I've read this guide on publishing to a preview publishing target but still can't get my head around a few things.

I want to have a separate Sitecore instance called QA which shows preview content not in the final workflow state.

  1. When creating a new Publishing Target in the CMS, I'm prompted to enter a 'target database'. Do I have to create a new database called 'QA'? If so, how do I do this?
  2. When I create my new Sitecore instance for QA, how do I configure this instance to pull from the QA database? Is there a guide for this?

I'm sure this should be documented somewhere, but I can only find the Sitecore documentation above, which doesn't detail how to configure my new instance.


The guide isn't very clear.

  1. You need a new Database, yes. I would suggest you clone your "web" database in SQL Management Studio and name the new database "qa"
  2. Then you need to configure a new site. In your existing site definition, add a new one like this: <site name="site2" inherits="site1" database="qa" /> (adjust names as appropriate)

But there are several other modes you could arrive at something similar, it all depends on your use case.

Another option would be, to just configure an additional site, have it respond to a different hostName attribute, and on this site display content straight from "master". Something like this:

  <site name="qasite" inherits="website">
    <patch:attribute name="hostName">qa.mysite</patch:attribute>
    <patch:attribute name="database">master</patch:attribute>
    <patch:attribute name="filterItems">true</patch:attribute>
    <patch:attribute name="enableWorkflow">true</patch:attribute>
  • Hey Mark - thanks for this. That's exactly what I was looking for. I'll give it a go now! – peaks Sep 8 '17 at 11:56

Your Answer

