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Train your Team on the Sitecore Experience

Why Train your team for Sitecore?

Sitecore is an impressive product however it requires training before an employee can use and work on it.  This includes all roles that interact with Sitecore such as but not limited to Users, Admins, Developers, Designers, and Content Authors.  This post serves as a guide to provide training for your team, whether your company receives professional training or you do it yourself.

How to Train your team on Sitecore?

Training Options

As mentioned in the intro, you have two main choices in training your team: an individual boot camp or a formal trainer.  An individual boot camp allows your team members to take courses on their own usually in a free manner compiled by a professional.  In contrast, A formal trainer will train your team as a whole over a set period of time, say two weeks.  Usually, this choice comes down to budget as formal training tends to cost more since it requires a Sitecore Trainer.  This post mostly covers the formal training aspect of Sitecore.

Plan and Discover how your students or team intended to use Sitecore

Sitecore is already complex as it is so it is recommended that the trainer go over with your team how you plan on using Sitecore.  This will allow the teacher to gain a better understanding of how they should frame the course and not waste your time or money in courses you may not need.

Help your client Plan for their client

Sitecore Trainers should help your team plan for your client.  This is also considered a valued selling point for a trainer.  If they can properly prepare you for your client, its easy to then have them transfer to the client as a contractor or employee on the project.

Prepare Virtual Machines before the class

Before you start your classes or boot camps, prepare virtual machines so they will be ready the moment you start teaching.  They tend to take some time setting up especially if you have many students.  Also, students always inform us that they are hungry to start using and developing on the product instead of simply being taught through a presentation.

Do Architecture on Day One

Many courses tend to ignore architecture.  This can lead to horrible implementations, lost of project and reputation.  We tend to teach architecture first before we step into programming.  Students should understand how the product works and how to resolve most common issues with logs.

Review the latest Sitecore

Sitecore is always attempting to get better and make the product easier to use and deploy.   Review the latest version of Sitecore especially in cloud deployment.  Customers are always interested in the latest version and how it will affect them.  If possible, always train on the latest version of Sitecore.

Lesson Plan every class day even if you have training materials

Every day of your class should have a lesson plan.  Never wing it.  You owe it to your students to teach them quality material they will use in their day to day lives in Sitecore.  Also, it makes the class more professional and flow easier.  Go slow not fast.  Do not move on until your students fully understand the content.   Have solid labs and exercises with step by step instruction and keep communication off mute if possible.  Record all sessions and email them.

Walk through the basics of Sitecore content authoring before Development

Do not just jump into development.  Most Sitecore training is for developers so trainers tend to skip authoring and head straight to programming. Remember that every user of Sitecore is a content author at some point.  It also helps to show developers and your team how authors will interact with your company’s code.

Have a real world user story for your students to build as an end of the course assignment

It is very important to have a real-world example for your students to build as they take your boot camp or professional class.  This allows them to wrap their mind around how the product will help them solve any actual real-world problem.  We usually have our students build out a responsive 5-page website with custom Article modules.  This small example occurs on almost every site — all sites tend to need articles and responsiveness — and it’s not difficult to complete by the end of the class.

Ask interview questions to the class

We have found that a lot of students who take Sitecore training intend to interview for a job or require it to work on a project.  For this reason, we tend to ask interview questions throughout the class.  It only takes about 30 mins and all students can participate to quickly remind them of the core parts of the product.

ANANT Formal Training

Community Training

ANANT offers free community Training with our Sitecore Bootcamp.   Any student may apply free of by email solutions@anant.us.

Instructor guided Training

  • ANANT Corp offers paid instructor lead training for organizations and groups of 4 students or more.
  • Virtual Rate $999.99 / person 5-day session
  • In person 1$,299/ person 5-day session

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