This is part of my back to basics series of blogs. One of the things that I have come across in different Sitecore site installs that are critical for content authors is branch templates. Branch templates have been around quite a while in Sitecore. Although Experience Editor is popular and branch templates work in Experience Editor a lot of content authors still use the Content Editor exclusively. Utilizing branch templates will make the process smoother when creating content and better guide the content authors.

So the best way to explain how branches work is to think of them as a tree. You have the trunk which would be the item you want to create, but then you have the branches that help the tree grow and help define what kind of tree it is, but most of all help feed the tree. For example a vehicle sticker. Vehicles can come with different options, different colors, etc… Each vehicle is different too and there would be options just for that vehicle and not other vehicles. Just for fun I drew a picture on my iPad to explain it visually. 🙂

Branch Templates – How to Create and Use Them

Branch templates are usually created under /sitecore/templates/Branches. Right clicking on the Branches folder you will be prompted to pick a template.

After choosing a template you can add different templates underneath. In the instance below I created a branch for a vehicle sticker item. $name is the vehicle sticker template and what you see underneath is the supporting templates and template folders.

Now just set the insert options where you want the branch template and then you will get a new vehicle sticker item created with all of the supporting templates. Keep in mind all the presentation layer settings will be the same as it would be if you just inserted the vehicle sticker item.

After setting the branch template for the insert options. You will see the following after you insert the new branch template on the content tree.

Conclusion

So there you have it. The basics of a branch template. I believe this is one of the more critical features to implement when creating a Sitecore site. It will ensure content is created correctly from the start. Now that being said with newer versions of SXA, Page Branches were introduced. I will be covering that concept in the future. Regardless you can still choose to use branch templates.