The best kind of Sitecore implementation is one that functions the way you want it to. It meets your organizational needs, it’s intuitive to work with, and you never worry that something’s lurking under the radar. You might even delight in using the DXP.
That’s how your Sitecore experience should feel.
If that statement doesn’t ring true, good news: you can turn things around with a Sitecore audit. A Sitecore Implementation Audit is the first step to keeping your Sitecore sites in good health and ensuring you get the most out of this powerful platform.
How do you know if it’s time to look under the hood? If any of the following sound familiar, it’s likely time for you to get a Sitecore audit.
1. Your Sitecore implementation has obvious problems
If you’re experiencing issues like frequent or persistent bugs, excessive development time and costs, issues with deployments, or other nagging issues, it’s time to do an audit.
A Sitecore audit gives you a clear picture of the state of your implementation and whether it was built according to Sitecore best practices. It helps everyone identify and zero in on the underlying causes of ongoing issues, and develop a plan for addressing the issues that have been found.
2. You’re switching to a new Sitecore vendor
If you’re switching to a new Sitecore vendor, you absolutely want to start the relationship off right, with a Sitecore audit.
An audit gives everyone involved a clear picture of what state your Sitecore implementation is in, and what it will take, for you to get the most use and value out of Sitecore.
It allows your new partner to provide well informed answers and estimates, when you’re discussing upcoming projects. It also saves you money, because your new partner doesn’t have to pad project estimates for a bunch of unknown problems they may run into.
An audit provides everyone valuable information about how your solution works, so you and your new vendor feel confident, they can provide support and start making improvements right out of the gate.
An audit also gives you a way to evaluate the technical expertise, communication, and project management abilities of your prospective new partner, so that you can be sure you’re picking the right partner this time around.
3. You’re planning an upgrade
Sitecore upgrades can be challenging even in the best of circumstances.
An audit helps you uncover things like outdated code that leverages deprecated API calls, third-party modules that are no longer supported or need to be updated, failure to adhere to best practices, and other bugs lying in wait. Problems like this can delay the completion of your upgrade indefinitely, resulting in ballooning costs and angry users who are unable to update time-sensitive content on your website.
A Sitecore audit can help identify these sort of things before your upgrade is running at full throttle, allowing you to properly address them in a timely manner before they cause an emergency.
4. You want to leverage everything Sitecore has to offer
You bought Sitecore with the intention of leveraging everything it has to offer. If that hasn’t happened yet, then you need to do an audit. To take full advantage of everything Sitecore has to offer, your implementation needs to be architected properly in the first place.
An audit uncovers whether your implementation was built to leverage whatever functionality you want to leverage. More importantly, it helps you gauge the level of effort required to implement the desired functionality and make an informed decision about whether to move forward or not.
5. You haven’t had an audit recently
If you implemented Sitecore more than a few years ago, and you’re running on an older version, then you really need to consider conducting an audit. In fact, best practice is to conduct an audit on an annual basis to measure your progress in resolving the issues plaguing your implementation.
An audit is the only way to increase stability and ensure the longest possible lifespan of your codebase. Annual audits help you prioritize and not lose sight of all those lingering but critical code elevation tasks. These tasks may not get you a pat on the back, but neglecting them will impede or prevent the projects that do.
Sitecore solutions inevitably change over time as they age, as new developers work on the solution, features and best practices evolve, and your business objectives change. Regular audits are the best way to help you respond to those changes proactively rather than reactively.
Do you need a Sitecore audit?
When it comes to Sitecore, you know when things just don’t feel right. If something seems fishy, you owe it to yourself and your company to get to the bottom of it.
A Sitecore audit looks deep into your solution and uncovers hidden things that can hobble your Sitecore solution like technical debt, incompetence, inexperience, simple oversights, misconfiguration, and poorly-planned or rushed implementations of features.
Don’t let technical debt and reactive thinking prevent you from realizing your vision. If you recognized any of these signs, contact us now.
Engagency is a trusted Sitecore Certified Partner with over 10+ years of experience building, supporting, and training teams to get the most out of Sitecore. Drop us a note to request a quote and get examples of audit reports and the supporting documentation we provide.
