Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

As many of you know I have been playing with Sitecore Dain and the more feisty Sitecore Diana over the past year. Through this process I have learned a lot from a lot of people on AI and ML. The best algorithms to use, how to use multiple providers to reduce bias in algorithms.  Starting last week the Dain and Diana blog is publishing articles on some of that learning.  Look for cross-over posts here as we take some of that learning and apply it specifically to Sitecore and in some cases Cortex.

If you are interested in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and have started using Cortex let me know.  I would love to reference some of your blog posts on amazing things you are doing with it.

Sitecore and the Tale of Two Session Config Entries

You probably know the main one in the web.config but the other is used by analytics. If you change one you should probably change the other or session will be in different places.

This article shows the sharedSession tag you need to change:

https://doc.sitecore.net/sitecore_experience_platform/81/setting_up_and_maintaining/xdb/session_state/walkthrough_configure_a_shared_session_state_database_using_the_sql_server_provider

Sitecore Commerce 9 QuickStarts - Installing Sitecore Commerce 9

The first step is to install Sitecore 9. If you are doing so in the development environment please read the Sitecore 9 QuickStart on Installing Sitecore 9

Once you have Sitecore 9 installed you can follow the installation guide. I will list any issues I ran into at each step and ways to resolve them.

WARNING: Make sure you install IIS Url Rewriter module or install will fail

3.6.1 Add a recognized user to the xDB shard databases

At this step you set up your database users.  If you get an error regarding :setvar then you have SQL Management Studio in the wrong mode. You can set the mode by clicking on the query menu and then choosing SQLCMD Mode.

4.3 Generate Sitecore XC Engine Package

During this step be aware that if you have added the .NET Framework using features you still need to install the Dev Pack. If you do not then when you open the project it will not show up in the list or will throw an error during build or publish.  If you get an error and then install it you will have to close Visual Studio and reopen it choosing Run As Adminstrator for it to be fixed.  You may have to click on each project and then right click and choose Properties and choose the 4.6.2 framework from the list. I did in Visual Studio 2017.

The rest of the install went smooth for me based on the instructions supplied. If you run into issue installing feel free to comment here or on the slack channel or on Sitecore StackExchange.  We are very happy to help you get started with this revolutionary version.