Headless Development Using Sitecore JSS (Java Script Services)

You must understand headless architecture as decoupled architecture is a kind of architecture under computing. It enables the independent functioning of each component while simultaneously interfacing with other neighboring and similar components.

And headless architecture lies within the concept of a decoupled framework. Here the presentation layer in an application is distanced from its backend services.

Recently, this paradigm has achieved its space in the digital marketing field of CaaS and CMS. The article will give you a clear idea of Headless Development enabled by Sitecore JSS.

 

What is Sitecore JSS?

Sitecore JavaScript Services (JSS) provides developers with a complete SDK for developing rich applications using JavaScript or TypeScript, which is then compiled into small bundles of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which load on demand as users navigate the site.

 

What is Sitecore headless JSS?

Sitecore JSS (now called Sitecore Headless) lets you create custom UI components and plugins for your website using JavaScript. Furthermore, it allows developers to design reusable modules for the Sitecore CMS.

 

Is Sitecore a headless CMS?

Yes, Sitecore comes with an enterprise-grade headless CMS that offers omnichannel support, powerful personalization, and API-first content delivery capabilities.

 

What is Sitecore headless development?

Sitecore Headless Development uses a Sitecore instance as the backend and a rendering host as the frontend, making it easier to build, scale, upgrade, and maintain Sitecore solutions.

 

What is a Headless CMS?

• A headless content management system is a backend-only framework storing raw content that can be published anywhere using any frontend platform.
• Headless CMS architecture breaks up backend functions like content creation, editing, and storage from frontend functions like presentation and delivery

How to use Sitecore as Headless CMS?

Different ways to start JSS project

JSS Elements

Application Modes for Sitecore JSS

How to set up Sitecore JSS?

• Download & install the compatible Sitecore Headless Rendering Package from Sitecore official site.
• Create API key to use Layout Service and Graph endpoints.

 

What’s new?

• Layout Service
• Rendering Content Resolver
• Field Serializers

 

Layout Service

• The Sitecore Layout Service is a Sitecore Headless Services endpoint that provides JSON formatted Sitecore content. Sitecore Layout Service Client is used to communicate with the Layout Service, and the Sitecore Rendering Engine to render the content.
• Sample endpoint for layout service: https:///sitecore/api/layout/render/jss?item=&sc_lang=&sc_apikey=&sc_site=

 

Layout Service Default Properties

Rendering Content Resolver

• Sitecore Layout Service provides the complete details about the page but a page contains various components added to the presentation.
• So, to get the JSON data of a particular component, Rendering Content Resolvers are responsible.
• At each component, you can select the content resolver from the pool of OOTB resolvers or custom resolvers.

 

OOTB Content Resolvers

Field Serializers

Fields are the basic building blocks for any component in Sitecore.

Each and every component relies on fields which we create in a template and to get the JSON of that field, field serializers come into action.

Sitecore provide field serializers for all of the default field types to have seamless integration with front-end technologies.

We can customize the field serializers as per our needs as well.

Why is Sitecore JavaScript Services (JSS) Designed as Sitecore JSS

It is a complete SDK (Software Development Kit) for JavaScript developers that enables them to build full-fledged solutions (SPAs, PWAs, websites) using Sitecore and modern JavaScript UI libraries and frameworks ( React, Angular, Vue) and allowing front-end developers to work headless (i.e. without a running Sitecore instance).

Why Sitecore JSS?

In a digital world where web applications are customer-oriented, businesses need to measure the effort to improve the performance of their web applications and provide the best user experience to their customers.

Many organizations are taking decoupled headless approach application architecture for their content management system (CMS) to achieve those goals. Developers were used to build and support CMS through a single interface.

With Sitecore JSS, you can decouple front and backend solutions for benefit in architecture, personalization, website, SEO performance and overall business value. Here are some of the benefits of Sitecore JSS:

Headless / Decoupling: It’s an architectural approach where developers can implement and host the front and back end separately in the same or separate servers. This makes you have complete control over the frontend application and update the website or app without any code or restarting the server.

Marketers can also control how and where the content appears, including web, mobile, or tablet devices, with the ability to deliver it quickly and efficiently.

Additionally, Sitecore JSS, in conjunction with Sitecore Experience Editor, allows content authors to modify content on a website through inline editing easily.

