Sitecore Basics

Upon log in, users are presented with the Environments and Apps screen. Available options here will vary depending on access levels. Campus websites are assigned to a color-coded environment (Black, Green, Silver or White). 

Available environments:

• Production (“prod”) environments are used for building websites that will eventually be published or for managing websites that are live. All website development by content authors is done in production. All production environments end in “/ Prod” and include a color in the name. Campus production environments include MSU-Black / Prod, MSU-Green / Prod, MSU-Silver / Prod, or MSU-White / Prod. There is also an MSUToday / Prod environment that houses MSU’s institutional news website.
• Dev environments are used for development purposes at the enterprise level, such as the creation of new components and features that may eventually be rolled out to campus users. Access is restricted to select staff within University Communications and Marketing, MSU IT and MSU’s development agency partner.
• Qual environments are used for quality assurance testing by Sitecore developers. This is a testing environment. Access is restricted to select staff within University Communications and Marketing, MSU IT and MSU’s development agency partner.
• Release environments are used as a final staging environment for testing developed features and functionalities. Access is restricted to select staff within University Communications and Marketing, MSU IT and MSU’s development agency partner. On rare occasions, some unit staff may be given temporary access to a release environment for the purpose of working on a full website redesign without impacting the live version of the website.  

Navigate between the environments by either clicking on the appropriate environment icon on the landing page or by clicking the launchpad icon (a grid of nine dots in the top left corner) and choosing the appropriate option from the drop-down menu. Be sure to select the correct environment.

Clicking an environment icon will open the Tools menu. On the Tools menu, click on a tool to go straight to that tool. Choose the website from the website drop-down menu on the Global toolbar in the tool window.

Each SitecoreAI environment contains a suite of tools used for webpage creation and website management. Access to the tools may vary, depending on a user’s level of system access.

These tools include:

• Design Studio — Design Studio is most commonly used to create Forms for embedding within a webpage. The Forms feature within Design Studio is used to create, edit and manage Forms built within Sitecore. This will not be used for non-Sitecore forms that are embedded into a webpage.
• Page Builder — Page Builder is the tool most commonly used by content authors to create and manage website content. It is a visual editor with drag-and-drop functionality for adding prebuilt components to a page layout. The content in the components can be edited on the page and previewed in real time on various device sizes.
• Content Editor — Content Editor can also be used to create and edit content, outside of the context of how it is presented on a webpage. It works with data fields rather than a visual layout.
• Performance — View basic website and form analytics provided by SitecoreAI and access additional features, such as A/B tests. This is not meant to be a replacement for Google Analytics.
• Agentic Studio — Agentic Studio features have not yet been enabled in the MSU SitecoreAI system. When features are available documentation will be added to this website.
• SitecoreAI documentation — This link connects to Sitecore’s generic system documentation, not the MSU-specific documentation. Some items that appear here may not be available to MSU users or environments.  

Additional tools appearing in the Tools menu may not be fully activated. Additional documentation will be added to this website as features are enabled. Please contact University Communications and Marketing with questions. 

To launch a tool:

1. Select the appropriate SitecoreAI MSU / prod option from the environment and apps landing page or the environment menu (open by clicking the nine dot "launchpad" icon).
2. Select the tool from the menu.

The SitecoreAI documentation throughout this website will reference various fields and field types. Expand the tabs below for an explanation of these field types.

Documentation updated: Sept. 21, 2026

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