Again this year, we visited Umbraco Codegarden in Odense. Umbraco's annual event, where the entire Umbraco community is invited for knowledge sharing, networking, and a lot of activities. It took place from June 12th-14th, and this time MCB was represented by 2 skilled Umbraco developers.
Codegarden is the only official conference held by Umbraco HQ. Therefore, it's the place to be when discussing the latest features in Umbraco's digital platform, including CMS, Forms, and Umbraco Cloud, as well as everything else happening in the world of web development.
So, there's a massive FOMO alert if you're an Umbraco developer and didn't have the pleasure of attending!
And even though a few weeks have passed since our developers returned to the office in Holstebro, there are still plenty of exciting key takeaways to talk about. As always, nothing stands still when it comes to Umbraco. There is a flurry of new features, functions, adjustments, and initiatives aimed at making the platform even better to work with.
So, what can you look forward to?
Many different things were discussed at this year's Codegarden. But particularly, there are 4 things that stand out. The 4 pillars, as Umbraco HQ calls them, are so significant that they will receive much greater focus in the future.
Therefore, if you're interested in Umbraco, you will certainly hear more about them.
Let us briefly introduce them to you now.
They are:
1. AI Search
It comes as no surprise that there is a further focus on AI and the opportunities that come with artificial intelligence. Like almost every other self-respecting tech company, Umbraco will henceforth have a strong focus on integrating AI into the platform.
In future releases, we can look forward to seeing AI Search used through a plug-and-play feature, which makes it easy for you to add intelligent search to your Umbraco site.
This feature is particularly smart in connection with the Chat Assistant, as AI Search can help ensure that up to 96% of your customers' questions are answered not only quickly but also correctly.
2. Personal Experiences
We can also expect to see AI personalization being used.
The technology can, among other things, change the appearance of your site depending on your users' previous actions - and in a time where users expect more personalized web experiences, AI will make it easier for you to meet such demands.
3. GenAI
And we continue on the AI track.
GenAI covers 'generative artificial intelligence,' which focuses on creating content such as texts, images, videos, etc. The GenAI technology is designed to mimic human creativity and thus independently generate content.
In particular, GenAI in Umbraco can therefore become important for:
4. Orchestration
Orchestration covers the process of automating and coordinating various tasks and systems to ensure an efficient workflow.
In Umbraco, this can include automating content publishing, integration with third-party systems such as CRM and e-commerce, and managing deployment processes. For example, orchestration can automate the movement of your content from development to production while coordinating editorial workflows involving multiple users.
It ensures that all aspects of your website's administration and functionality operate most efficiently
In recent years, much has happened at Umbraco - and especially Umbraco Cloud has grown significantly. Therefore, Umbraco Cloud is now a recommended place to host Umbraco solutions.
Umbraco Cloud includes Umbraco Deploy and Umbraco Forms. In addition, there is support from Umbraco HQ, a dedicated support team, a development team, and second-level support for more complex challenges.
Beyond all this, 'The Big 3' in connection with Umbraco Cloud was also discussed at this year's Codegarden.
The Big 3 includes:
CI/CD
CI/CD stands for Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) or Continuous Deployment (CD), and it is a practice in software development that aims to improve software quality and accelerate the release process.
This is already available in Umbraco Cloud, and therefore it helps to automate the deployment flow.
Flexible Environments
With Flexible Environments, it will be possible in the future to test specific features on Umbraco Cloud and subsequently bring changes into the Development environment.
It is still under development.
Load Balancing
This is a feature that is not yet supported by Umbraco and will therefore come into its own in the near future.
Load Balancing is a technique that distributes network or application traffic across multiple servers. It ensures optimal resource utilization, maximum throughput, minimal response time, and avoids overloading a single server.
Therefore, it is a feature that will be particularly beneficial for larger and more complex Umbraco solutions with a large number of visitors.
Load Balancing will allow for:
In addition to the 4 pillars and The Big 3, a major focus at this year's Codegarden was Umbraco 14 – which seems very natural since Umbraco 14 has just been launched.
As we wrote in a previous blog post, which you can find here, this version introduces an entirely new back-office experience built with modern technologies like TypeScript, Web Components, and Lit. Therefore, you will experience improved performance, increased flexibility, and greater customization options.
So, perhaps it’s time for you to migrate your Umbraco site to Umbraco 14?
It was also announced that Umbraco 14 is now available on Umbraco Cloud and that extensions such as Umbraco Forms, Umbraco Commerce, Umbraco Workflow, and Umbraco UI Builder will soon be supported in Umbraco 14.
So, there is plenty of functionality to look forward to.
And we probably can't keep the suspense any longer – because, as always, we almost want to say, our talented Umbraco developer, Bjarne Fyrstenborg, received one of the most important awards in the Umbraco community.
Namely, the title of MVP.
This is the 8th consecutive year that Bjarne has received this prestigious title, and we are, of course, very proud of that at MCB. It is a title awarded based on significant dedication, and with it comes even greater responsibility to maintain knowledge and be active in the Umbraco community.
MVP stands for ‘Most Valued People’. The group consists of 100 (2024) outstanding developers who manage to take Umbraco to the next level and contribute to embracing the open-source system. These are developers who live and breathe Umbraco and can always provide the absolute best service.
And this is also your assurance that at MCB, you always receive a functional solution that can meet even the most complex needs.
This year, 23 new MVPs were inducted, while 77 were renewed.
You can find the entire list here.