Content Channel and Page Providers

Magnus Stråle and Paul Smith, EPiServer AB

Agenda

» Background

» SharePoint Connector

» Content Channel

» Page Providers

» Summary

Background

» Content Channel

- Developed as part of SharePoint Connector

- A traditional Web service

- Import pages and files

- Allow one-way updating

- Requires configuration

- Delivered in EPiServer CMS 5 SP1

Background

» Page Providers

- Full-featured integration

- Data resides in original store

- Pages only

- LocalPageProvider & RemotePageProvider

- Requires coding and configuration

- A true provider implementation

- Sample code - XMLPageProvider

SharePoint Connector

» Targets Windows SharePoint Services (WSS)

» Import data from SharePoint

» One-way communication initiated from SharePoint

» Handle updated information

» No support for access rights

» GUI for configuration

Content Channel Client

» Content Channel designed for custom use

» ”Roll your own” client

» Import Web Service in Visual Studio...and add code

Demo

» Custom Content Channel Client

Page Providers Background

» Originated as a technology experiment

» You may have heard of Custom Page Store...which has been renamed to Page Providers

PageProviderBase

Local PPCustom

PP

Remote PP

DataFactory

Page Providers

Remote EPiServer

EPiServer Database

Page Providers Implementation

» Information maps to/from PageData objects

» Information always presented as a local page type

» Supports all EPiServer CMS features

- Versioning, Multi-language, Access rights, Editing and more

» Configuration to support a subset of features

» Permanent Link mapping support is required

» Move between Page Providers

» GUI changes

Demo

» Page Provider Capabilities

» XML Page Provider

Remote Page Provider

» Old ”Remote site” concept replaced by Remote Page Provider

» Remote PP communicates with a Remote Page Provider Service

» Service implemented with WCF

» Optimized data transfer

- No page type overhead

- Use TCP/IP transport for maximum perf

- Use HTTP transport to cross firewalls

» Flexible security model

IMPORTANT!

» Page Providers use the RemoteSite property of PageReference

» Always use complete PageReference objects as parameters

» DO NOT simply pass the page ID

» When serializing use PageReference.ToString()

» When deserializing use PageReference.Parse() or PageReference.TryParse()

Summary

Content Channel Page Providers

Import data to EPiServer CMS db Data in original store

Pages and files Pages only

Web service Any type of communication

Modify data on import Any kind of manipulation

Available today Ships with EPiServer CMS 5 R2

Questions?