April 12, 20214 min read

Creating A Package In Sitecore

Ashwinder Kaur

Quality Assurance Lead

Ashwinder is a QA specialist with 10+ years of experience, including eight in Sitecore, ensuring every Fishtank project launches flawless and bug-free.

Introduction

If you want to share something you built with your team, I recommend creating a package for everyone to install on their own Sitecore instances.

You can use the Package Designer to create packages with Sitecore so that items can be easily transferred.

For example, this can be done when moving items from one Sitecore website to another.

You can use Package Designer to create or modify packages that could contain dynamically or statically created item, or files. The packages you create with the Package Designer can also contain security accounts.

After you create a package, you may want to test it. This will allow you to find out if the package was created correctly and contains all the items that you specified.

You can use the Installation Wizard to install a package in your Sitecore instance.

Creating A Package In Sitecore

Step 1

Sitecore > Login > Desktop > Development Tools > Package Designer

Select Package Designer from the menu when creating a new package in Sitecore

Step 2

On the ‘Package Designer’ window, fill out the Metadata fields. The Package Name is the only required field.

Enter a name for the package that you are about to create. The package name can contain letters, numbers, underscores, hyphens, figures, spaces and periods. If you enter an invalid symbol, an error message will appear.

Metadata window when creating a package in Sitecore

After everything is filled out, click on the ‘Items Statistically’ option at the top for a dialogue box to open up. Make sure the database selected is ‘master’.

Select Items Statistically from the Sitecore menu

Step 3

Select the item that you want to export and then click on either ‘Add with Subitems’ (if item has child items) or ‘Add Item’ (if item has no child items).

Continue the same for each item as you will not be able to add all the items at once.

If you would like to move entire website, then select the root item ‘Sitecore’ and select ‘Add with Subitems’.

Select items from the Content Tree Menu when creating a package in Sitecore

Step 4

Click Next, provide a source name, and then click Next once more.

You'll see that the source was added successfully. Click Close to close the dialog window.

The static item source has been successfully added window when creating a package in Sitecore

Step 5

On the left, under the Sources, you will see the new source you created.

New Source with a package child item under it when creating a package in Sitecore

Select the new source and select one of the following Installation Options for the package:

Overwrite:

Installation Option Overwrite when creating a package in Sitecore

Merge - Clear:

Merge and Clear from the Installation Options menu when creating a package in Sitecore

Merge - Append:

Merge and Append from the Installation Options menu when creating a package in Sitecore

Merge - Merge:

Merge and Merge from the Installation Options menu when creating a package in Sitecore.e

Skip:

Skip option in Installations Options when creating a package in Sitecore

Ask User:

Installation option Ask User when creating a package in Sitecore

Step 6

Once an installation option is selected, select Metadata on the left.

Click on ‘Generate Zip’, provide a name, and click on Next.

Generate a zip file step when creating a package in Sitecore

Step 7

You will see the window that will have a download button.

Click the world button with a green arrow to downloaded the file to your machine. This is the file that you can now share with others or install to a different Sitecore website.

Download package after it's been built in Sitecore