Sitecore Interview Questions

1) What is a CMS platform?

CMS (Content Management System) is a platform that allows users to easily build and manage websites. In order to build websites we typically use programming languages such as Javascript, CSS, HTML, etc. But CMS platforms eliminate the need for writing lines of code and help you build users friendly, easy-to-manage websites.

2) What is Sitecore?

Sitecore is one of the widely deployed enterprise-level CMS software built on ASP.NET and used by organizations around the world to manage websites. It allows content editors and marketers to easily manage tasks like providing personalized experiences, managing social handles, blog posts, eCommerce and more.

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3) What are the benefits that Sitecore can offer to Marketers?

Sitecore supports marketers by helping them in performing the below operations:

• Building personalized campaigns
• Building marketing campaigns
• Tracking and analytics
• Single point for gaining visibility into customers
• Analysis
• In offering timely offers
• Build personalized communications
• Social media for greater reach
• Self-service for users and customers.

4) List out the top features of the Sitecore platform?

Following are the top features offered by the Sitecore platform:

• Advanced Editorial Experience
• Multilingual, Multinational websites.
• Ecommerce
• Workflow and security
• Personalization
• Advanced A/B and Multivariate testing
• Search engine optimization
• Analysis
• Print experience manager
• Web forms for marketers
• Email Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Consolidation of Marketing tools

5) What is the latest version of the Sitecore platform?

Sitecore Latest version of Sitecore is 10.1 which was released in 2020.

6) What is Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA)?

Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA) is a storefront solution that helps in developing Business to Customer (B2C) e-commerce solutions. It comes with advanced commerce components such as webshop templates, sample themes, and sample habitat catalog.

7) What do you know about Sitecore Experience Editor?

Sitecore Editor is one of the powerful features offered by the Sitecore platform and helps the users to build personalization rules. This feature simplifies the process to reach the targeted customers with the right content.

Following are the types of operations that you can perform using Sitecore Experience Editor:

• You can provide a specific offer to first-time visitors
• Give free shipping offers in case of any return
• Offer different discounts on specific social media channels 

8) What are the key features offered by Sitecore XC Business Tools?

• Catalog and sellable item Management
• Inventory Management
• Customer Management
• Order Management
• Promotion Management
• Pricing Management

9) What are the core product offerings of Sitecore?

Sitecore consists of three major products:

• Sitecore Experience Manager (XM)
• Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC)
• Sitecore Experience Platform (XP)

10) What is Sitecore Experience Manager (XM)

Sitecore Experience Manager (XM) is also known as web content management (WCM) and an essential building block of the Sitecore platform. XM comes with a wide range of features to manage the tasks such as content creation, personalization, management,  and publishing of content.

11) What is Sitecore Experience Platform (XP)

Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) comes with advanced capabilities to combine customer data, AI, analytics, and marketing automation to understand and deliver personalized and real-time content across multiple channels.

12) What is Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC)?

Sitecore Experience Commerce (XC) is a flexible, easy to manage, feature-rich commerce feature. It combines content management, with advanced commerce capabilities.

13) What are the key components of the Sitecore Experience Database (xDB)?

Following are the key architecture components of Sitecore experience DB:

• Content delivery server
• Content databases (SQL Server)
• Content management server
• Session state server
• Processing server
• Reporting service
• Reporting database
• Collection database

14) What do you know about Sitecore Content Delivery?

Content Delivery is a core role in Sitecore which manages multiple requests from users and servers the right content to users from different platforms. You can add one or more content delivery servers to attain better performance and for improved scalability.

15) What is a core database?

The core database name itself is telling how important it is. A core database is a place where all the data like Sitecore ribbon configuration, roles, and users. All the configurations are available in this Database and developers have to come to this database to add any new buttons.

16) What is a Master database?

The Sitecore’s Master database is something where all the published and unpublished data gets stored. The master database can be hosted on an SQL Server or SQL Azure.

Master Database is referenced by the below roles:

• Content management
• Content Publishing
• xDB Processing
• EXM Dispatch
• XDB Reporting

17) What is a web database?

A web database is one of the essential databases of Sitecore that can store the published version of the content. In Sitecore, we have only one web database and it can be hosted either on an SQL Server or SQL Azure.

18) Name different types of templates available in Sitecore?

Following are the different templates available in Sitecore:

• Parameter Templates
• Data templates
• Data source templates

19) What do you mean by Role in Sitecore?

A collection of users is known as Role. Using the roles we can give access rights to a set of users. For instance, you can assign the access rights to an administrators group using a Role in Sitecore.

20) What are the different content Roles available in Sitecore:

Following are the different roles available in Sitecore:

• SitecoreAuthor Role
• SitecoreDesigner Role
• SitecoreDeveloper Role
• Sitecore Client Account Managing Role
• Sitecore Client Authoring Role
• Sitecore Client Configuring Role
• Sitecore Client Designing Role
• Sitecore Client Developing Role
• Sitecore Client Maintaining Role
• Sitecore Client Publishing Role
• Sitecore Client Securing Role
• Sitecore Client Translating Role
• Sitecore Client Users Role
• Sitecore Limited Content Editor Role
• Sitecore Limited Page Editor Role
• Sitecore Local Administrators Role
• Sitecore Minimal Page Editor Role

21)What do you know about Publishing content in Sitecore?

In Sitecore publishing, the content means triggering the content management role to select & copy items from the master database to the web database. Publishing operation can be performed in either of two ways one is manually and the other is by automating the publishing routine.

22) What are the types of versions available in Sitecore?

Following are the two types of versions available in Sitecore:

• Numbers versions
• Language versions

23) What is Version control?’

The Version control option enables the participants to manage multiple versions and drafts of a document. 

24) What are the different Sitecore custom tokens?

• $name: Name of an item
• $id: Item ID
• $date: Current server date
• $time: Current server time
• $parentname: Item’s Parent Name
• $parentid: Item’s Parent ID

25) Define Pipeline?

The Sitecore Pipeline is defined as a series of actions and all these together execute a function. Some of the typical tasks performed using pipeline are data uploading, handling page requests, saving items via UI, etc. The pipeline also works with fields like encapsulation, separation of concerns, flexible configuration, testability, and much more.

26) What are the top features offered by Sitecore?

Following are some of the top features offered by Sitecore:

• Powerful framework
• Customizable
• Intuitive end-user Interface.
• Easily Scalability
• Built on advanced technology
• Multi-lingual support
• In-built search engine optimization capabilities
• Easy to manage content
• Easy to manage Workflows
• Role-based security
• Comes with E-commerce services

27) Define Layout in Sitecore

Sitecore Layouts are one of the essential components of the Sitecore platform and they are used to structure pages with external HTML mark-up.

28) How many types of view modes are there in Sitecore and what are they?

We have three different types of view modes are available in Sitecore and are as follows:

• Grayscale
• Wireframe
• Selected Theme

29) Explain the various types of Sitecore Interfaces?

The Sitecore platform majorly consists of three interfaces:

• Desktop Mode
• Page Editor Mode
• Content Editor Mode

30) Define Item in Sitecore

An item in the Sitecore is defined as a piece of record in the database and acts as a building block of your Sitecore website. Examples of Items are a media file, a piece of text, a layout, etc.

31) What is Helix?

Helix is a set of official guidelines and best practices that helps in Sitecore Development. It also offers the best recommendations to develop, test, extend and maintain Sitecore.