Performance: Time to first byte (TTFB) is the most important aspect of website performance. Decoupling your application allows your front end to be hosted from serverless computing services, providing improved response time.

In addition, the headless architecture enables the use of Single Page Applications (SPA) and Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), which interact with the user by dynamically rewriting the webpage rather than loading new pages from a server.

Basically, when all interactions and renderings occur in the browser, you don’t need to wait for client-server communication, offering the end-user with an optimized experience.

Flexibility & Independence: Sitecore JSS gives developers the control to use their preferred tools and frameworks like Angular, React, Vue, and React Native for mobile development.

Frontend developers don’t need to rely on backend content and go ahead with the code-first approach, mocking application development and content data are using local files instead of the Sitecore instance.

Once the Sitecore instance is available, developers can consume data via Sitecore Layout Service and connect the application to the Sitecore instance, called connected mode.

Personalization: Sitecore’s API supports dynamic content delivery, meaning you can deliver personalized content to almost any device or browser. With Sitecore JSS users can keep automated marketing features that Sitecore offers such as, personalization, analytics, reporting, and multivariate testing.

Variety of channels: With Sitecore JSS, data can be captured from customer interactions on your website, mobile applications, retail kiosks, connected home devices, and many other channels leveraged for personalization.

Business Value: Building a website with quick TTFB, personalization, and mobile-first indexing is critical for businesses today to increase engagement and achieve a high conversion rate. Sitecore JSS provides marketers with benefits through personalization and consolidated data insights.

It widens your reach to consumers across segments enabling consistent marketing and control over content across multichannel and multi-device environments. It leads to no interference between business operations and developer workflows, resulting in fewer project dependencies. It also does away with maintaining multiple bodies.

Despite the many benefits of a headless approach, it’s essential to acknowledge that not all CMS allows end users to manage the presentation layer when decoupled. However, with Sitecore JSS and Sitecore Experience Editor, marketers can retain visual control and easily change items directly on the web page.

 

When to use Sitecore JSS?

Sitecore JSS will become your choice ultimately when you need to develop Progressive Web Applications (PWAs), Native Mobile App, use applications in Kiosk or other devices apart from desktop, tablet, mobile, and lastly, Single Page Applications (SPAs).

Benefits of Sitecore JSS

Headless-ready

Sitecore JSS was created with headless deployments in mind. As a result, Sitecore JSS empowers developers and gives them complete control of their frontend applications and deployed code without restarting the server.

New features and digital experiences can be created for marketers without interruption, giving them more control over what they build. For those already leveraging Sitecore Experience Editor, integrating JSS into the workflow enables authors to modify content using inline editing.

 

Better Performance

A JSS app leverages the headless CMS architecture enabling companies to host their frontend in serverless computing devices to provide better response times. Also, by allowing the pages to pre-render in the CDN, a JSS site is faster as you don’t have to wait for client-server communication, optimizing the end user experience.

 

Flexibility and Independence

Building a Sitecore JSS application or website allows developers to use their preferred frameworks and tools like Angular, React, Vue, and even React Native for mobile development. With JSS, developers can code faster using starters and other tools in their local machines instead of doing it on a Sitecore instance.

However, once developers are ready to commit those changes, they can consume that local data using Sitecore Layout Services and connect that to the Sitecore instance for a less convoluted approach.

 

Personalization

Sitecore supports both REST and GraphQL APIs that enables the delivery of dynamic content, which means you can personalize your digital experience for almost every device or browser. And create dynamic fields that you can personalize using Sitecore’s advanced AI personalization features.

 

Greater Business Value

Building a website that’s not only fast to load but also fast to create is bound to give Sitecore users business benefits and help achieve higher conversion rate and engagement.

Sitecore, and the headless approach, offers users the tools to create and control content over multichannel, multi-device customer journeys, giving users of every extraction the tools to do their job better and excel at what they do.

 

Conclusion

It is apparent that the Sitecore JSS has been delivering a competitive edge to marketers with a wide range of functionalities. In other CMS, decoupling is capped to the Images and texts that are the content component. The authors can alter the content fields, but modifying the layouts demands changes in the code.

The Sitecore, in these terms, with its headless architecture, overcomes this limitation by providing the author to have more control over content and layout management.

Furthermore, personalization and detailed insights into data assist marketers to channelize and govern consistent marketing over different devices. Get in touch with our Sitecore experts for free consultation.