Using Connected Assets with AEM Assets using-connected-assets-with-aem-assets

The Connected Assets feature allows an AEM Sites author to seamlessly share digital assets hosted on a different instance of AEM.

Transcript
Let’s take a look at the Connected Assets feature in Adobe - Experience Manager. The connected assets feature allows an experience manager, - or AEM, sites author, to seamlessly access digital assets hosted on a different - instance of AEM. The connected assets - feature is ideal for a very large organization. Let’s look at a simple use case. In this scenario our company has a central corporate DAM dedicated to asset management. There’s a creative team - that uses this instance to create, collaborate, and manage a number of digital - files like images, videos, and documents. These creative files - are then distributed downstream throughout - the organization. We also have a website built with experienced manager sites. Since this is such a - large organization, the website is hosted - on separate instance of AEM and has a separate - team to manage it’s content. A sites administrator - can enable the connected assets feature to point - the sites instance to the dedicated assets instance. This gives the sites - team seamless access to those creative files - managed upstream. The sites team can - then search, browse, and add these creative - files to the website without ever leaving the sites UI. So let’s take a look at - this feature in action.
So we have two instances - of AEM running. The first running on port 4502 is a dedicated sites instance, and the second instance running on port 4504 is our - dedicated assets instance. So I’m gonna log into our - assets instance as Olive, who is our graphic designer - on the creative team.
So we’ll log into the AEM and then we’re gonna navigate - to assets, files, and then we’ve got a demo folder. And the next thing we’re gonna do is upload a new file - to our assets instance. And I’ve just got a file, - an image of traffic lights on the desktop, and we’ll just drag that over into assets instance - and have that upload. And then if we refresh, - it’s processed the image.
So we’ve got several - images managed here, and they might be - used for any number of downstream channels. So now I’m gonna log out - of our assets instance and I’m gonna log into - the sites instance, but as a member of the - sites team, Carly.
So we’ll log into - the sites instance, and we’ll navigate to sites and we’re just gonna - open up a demo page in the WeRetail site. So we’ll just open - up this demo page and what we’d like to - do is add an image to this page. And we want it to be something like the traffic lights photo. So we’ll search this - current sites instance, for traffic or lights, but you’ll notice that - we don’t get any results. Now if the connected - assets feature is enabled, you’ll see this cloud icon. And that allows our sites author to log in to the - connected assets instance. And in this case the - connected assets instance is the one we showed earlier - running on port 4504. So I’m gonna log in as Carly . And it’s important - when setting this up, that members of the sites team are given at least read access to the assets instance. So I’ll go ahead and log in.
And now we can actually - see all the images and assets that are - coming from that instance. So you’ll notice that we do have that traffic lights image, which we had just uploaded. And now it’s available to - be added to our webpage. Once an image from the remote DAM has been added to - the sites webpage, you can interact with - it, move it around. Just like you would with any - standard image component. Now if we were to publish this page to our live website, you’ll notice that the - newly added image from the remote DAM is - included in the selection of assets that will - be published along with the page.
So all the functionality - and features of sites authoring and publishing remain the same. The only difference - is that the asset originated from the remote DAM.
After an image from the remote DAM has been added to a sites page, a local copy of that - image is cached on the sites instance. So if we view the current assets on this instance, we can see our remote assets folder and we can see the - traffic lights image. This is a read only - copy of the image, and allows sites author - to view which images from the remote DAM - have been synced, but they cannot make - any changes to them.
And if we click into our - traffic lights image, we’re able to view the properties. We can see which pages - are referencing this image and using them. We can see any of the metadata. Again, we’re not able - to make any changes to this image.
Let’s take look at how the remote DAM feature is configured. I’m going to sign into - our sites instance as an administrator. So I’ll navigate to tools, assets, and then there’s a card for connected assets configuration. And this brings up a simple wizard that allows you to - point the sites instance to the connected assets instance.
In addition to the wizard, there are also a few workflow - launcher configurations that need to be updated. You can find these under tools, workflow, launchers. And these configurations, which are outlined fully - in the documentation, ensure that none of the - asset processing workflows are run against images - originating from the remote DAM. Lastly on the AEM assets instance, a cross origin resource - sharing or CORS configuration must be set up. This configuration - also outlined in full on the documentation ensures that the sites instance - can use the assets instance as a remote DAM.
So that’s a quick overview - of the connected assets feature in Adobe - Experience Manager. Thanks. -
  • 00:00 — High Level Architecture
  • 02:52 — Authenticating to the Connected Assets
  • 03:30 — Using an image from the Connected Assets
  • 04:42 — Administrator configurations to enable Connected Assets feature

Please review the supported deployments for Connected Assets to understand if your AEM deployment can support Connected Assets.

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