How to Fast Track Composable Digital Experience Development

"As we began to understand the journey for a developer in grasping Contentstack, we started with the premise that there are essential things every developer should know about the headless space. Depending on your use case, stack and enterprise goals, many details must be considered. It's crucial to understand that Contentstack is inherently extensible. It's a DXP with wide-ranging capabilities that often surpass developers' or stakeholders' requests, but understanding these capabilities takes time.

Our aim was to bridge this knowledge gap, teaching about API-driven development, the workings of Contentstack, and our concept of composable work. We see many clients transitioning from monolithic systems or systems that are closed off—quite the opposite of Contentstack's approach. Depending on where a user is transitioning from, the shift to Contentstack can feel minor or significantly transformative. However, embracing this composable architecture and realizing the ease with which systems can communicate is liberating. From a developer's perspective, the potential is vast."

"The notable advancement in technology over the past five years has provided platforms like blogs, Medium, LinkedIn and Reddit, offering engineers and developers a space to share ideas. The significant shift is a change in mindset. Those used to monolithic systems have been confined to closed, proprietary systems using APIs for data transfer. Now, with the rise of headless DXP, the approach is composable. This allows for flexibility, letting you modify parts as needs or vendors change. Developers must transition from navigating monolithic roadblocks to recognizing limitless potential. Sending and retrieving actionable data becomes the focus. For engineers accustomed to closed systems for years, this change can initially be challenging, but once grasped, it's as freeing as riding a bike: limitless possibilities lie ahead."

"At Contentstack, we reevaluated our onboarding process. While we offered traditional onboarding steps for new users and had a robust self-service documentation site, our learning resources were fragmented. Our goal was to create an integrated 'education ecosystem.' Engineers and developers can now navigate basic tasks within the application, like adding content or users. To delve deeper, our Developer Academy courses focus on distinct features of our DXP, from galleries to our image API, offering in-depth lessons accompanied by code snippets and examples. We're introducing the 'Help Center,' a centralized hub for all our documentation, ensuring users have a comprehensive understanding of Contentstack. Finally, our 'Developer Fast Track' provides engineers with a comprehensive hands-on experience with all our features. We believe that after exploring our platform in this way, users will recognize Contentstack as the starting point for their digital transformation."

"When you log into Contentstack and access your stack—a collection of information—the screen presents our Help Center on the right. This center serves multiple functions. If you have a question, such as understanding the workflow, you can search it directly. This pulls from our comprehensive documentation, allowing you to read and simultaneously apply the knowledge within the app.

For users unfamiliar with certain features, our language learning model, trained on our documentation, provides detailed guidance on processes like setting up workflows. Additionally, the Help Center's content is context-aware, adjusting its information based on the section you are in, ensuring you receive relevant documentation.

Clicking on the Help Center reveals details about tasks like copying content types. Furthermore, for immediate updates or extended documentation, links are provided within the center. Users can also reach out to our support team directly from here. As you begin with our Developer Fast Track, the Help Center offers a self-guided experience, recognizing that engineers have diverse learning preferences. Whether you prefer structured guidance, deep-diving into docs, videos or course-like material, we cater to all. The choice of learning method remains with the individual engineer."

"That is one of the big things about Contentstack; we embrace being different. Instead of offering a freemium model or limited features at a low cost, we introduced the Developer Fast Track. By visiting our website, engineers can access this Fast Track, granting them time to explore everything Contentstack offers. Within five minutes of providing some basic information, we set you up with an organization equipped with all the tools to utilize Contentstack fully.

From trying out automations in the Automation Hub to setting up environments and launching APIs to your chosen front end, we aim for users to grasp Contentstack's essentials. By the end of this experience, your engineering team should be well-acquainted with our platform's foundation. When you transition to our top-tier support, they'll assist with any needs. You can also introduce your content managers and other team members during this period, with no restrictions on users or API calls.

And unlike other platforms, we don't ask for a credit card at the end of the trial period. Our focus is on enterprise environments and ensuring by the end of the Fast Track, you possess the foundational knowledge to build whatever you envision."

"We recently introduced the Contentstack Academy, created by our expert TSO team. When faced with complex challenges, such as integrating multiple vendors or tweaking content models, these specialists fully understand Contentstack and can provide guidance. Drawing from common challenges experienced by our users, the Academy offers structured learning. Available for free to anyone trying or using Contentstack, the Academy currently comprises 19 modules. These range from understanding our delivery API to designing patterns with content types. Each module is tailored to equip engineers with Contentstack-specific knowledge. Through examples, code snippets and clear content, the goal is for users to seamlessly transition from a basic understanding of Contentstack to expert-level proficiency. By the end, users, whether individuals or team members, should confidently navigate Contentstack and meet their digital transformation needs."

"At Contentstack, we sit at the forefront of composable technology. We've worked with early adopters who push the boundaries, and now we're engaging the next wave of users curious about DXP. This is an opportunity to fully explore our capabilities without limits. What we often hear from engineers is that this experience shifts their mindset. They begin to view Contentstack as the central spine of their entire digital portfolio. Some of our clients, with expansive infrastructures and hundreds of regular system users, experiment with our platform to explore new avenues. We aim to be the platform where talented engineers and developers shape the next decade of digital development."

"Absolutely, our developer FastTrack is set at 21 days based on industry standards and data. However, our ultimate aim is to ensure developers become comfortable with Contentstack and collaborate with us. If, by 20 days, you feel you need more time or assistance, you can reach out through the trial's feedback form or contact our support. Our team is ready to discuss any challenges you're facing and find ways to assist. Our main objective is to get users familiarized with the system and determine how we can be of help.”

"While Launch is for websites, Fast Track is versatile, catering to diverse applications from traditional web properties to IoT applications. Our core product remains a CMS where content is paramount. The power of composable means delivering content anywhere - websites, mobile apps, even refrigerators. Fast Track allows users to explore these possibilities with Contentstack."