First ever Sitecore Hackathon

Best Authoring Experience Enhancement Module (Content Editor or Media Library).

• Best Content or Blog Syndication Module
• Best Authoring Experience Improvement Module
• Best Sitecore User Control
• Best End User Widget
• Best Marketing Module, improving the way Sitecore is demonstrated to potential customers
• Best Media Framework Integration Module (we already have Brightcove and Ooyala, so what about Azure Media and Amazon Simple Storage Service, S3)
• Best Integration of User Generated Content
• Best Solution of Reliable Time Based Scheduled Tasks
• Coolest Module using Item Buckets
• Best use of SPEAK
• Best Sitecore Rocks Plugin
• Open source API for sharing personalization info between sites without compromising PII
• A Sitecore plug-in/tool to help with WCAG 2.0 AA compliance
• Best Developer Productivity Tool
• Best Chat Module
• Best Media Library Enhancement
• Index non Sitecore content in SC 7.x
• Best extension to the Page Editor
• Best use of the Sitecore Web API
• Sitecore Review or Rating Module
• Sitecore WebForms Kickstarter
• Best new Sitecore field
• Best content import module, a GUI with an extendable API

Three judges experienced with Sitecore judged all submissions: Pieter Brinkman (Sitecore), the CMS Product Team (Sitecore), and Katherine Lee (NTT DATA). Each judge awarded each team points against four criteria.

• Quality of code, up to 10 points, for cleanliness of code, commenting, code structure, and following standard coding standards and naming conventions.
• Creativity, up to 10 points. Is this solution unique? Did the team give us a diamond in the rough or a quality diamond?
• Performance, up to 5 points. Does the module work swiftly?
• Ease of install and config, up to 5 points. Does the module provide adequate instructions for the person installing it, and how easy is it to install and configure?

The winner is picked on overall scores from all three judges.

The hackathon was judged by Pieter Brinkman (Sitecore), Tim Ward and Alistair Deneys (Sitecore), and Katherine Lee (NTT Data).

The top three teams by score were:

1. Heisenberg with 77 points (Judge 1: 25, Judge 2: 25, Judge 3: 27).
2. Team Orange with 70 points (Judge 1: 24, Judge 2: 24, Judge 3: 22), named the winner.
3. Uniques with 68 points (Judge 1: 22, Judge 2: 23, Judge 3: 23).

Heisenberg is one of two NTT Data teams that took part, and under the rules they cannot win or be awarded any prizes.

Grifter Ink. The people responsible for approving Sitecore workflow items are often managers who do not spend their days in the Sitecore Content Editor, and they can be unfamiliar with everything it offers. The GrifterInk.SmartWorkflowEmail module lets these managers approve content changes without being exposed to the whole Content Editor. It allows Content Authors and Sitecore Administrators to create a Smart Email Action item under any workflow command, with total customization by the author or admin.

Team Orange. Tools for visualizing content dependencies within Sitecore, so that when you edit content you can see which pages use it. GitHub project.

Team Admin/B. Added an Add Item button to the Sitecore Multilist field, so an author can create related content without searching the content tree for the right location. When the author clicks Add This, the module presents a control to enter an item name and select an item type from a dropdown populated from Insert Options. The new item is created in the field's data source location and opened in a nested tab for further editing.

Team Awesome. A chat application for use inside the content editor, to help editors collaborate while they produce content. It broadcasts messages between editors in a SPEAK application using SignalR, and opens from an icon in the tray. When a message arrives, the application shows a notification with the message in the content editor even when the app is not running.

The Dream Corps. Our entry was an attempt at a feature several clients have asked for over the years: letting content editors download a spreadsheet of Sitecore items in CSV format, edit them as a group, and upload them back to Sitecore. The proof of concept lets an editor select a set of items from a specific template, choose the fields to download, and download all items under /sitecore/content of that template type to CSV. The file can then be edited and uploaded back to update the items. The concept was to let users upload an entire site of content via CSV, which could speed up work like content entry where clients often already have their data in spreadsheets.

Team General Direction. The concept is to let workflows notify editors in real time. The notifications appear within Sitecore or as a tray notification on the Windows desktop. To do this we built a workflow action, a Sitecore application, and a WPF tray notification app.

Team Heisenberg. Workflow improvements: a SPEAK application that maps items to users based on the last person to move the item through workflow within a time frame. A custom search view on the Bucket Pane shows the user workflow history for each item searched. Validation on approve ensures the datasources of renderings for the current item are all in a final state, and a warning message on items whose datasources are not final lets the user navigate to them and update them. A pipeline intercepts workflow comment output to create links to bug tracking software. A new facet for the Bucket Pane lets users filter by an item's workflow state. GitHub project.

Uniques. The module gives content authors the ability to view many different types of references on an item in the Content Editor. Through simple providers and configuration it is highly extendable. GitHub project and Sitecore Marketplace.

3PT. Sitecore Super Search and Replace: our entry lets content editors run an advanced search for content items and export them in XML format to be edited en masse in tools like Microsoft Excel, then re-imported into Sitecore. We plan to extend this so advanced find and replace works directly within the Sitecore client.

Eligible teams must consist of at least three contributing code members, and teams must sign up by 6 pm EST on January 21, 2014.

Eligible teams will be given access to DropBox folders for code submission. The date and time stamp on DropBox will be used as the official submission time. For consideration, a team's submission must be uploaded by 8 PM EST on January 25th, 2014. The module should be compatible with the latest version of Sitecore 7.1. Teams should submit the code, the installable package, and any documentation that explains the package. See the Official Rules for full details.

Yes, there are prizes. The winning team receives a $100 Amazon gift card per team member, for a total of $300 per team. The Amazon gift cards are emailed to the addresses on file no later than 10 days after the winning team is announced. No purchase necessary. See the Official Rules for complete details, including judging criteria and prize details.