SDL Tridion Reference Implementation Auto Documented

I've been working towards "automated" documentation for awhile and it's challenging to really show how the existing Tridion community tools work. The code and examples are easy enough to share, but it's hard to create full, working examples to run these tools against.

But since the Tridion Reference Implementation (TRI) is open source, here are two TRI "auto-documented" pieces and a bonus.

1. TRI Authorization

TRI's Organization and Authorization generated with my Tridion BA Toolkit core service program.

2. TRI Schemas

TRI's Schemas Exported with the Tridion Powertools 2013 (credit to colleague "Double-Oh" Stan with Contributions from Team PowerTools).

Note: I haven't run these against TRI, but Tridion Community MVP Pankaj Guar, just shared a Schema report generator.

3. Bonus: Cleaner Schema Designs

When I hear agile in a CMS project, I envision:
  • Content- and business-driven website design and development
  • Content Always, where content structure and meaning (dare I say semantics) drive the visitor experience
  • Rapid application prototyping (RAD is back!) in the back office (i.e. let's build Tridion Schemas, together!)
Instead what I see is:
  • Design-led requirements sometimes based on user stories, requirements, or user journeys (great to see in my more recent projects)
  • The back-office keeps up with changing front-end or application-side requirements, meaning:
    • BluePrint changes, sometimes involving scripts
    • Schema changes, sometimes involving scripts
    • Additional care with editor training and expectations
I also see customers know they don't or actually can't know the final solution. Proof-of-concepts, scoped builds, (and working closely with your vendor) are great ways to work out what actually works, especially if CMS is new for an organization.

So it's not so RAD and I don't always get to interactively design Schemas with the client. Instead, I've come up with a Spreadsheet for designing Tridion Web Schemas.

Now I just need a catchy meme that connects the New Year with this auto-documenting goodness... Creative laziness for the win? BAToolkit4Tridion--BAT4T? Functionally fit in 2015?

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