lightweight search interface with a search interface that could be consumed by Sitecore or any web platform. Once your website is crawled and the contents are ready, you could use this interface to build a search interface and use it. This is the quickest way

Sitecore Identity Server 6 Upgrade Issue and Fix

Sitecore Identity Server 6 Upgrade Issue and Fix

I was working on upgrading from Sitecore 9.1 to version 10.3.1 and encountered a problem where the Identity Server where it failed to load. Issue When accessing the Identity Server, an error with code 502.5 was encountered. The Identity Server, being a .NET Core application, fails

Sitecore.20231124.133003.log

Sitecore.20231124.133003.log

It's been an outstanding year marked by significant contributions to the community. Throughout the year, there has been extensive learning, particularly in adopting a new technology stack that includes headless architecture, Ordercloud, and Sitecore Search. Meeting the community and virtual friends in person at Sitecore DX was a

Unlocking the Power of Sitecore Search

Unlocking the Power of Sitecore Search

Evolution Amar Chokhawala founded Reflektion who was a pioneering member of the Google AdSense team, he was instrumental in conceiving and implementing core technologies that are integral to its widespread adoption today. Furthermore, Amar made significant contributions to Gmail user modeling, leveraging semantic learning and advanced technologies to enhance search

Sitecore DX 2023 Boston Highlights

Sitecore DX 2023 Boston Highlights

Steve Tzikakis, CEO In 2023, customers want growth, acceleration, and to increase margins. Only a new modern platform can cater to all 3 requirements – ours. Our vision is to help you create unforgettable digital experiences and turn your customers into fans of your brand! * Accelerate the journey Work on 3

Coveo for Sitecore Activation Error Fix

Coveo for Sitecore Activation Error Fix

Issue I ran into this problem when installing Coveo on Sitecore 10.3 XM with Headless SXA and NextJS. Once the package install is completed and when clicking Activate Coveo for Sitecore package it redirected to the Coveo administration page and later automatically redirects to the Sitecore login page. Even

Secure Sitecore Vanity Domains with Azure Function Apps

Secure Sitecore Vanity Domains with Azure Function Apps

Requisite We always run into the request of Vanity domains that would just redirect to a Sitecore site or sometimes we would need to do some redirects too. In today's world, we need all the sites to be secure. We could do this with a simple IIS website

Balaji Kandasamy Sitecore Technology MVP 2023

Sitecore Technology MVP 2023

About the Award Now in it’s 17th year, the MVP program recognizes professionals who actively share their fascination, knowledge and expertise with online and offline Sitecore communities to help them best utilize Sitecore products to deliver premier customer experiences.Selected out of more than 16,000 certified developers and

Sitecore 10.3 Embeddable Forms Framework

Sitecore 10.3 Embeddable Forms Framework

Introduction Sitecore Embeddable Forms Framework (EFF) is a new framework launched with Sitecore 10.3, that enables the Sitecore forms to be added to any website using simple javascript code and stylesheet reference, rather than creating the form from scratch using website development tools, we could design the form in

Sitecore.20221128.174503.log

Sitecore.20221128.174503.log

Lot of learning this year with new technology stack, headless, JSS, ReactJS, Docker and AKS. Ordercloud implementation with Sitecore XM. I wish I had more time to write about it. I will do a series in 2023. It was great to meet the community and virtual friends in person at

Sitecore Symposium 2022 Highlights

Sitecore Symposium 2022 Highlights

CEO Steve Tzikakis “If you can win that extra 1%, imagine the impact that will have on your business” CMO Paige O’Neil Mute the Noise, Stand Out and Build Boldly. CPO Dave O'Flanagan Today, we’re on a mission to define the DXP category with our composable

Coveo Custom Pipeline to Index Sitecore Items without Layout

Coveo Custom Pipeline to Index Sitecore Items without Layout

Problem When using the Coveo.SearchProvider.CoveoInboundFilters.HasLayoutInboundFilter pipeline, Coveo doesnt not index the items without layout. But some time we would need the items to be indexed even without a layout or presentation details. Scenario We have a data item that has no presentaion but all the attributes like

Let us mitigate Sitecore SOLR Log4J vulnerability with ease

Let us mitigate Sitecore SOLR Log4J vulnerability with ease

Introduction Log4J Security Alert addresses CVE-2021-44228, a remote code execution vulnerability in Apache Log4j. It is remotely exploitable without authentication, attackers can remotely run any code to gain access to all data on the affected machine. It also allows them to delete or encrypt all files on the affected machine

Is Sitecore XP to XM a Downgrade?

Is Sitecore XP to XM a Downgrade?

The world is moving towards composable architecture. There have been a lot of interest and thoughts about moving Sitecore XP to XM. It eventually paves for the composable future, moving the personalization to a different product like Sitecore Personalize, Salesforce Interaction Studio or other tool of your choice. So, it’

Deploy Sitecore Solution to Docker and Kubernetes - Sitecore VDD

Deploy Sitecore Solution to Docker and Kubernetes - Sitecore VDD

Azure CDN for Sitecore

Azure CDN for Sitecore

What is CDN? Definition In simple words the website and assets are cached in multiple servers across the world. When a user visits the site they are served from the nearest server to their location to reduce latency and improve load times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network

Sitecore External User builder for Azure Active Directory Integration

Sitecore External User builder for Azure Active Directory Integration

Issue: When we integrate any external identity provider, the default user domain is always Sitecore. We will need to differentiate external users from the Sitecore based user logins in User manager. Solution: We could achieve this with a simple custom user builder. We need to ensure the default functionality is