Site Management Tools (SMT) is a powerful tool that helps NetSuite users interface and customize their website’s theme or functionality. However, there are some best practices you should follow to get the most out of SuiteCommerce and eliminate potential issues with SMT.
What is SMT?
SMT is the interface for adding CMS blocks (the content) to a website.
With SMT for SuiteCommerce, you can manage content by dragging and dropping new content, editing or removing existing content, and rearranging content by dragging it from one location to another.
SMT and CMS Content Type Best Practices
There are many different CMS content types, and this article will focus on tips and tricks that our team at Anchor Group has developed while working on SuiteCommerce projects. The lists below are not comprehensive but can serve as guides as you become more familiar with working in SMT.
To Access the Site Management Tools (SMT) from the website, go to the site and hit the Escape key.
From NetSuite, CMS Records are stored in this click path
SMT: What to do
Best Applied for small, minimal changes. These should be easily configurable and do not require a theme developer change. Anyone can use SMT.
Think of SMT as a band-aid: Small fixes that anybody could apply to a site.
General rule: Trust your instinct – if it seems like too much SMT, it probably is.
Take the long way: If you want to copy SMT records from one site to another (e.g., Sandbox to production sites), the only way is to copy and paste the CMS content manually.
Though tedious, creating a new CMS record on the new site ensures that the new CMS record is not dependent on an existing CMS record.
Utilize the Admin and Store Manager Roles for native roles that can access SMT.
SMT: What NOT to do
Do not base your entire theme on Site Management Tools Content Records, as they are not easily recoverable.
Do not build whole themes with CMS records. You will lose your whole site if something happens to your CMS records!
An Empty Configuration Record – a sign of hyper-dependence on SMT blocks.
Do not use CMS to fix all problems. Think of updating the theme as fixing your broken bone with a cast. Though it takes more time, theme updates get to the underlying cause of the problem and help your site perform better. You wouldn’t get 30 band-aids to fix a broken arm – do not add 30 CMS records to fix your site. Get a cast or a theme update.
If you want to learn more about website performance, ask the Anchor Group team to see how we can help improve your website’s speed and performance. Or check out this article on SuiteCommerce website performance, which includes tips on how to get the most out of your website!
Do NOT copy CMS Records from one site to another in NetSuite. Copying CMS content records causes a problem because the CMS content record acts as a location container for where to put the block on the site. The actual content that populates the block is maintained in a block of the content type specified in the CMS content block (see image below) with the ID specified in the settings section. When you create a copy of the block, the settings id remains the same. However, deleting a CMS Content block or changing the settings value will delete the corresponding content type block with the settings ID. This will cause errors as any blocks that reference the now deleted content type record will error.
Do not always rely on the theme skin manager, as it can be unreliable. For the basic changes, like colors, typography, and buttons, have a theme developer make these changes.
Theme skins can be unreliable – theme developers can help optimize your site and get the changes you desire.
Author: KC Daniels
VIDEO: Site Management Tools Training
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