Xperience content modeling learning map

Welcome to the content modeling learning map for Xperience by Kentico – a curated guide for solution architects, developers, and business analysts who want to build robust, scalable content models for Xperience applications.

Xperience by Kentico is a hybrid headless DXP platform. Content modeling in Xperience differs significantly from previous Kentico versions. If you’re coming from Kentico 13 or earlier, expect a different approach.

Xperience by Kentico DXP helps teams create personalized, modern customer experiences using a single solution. Before diving into data modeling, understand how the platform works from a marketer’s perspective. A content model that doesn’t align with how editors and marketers actually use Xperience will create friction and will require rework later.

Build a foundation

Understand how marketers work with Xperience

  • Manage content essentials – Learn how editors work with core content types in Xperience. (Hands-on tutorial)
  • Digital marketing essentials – Discover key Xperience applications marketers use to shape user experiences and brush up on your digital marketing terminology in Kentico LexiK glossary.
  • Developer kickstart – Get hands-on experience developing websites in Xperience. (Requires basic skills in .NET development.)

Content modeling principles

These external resources provide a solid grounding in Information Architecture and content modeling best practices – they are worth reading before tackling Kentico-specific implementation.

  • Content modeling weekly series – Learn basics of content modeling from Marcelo Levine, the HeadlessCreator. We recommend Content types vs Components (video 17) and Content Modeling Principles to Live By (videos 49-52).
  • Content modeling – Boris Pocatko, former Kentico EMS and Kontent.ai solutions architect, explains the basics of content modeling. Especially his free e-book may come in handy.
  • Kontent: Content modeling overview – Learn introduction to content modeling from an excellent series created by the Kontent.ai documentation team.
  • Schema.org – See the community-driven project to create a shared vocabulary you can use with different encodings.
  • Nielsen Group: Information Architecture – A collection of links will help you learn the information architecture (IA), how to run an IA research study, and how to design navigation effectively.

Design the content model

With the fundamentals in place, this section covers how to structure the specific content types and components your solution will need.

Content modeling in Xperience

  1. Content modeling guide – Learn what content modeling is, how to align your model with marketing goals in Xperience, and the general recommendations and best practices to follow.

Once you understand the fundamentals, this phase outlines strategies for structuring reusable, complex content types across modern websites and other digital marketing channels.

Model core content type and components

Learn to create structured, reusable components like Articles or Products that editors can leverage across different channels within the Xperience instance and which developers can integrate with external systems.

Model reusable content

  1. Model an article content type – Discover approaches you can use to design structured, reusable Article content type.
  2. Commerce content modeling – Learn the basics of how you can design the content experience for commerce solutions built with Xperience by Kentico.

Model website content

  1. Differences between Page Builder content and structured content – Find out more about the different approaches to content in Xperience website channels.
  2. Model website presentation components – See the different options you can use to prepare Page Builder components editors will use to display content in the website channels.

Implementation

These resources cover how the content model interacts with user management, publishing workflows, and various channels (email, headless).

Project best practices

Understanding the development lifecycle is key to designing scalable models.

  1. Implementation handbook – Learn key concepts and best practices for different phases of implementing Xperience by Kentico.
  2. How to safely evolve a content model – See how developers manage an evolving solution that will inevitably have breaking changes while maintaining business continuity.

Users, roles, and access control

A strong content model requires robust control over who can see and edit the data.

Content channels

  1. Manage users and roles essentials – Learn the basics of user management in Xperience.
  2. Workspaces – Allow you to separate content into distinct units and improve the editor experience. Learn about the default workspace and how to configure role permissions to access different parts of the Xperience instance.
  3. Workflows – Define the lifecycle of content. Learn how to create new workflows and what configuration options are available in Xperience.
  4. Page level permissions – Learn about the ACL available in the website channels to allow or restrict access to different parts of the content tree.
  5. Notifications – Dive deep into configuring different options for the editor team.
  6. Members – Learn about the concept of members that represent your site users.

Content channels and digital marketing

Explore Kentico documentation on managing various channels in Xperience. It covers everything from website and email channel management to headless configurations and enhancing the rich text editor.

Content management (website/headless)

  1. Website channel management – Dive into the documentation page that describes working with websites in Xperience.
  2. Allowed page types – Find out how to improve the editing experience by limiting which pages editors can create.
  3. Email channel management – Learn how emails work in Xperience and what configuration options you can use to define email content types.
  4. Headless channel management – See the different configuration options for headless channels.
  5. Rich text editor – Learn about the default configuration of the rich text editor in Xperience and how developers can extend the default capabilities.

Digital marketing and personalization

  1. Content personalization – Get insights on how editors can tailor content to match their customer journey and preference.
  2. Email templates – Discover what developers need to define so that users can send emails from Xperience.
  3. Custom form autoresponder emails – See how you can send custom responses for form submissions to improve clarity and customer satisfaction.

Migrating to Xperience by Kentico

Dive into our migration overview to see what an upgrade to Xperience by Kentico entails and learn strategic planning tips for migrating features from previous versions.

  1. Upgrading to Xperience by Kentico – Overview – See what upgrading to Xperience by Kentico looks like.
  2. Upgrading to Xperience by Kentico – Walkthrough – Get hands-on experience with upgrading Kentico Xperience 13 Dancing Goat demo website to XbyK.
  3. Migration Toolkit documentation – Get a thorough understanding of the Kentico Migration Toolkit and discover which content types can be transferred to your Xperience application.

Keep learning

The Kentico Community Portal and Resource hub are good places to stay on top of current topics and go deeper. If you come across a resource worth adding to this map, use the feedback form below.

Once you’ve delivered a project or two, consider sharing what you’ve learned – whether that’s writing on the community blog or working toward Kentico MVP or Community Leader status.