Sitecore XMCloud important notes in detail

In this blog post, I cover some of the interesting/important features of Sitecore XM Cloud based on what I see in the change log or from my own experience in the platform.

8/Feb/2025:

1. Switch/Setting to automatically smart publish cloned item if original item is published:

This is one important recent update since cloning is an important Sitecore feature. The recent update to the platform has added a boolean setting flag - ExperienceEdge.ComputeClonesDependencies.

I have here used my Experience Edge tool to explain this enhancement. Prior to this change, if you clone an item, the cloned item won't be automatically published to Experience Edge if the original item is smart published. Most importantly, no need for republish, which used to be the case before this feature. With this new enhancement, the cloned item will also be published once the original item is published and there is also an option to publish related items if clone is changed and that change must effect the original item. If you don't require this setting or to understand the way it worked previously, you can patch the ExperienceEdge.ComputeClonesDependencies to "false" and deploy the branch.

After this enhancement:

Note: After I patched the above setting to false, I created a new content item, cloned that item and published the original item. This time I expected to just see the original item in experience edge but the cloned item was also published. So, raised a support ticket - CS0553619 to clarify this change. Will update this thread once I hear back from Sitecore Support.

Note that there is also a setting named, ExperienceEdge.ComputeContentDependencies, which doesn't seem relevant to this enhancement, at least based on the change log.

Update: The support personnel was able to reproduce the issue and this is now looked into. 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/navaneethakrishnansrnna_xmcloud-sitecore-sitecoredeveloper-activity-7293948064652767232-gdYz?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

10/Feb/2025:

2. Provide Sitecore Support team access to your organization:

One of the common scenarios while raising a support ticket is, "can't replicate" as well as related to and fro discussions with the support team. So, to understand the issue better via first-hand experience, the Sitecore support team can be given access to the Sitecore XMC organization. You can enable or disable this access, as per need. There is also logging in place to keep track of the user activity via a webhook. Here is the way you give access to the support team within the portal organization:

As per documentation, Login to portal.sitecorecloud.io > Select Organization > Click Admin tab (in top) > Click Sitecore Support access (in left) > Toggle between Enable Access/Disable Access buttons

I usually replicate the issue in a separate non-prod environment and specify the environment for better seclusion of issue. This understandably helps in better communication thereby reducing turnaround time for tickets. 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/navaneethakrishnansrnna_sitecore-sitecorecommunity-sitecorexmcloud-activity-7294617230984495105-5OM-?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Also, once the support personnel login to the portal, you must see logs in the support page but doesn't seem so. So, raised a support ticket - CS0554677 and waiting for details.