You may have read the following article:
This claims that Sitecore and Telligent have integrated to make a convenient solution combining the power of a social networking/collaboration platform with the flexibility of a CMS system.
There is a fairly complicated white-paper that has been published by Sitecore which is split into two parts:
- Security Integration
- Content management integration
This solution is not as straight forward as it sounds and it is very poorly supported . . . . I strongly suggest that you do not waste your time heading down this path if you can avoid it. It provides a way for you to use community functionality within a Sitecore site (not the other way around . . . in case you were thinking about pulling Sitecore content into a community site). The solution is out dated and will not work with the latest versions of Sitecore.
We needed to Drive a Community server site and pull Content + Media out of Sitecore which will be used within Telligent community server via Widgets. We also embedded content from Sitecore directly into some of the community theme aspx files. The Community server web site also needed the ability to upload media items directly into Sitecore.
I found that the best method to pull out content from Sitecore into another web application is via a Web Service or potentially a REST service which will run within the Sitecore web application. This will give you the access required to Update/Create Sitecore content via a separate web application.
I’m not sure which whitepaper you read, and I’m not sure which version of the integration you might have seen or used, but I can tell you a couple of things about version 1.1 of the integration. This is the latest version and is available now.
The documentation is fairly detailed. Part of it covers the installation process. Since the installation requires modifying TC itself it isnt automated. It requires dropping in a new assembly, changing the name of the class used in a couple of ashx files, and setting some vales in web.config.
The Sitecore side is installed using a package. A couple of configuration file changes are needed as well. There are a few steps involved in the entire process, but it’s nothing technically demanding.
The other part of the documentation explains how to use the module. Most of that is explaining the API that is available. So there’s a lot to the documentation, but hopefully that demystifies it a bit.
As far as the integration not being straight forward, maybe an explanation would help here as well. The integration provides unified authentication and role management (which is handled by Sitecore). It also provides a way to repurpose TC content in a Sitecore site. Specifically, it allows users to filter and format TC content from within Sitecore using a wizard interface.
The integration supports a wide range of options in terms of repurposing content. An API, a set of templated ASP.NET web controls and a Sitecore control that provides the configuration wizard I mentioned above means that everyone from the most technical .NET developer to the least technical content author is able to incorporate TC content using a tool that is appropriate for the task at hand.
Regarding version support, the current version of the TC integration module is 1.1, which supports Sitecore 6.1 and 6.2. Version support is only an issue if you’re using an older version of Sitecore.
It is true that the integration is one way. It is designed to incorporate TC content into Sitecore. I am curious what an integration that proves access to Sitecore content from TC would look like to you. Have you given the subject any thought?
Finally, I’m sorry to hear you weren’t too impressed with what you’ve seen of the integration, but I encourage you to take another look at it. I’ve posted a few videos on my blog, and I plan to write some articles that get into the technical details of the integration as well.
Hi Adam,
Thanks for your feedback.
It is entirely possible I was working with an older version of the integration module. The main frustrating part was that I had to download source code for the integration and build the project, this contained outdated Dll’s which needed to be updated.
We now have a working integration of a TC site that accesses content from Sitecore. I will link to the site when it has been made public, right now I cannot disclose any further information on that site.
I will definitely take a look at you blog when I get the chance and see if I can find the latest version of the TC integration.
So where is the link to this site that you said you what post?
I would be interested to see how it is getting on.
Regards
Mobeen
http://www.spotsvstripes.com/
Ahh there we go
forgot to post it up!