Sitecore: Login and Navigation
Logging in
If you have not logged into Sitecore before, make sure to contact University Communications using this link to make sure you have Sitecore editing privileges for your department’s pages. Additionally, you must be on campus or using the SPU VPN in order to access Sitecore. Once you have ensured you have Sitecore permissions, type in spu.edu/sitecorelogin in the address bar of your browser. Enter your standard SPU login credentials here in the Microsoft Single Sign On portal.
After you log in, you will be taken to the Sitecore dashboard for SPU's website.
Most of your work in Sitecore will either be in the Content Editor or in the Media Library. The Content Editor is where all of the pages are stored, and the Media Library is where we will store all of our images and printable documents that we’ll use on those pages.
The Content Editor
First, let’s look at the Content Editor by clicking on the “Content Editor” icon. All of the content for SPU's website is organized here in the left navigation.
If you open up the Home branch, you’ll see the entire http://spu.edu site organized below. Each URL on the website is organized here. For example, if you work in Graduate Admissions, and you want to make changes to the “About” page, you can look at the URL, which in this case is http://spu.edu/graduate-admissions/about , open the graduate-admissions folder, and select the about page.
Now, when you click on the specific item of content on the left side, you'll be able to modify it on the right side here. You’ll see a number of options in the top toolbar.
For the most part, you will only need to use the tools on the Home and Publish tabs, which we’ll cover in another video.
There are some additional options you need to enable to make navigating Sitecore an easier task. To enable those, right-click in the left margin of the content tree, and make sure that “My Locked Items,” “Locked Items,” “Workflow State,” and “Published Warnings” are all checked. These will help you to tell from a glance which items are being edited, which are currently locked, and which have been unpublished.
Click the cube icon in the top left to return to the Sitecore dashboard.
The Media Library
Now, let’s check out the Media Library. The Media Library has a similar layout to the Content Editor, with the navigation here on the left. To make it easier for yourself and other editors, it is helpful to store new images in the folder assigned to your department.