Why Upgrade your Sitefinity CMS?

Your Sitefinity content management system (CMS) is an essential tool that is utilized to create and manage content. Much like how mobile devices require upgrading, whether that be to introduce new features or to keep your operating system up to date on security standards, your CMS also needs to be regularly updated for the same reasons. After all, we all want to ensure that we have the latest and greatest version of any application to ensure that it runs smoothly. The following are four reasons why you should consider upgrading your Sitefinity CMS every couple of years.

Cuts Cost

At Vanguard Technology, we recommend that our clients upgrade their Sitefinity CMS every 18-24 months. By doing so, you could save your organization a potential increase in upgrade cost, as a “stepped-based” upgrade could be needed. A stepped based upgrade occurs when a client stays on a current version of Sitefinity CMS for a number of years, becoming multiple versions behind in upgrades. In order for Vanguard’s development team to successfully upgrade Sitefinity CMS, it must be upgraded to a specific, recent version of Sitefinity CMS before ultimately upgrading to the latest version of the CMS. Since the level of effort to achieve an upgrade could be higher with a stepped upgrade, you could incur a higher upgrade cost. Therefore, by upgrading regularly, the effort to upgrade your website is less and therefore costs you less to upgrade.

New Features

The additions of new features are always exciting, and one of the biggest advantages with an upgrade.

It’s no secret that Progress, the creators of Sitefinity, are constantly looking for ways to introduce new features into its CMS. Sitefinity’s latest releases include the following additions:

•  A new content editing experience with an enhanced rich-text editor, cleaner user interface, and a new look and feel to its existing content type widgets.

• Form enhancements – Sitefinity is continuing to improve its already powerful Sitefinity form builder. Backend users now have the ability to create more complex forms by inserting multi-page form support and insert form rules that allow a user to display different fields based on their form input.

Bugs

Virtually every piece of software contains error (aka bugs). Simply put, it’s inevitable no matter how scrutinous the testing. However, by upgrading your Sitefinity CMS environment, not only are you gaining additional benefits though new features, but you’re also receiving a CMS that resolves those pesky bugs! If certain issues are left unresolved, they could result in a less enjoyable user experience for you and your users, or an even more impactful issue, unresolved security issues.

Security

One of the most important reasons why you should consider upgrading your Sitefinity CMS is security standards. A CMS that isn’t upgraded every couple of years is more vulnerable to attacks, as the community has had more time to find security errors. Security updates are frequently released as a part of new versions of Sitefinity and are sometimes released as smaller upgrades known as “Hot Fixes” or “Patches” if they are more time sensitive. For more information on when to patch vs. when to upgrade, click here. 

Next Steps

Now that you’ve learned about some of the core reasons why you should upgrade your CMS every 18-24 months, you might be wondering where to go from here. If you’re interested in discussing an upgrade to the latest version of Sitefinity or have questions regarding the additional features that you could gain, contact your Vanguard Client Manager today.