Sitecore

Sidekick on a Real Desk, Not a Keynote

Authors want speed. You want no placeholder live. Both can happen if generate and publish are split.

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I sat with an author who generated three variants and picked the longest. Longest wasn't best. It was just long.

Sidekick at a real desk

Not a keynote. An author with three variants. They picked the longest. Longest wasn't best. It was long. Our pages need hours and a phone, not a brochure. I said that. They shortened it. The short one was the one we'd have written tired at 5 p.m. Tired is honest. Long is a costume.

Authors want speed. You want no placeholder live. Both can happen if generate and publish are split. If they're not split, speed wins and placeholders win with it. Speed is not the enemy. Unreviewed speed is.

Prompts

Field limit. Audience. If you skip those, you get seekers of excellence. Nobody called a plumber because of excellence. They called because the water heater made a noise. Write like that.

A card on the desk beats a wiki. Twenty minutes of watching an author beats a webinar. I timed both. The webinar had better slides. The desk had fewer TODOs live.

Review

Diff against last published. If you can't, you're flying. I flew. Hit a placeholder. The placeholder was polite. Polite TODOs still go out. Diff. Read. Then publish.

If the CMS makes diff hard, print. Hold up two pages. Look old. Be right. I've done it in a hallway. Hallways are underrated review environments. People don't perform in hallways. They see the TODO.

  • Split generate and publish.
  • Diff required.
  • No prices in generate.
  • Desk card with field limit.

Roles

Generate role. Publish role. Launch week is the worst week to merge them. People are brave and tired. That's when TODOs ship. I merged them because we were short. We were short after, too, because we were fixing the homepage.

Train writers, not only builders. Builders write prompts that assume a clean field. Writers paste PDFs. Plan for the paste. Ban if you must. Put the ban on the card with a reason. Reasons get followed more than rules.

Templates I keep off

Legal. Pricing. Location phones. The model will invent a digit. Invented digits become ads. Ads become angry calls. One digit. Enough. Stakeholders who want AI on legal can own publish. They don't. Off stays off.

If a template is off, say why on the card so authors don't think you're being precious. Precious loses. Safety with a reason wins some of the time. Some is enough.

Checklist

Generate. Diff. Publish. Shorten. Split. That's the whole desk ritual. If a step is missing, Sidekick stays off that template. I will repeat this until it sticks. It wasn't sticking. That's why the intern story exists.

Monday

One template. Split the buttons. Twenty minutes with one author. Watch them reach for publish. Stop them. Kind. Repeat. That's rollout. An email is how keynotes happen without desks. I don't want a keynote. I want fewer TODOs on the live site.

If You Only Do One Thing

Split generate and publish on the template authors actually use. Watch one person. If they still mash both, the buttons are still too close. Move them again. Distance is the control.

I used a ruler once. It looked silly. The intern didn't mash that afternoon. Silly wins.

What I Won't Do

I won't turn Sidekick on for 'all templates' as a Friday treat. Friday treats are how TODOs ship. Monday is for buttons. Friday is for going home.

The Ruler

I measured the gap between Draft only and Publish. Two centimeters. Then four. Four worked. The intern thought I was kidding. I wasn't. Distance is a control you can photograph. I photographed it. The photo is in the don't folder.

A designer wanted them stacked again 'for density.' Density is how mash happens. I said no. I said it with the photo. Photos beat density arguments.

All Templates As A Friday Treat

Someone scheduled it. I unscheduled it. Friday is for going home. Sidekick on every template is a Monday job with one author in the room. Empty offices are how TODOs ship. I like empty offices for leaving. Not for generate buttons.

We left Sidekick on two templates. News and one landing. That's the farm. The rest can wait until I watch another hand. Hands tell the truth. Dashboards say adoption. Adoption is a vanity word. Hands are not vanity.

Going Home

I closed the laptop with the buttons still ugly. Ugly and split. Split is enough. Pretty can wait. Pretty is how generate sneaks next to publish again.

Further reading

Actionable checklist

  • Familiarize yourself with Sitecore Sidekick functionalities.
  • Define clear AI prompt guidelines for content authors.
  • Create structured field maps for all content types.
  • Set up human review gates for critical content.
  • Train all authors on AI-assisted authoring tools.
  • Regularly review and update content workflows.
  • Collect feedback from authors on AI prompt effectiveness.
  • Monitor content quality post-implementation.