An item with the same key has already been added Sitecore EXM

If you are using Sitecore EXM campaign on Form submit button, then you may be facing below issue on UI screen as 

Send Email Failed...

and if you will see Sitecore EXM log will get that error information as

Message: an item with the same key has already been added.


To overcome with this issue, would suggest to go back on the Form Builder and ensure that all form Fields name are unique, and if not then please update will started working.

Hope above tips will help to resolve this issue.

The date range is invalid. Please select a date range that is within the range of the list Sitecore Forms

 From last few days working on Sitecore forms and come up with common issue while development.
And to save developers time sharing fixes/work around as much I can:


You may be getting error as 

The date range is invalid. Please select a date range that is within the range of the list.

while trying to generate Sitecore form report, even you have selected right date range or as complete list.


The reason here is because Form must have at least one record, if Fresh form has been created and without any records generating report then will get this issue.


Hope this minor check will help you.

You cannot have a sparse serialized tree. You may need to serialize this item's parents: Unicorn Sitecore Issue

If you are using unicorn with your Sitecore solution, and trying to install any module or any sitecore package. Then there may be some chances to get below error as 

"You cannot have a sparse serialized tree. You may need to serialize this item's parents"

If yes, then just disable configuration file as Unicorn.DataProvider.config which you can get inside App_Config directory.


now install module/package. And once installation done please must follow below best practices

1. once installation done, enable Unicorn.DataProvider.config again

2. If using unicorn for Sitecore item sync, then avoid to install sitecore packages.




Please comment, if issue still persist.

Avoid IISRESET command, restart only relevant APP with SINGLE command

Hope you all doing great, 

I believe we all are using IISRESET after local/staging environment publish activity which earlier mentioned that to avoid IISRESET but I was also not following.

Major concern not to use IISRESET because it restart all the hosted applications on IIS, which should not happen.

Think about a scenario where 5 teams are using same development environment for different application.

To know more in deep - why to Avoid IISRESET?

In this article come up with the solution with single line command to avoid IISRESET. Hope this will save time to everyone.

First i will suggest to make below path globally accessible and this is one time activity

right click on This PC and select properties

From the left side click on Advanced System Settings

Click on Environment Variables and then from System variables section select Path as below 

then click on New and add below path

C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv 

now press OK OK OK

Now let's run one line command as mentioned steps, Please follow

• press win + R
• now paste below command (replace YourSitecoreName with your application name)

"C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe" /c appcmd.exe  stop site /site.name:"YourSiteName" && appcmd.exe  start site /site.name:"YourSiteName"

• Now press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER (used to run command as admin)

once it works successfully, in future just run command as above steps only with single line command.

Hope this will and help and save time.

Please comment, if find any better approach.