Sync assets using AEM

Showpad's Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) integration allows marketers to instantly distribute content to their sales teams while keeping AEM as their single source of truth for managing content. Content is automatically synchronised with Showpad, optimized for web and mobile use, and tracked to see what's used—or not.

By syncing content, you can rest assured that all content in Showpad is the most current and up-to-date without needing to manually update single assets at a time.

The AEM connector from Showpad supports a wide range of configuration options to match your AEM architecture both on-premises and cloud. The connector allows the synchronization of content from both the AEM Author and Publisher tier and can be configured as push only, pull only or push and pull for full asset reconciliation.

Key features

• Streamline your asset management in Showpad
• Use AEM as your single source of truth
• Map AEM asset metadata to Showpad properties
• Continue to upload assets directly to the Content Library as needed

You need this to succeed

Note: Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager to gain access to the AEM connector package.

Do this step by step

Work with your local Showpad team to plan the appropriate synchronization approach and obtain the relevant version of the AEM plug-in. Once the plug-in has been added to your AEM environment the integration can be configured by following the steps below.

Install Adobe Experience Manager Showpad App

You can install the Adobe Experience Manager app from the Admin App.

1. Click the gear icon to open Admin Settings. 
2. In the Showpad Apps section, select Manage Apps.
3. Click Install App.
4. Select the Adobe Experience Manager app to install from the Available Apps menu. Make sure the Automatically install the new version when the available checkbox is enabled.
5. Click Install.
6. Once the app is installed, you'll need to authorize the integration.

Authorize Integration

The first time you open the Showpad Adobe Experience Manager app, you'll be asked to authorize the integration to allow access to the relevant APIs. To complete this process click the Authorize button.

Configure the Integration

To start, connect to the Adobe Experience Manager.

1. In the Admin App, click the gear icon.
2. In the Showpad Apps section, select Adobe Experience Manager.
3. Click the Add New Connection button.
4. Select the Showpad Division and click the Connect to Adobe Experience Manager button. This ensures that your connection knows which Division to sync assets to. If you don't have multiple Divisions, the dropdown list is not displayed.
5. Select your approach to synchronizing the assets between AEM and Showpad. The form layout will change based on the selection you make.
   • Push and Pull (recommended): Receive near real-time push updates from AEM about assets and metadata with guaranteed consistency through regular pull reconciliations.
   • Push Only: Receive near real-time asset and metadata updates pushed from AEM to Showpad.
   • Pull Only: Showpad will regularly check for asset and metadata updates in Adobe Experience Manager on a timed schedule.
6. To configure a push and pull synchronization:
   
   • Paste the Push API key from Showpad into the Adobe Experience Manager configuration
   • Enter the Adobe Experience Manager host name where the Showpad AEM plugin is installed
   • Enter the Adobe Experience Manager Tenant Id where the Showpad AEM plugin is installed.
   • Paste the Client ID to configure the pull synchronization in Adobe Experience Manager.
7. To configure a push synchronization:
   
   • Paste the API key from Showpad in the Adobe Experience Manager configuration.
   • Enter the Adobe Experience Manager Tenant Id where the Showpad AEM plugin is installed.
8. To configure a pull synchronization:
   
   • Enter the Adobe Experience Manager host name where the Showpad Adobe Experience Manager plugin is installed.
   • Copy the Client ID to configure the pull synchronization and paste into Adobe Experience Manager.
   • Copy the Public key to configure the pull synchronization and paste into Adobe Experience Manager.
9. Match the configuration of the Asset flow approach selected in Showpad within your AEM environment. The configuration panel can be found in AEM > Tools > Showpad. 
10. Click on Configurations.

11. Select the radio buttons for the appropriate flows either push, pull or both and paste in the appropriate details presented in the previous step in the Showpad platform.

     

Select Assets

In this step you will specify which AEM assets should be synchronized from AEM to Showpad.

The flexible nature of the Showpad AEM integration means that any available existing AEM asset metadata can be used as a synchronization filter.
To utilize the ‘Out of the Box’ integration field ‘Sync to Showpad’ found on the AEM asset properties pane on the Showpad Tab paste fields.jcr:content/metadata/dc:showpadAsset into the Key field and true into the Value field.

In addition, if you are only syncing specific folders from AEM to Showpad configure the paths as an Asset filter by adding fields.configPath to the the Key field and the path to your folder in the Value field e.g /content/dam/folderName

Additional synchronization criteria can be added to the configuration by adding filters with the appropriate Key Value pairs. Only assets meeting all filter criteria will be synced to Showpad.

Optionally, the Exclusions section allows you to define specific file types and tags to exclude.
Ignored File Types - This is a list of file types that will never be synced (even if Showpad supports them). From the dropdown list, select the types of files you don't want to sync.

Ignored Tags - This is a list of tags that will never be synced (even if they exist in Showpad). Enter the tags that should not be created or assigned.

Click the Next button.

Map Attributes

Attribute mapping determines which metadata fields from AEM are mapped to which Showpad Asset properties.

The Name field is the only mandatory attribute that has to be mapped. Optionally you can map all of the standard Showpad properties directly from AEM asset metadata - see the Property Reference Table below that details the AEM field values for the standard Showpad properties.

It’s important to note that properties specified in the mapping are controlled from the Source (AEM) and should not be modified in Showpad. This means that every time an asset gets synced, its value in Showpad will be recalculated and overwritten by AEM. Any changes made to a property within Showpad will be lost. If you want to maintain control of a certain property within the Showpad Library, do not map it in the integration configuration.

When you’ve completed the mapping, click the Next button. 

Confirm Configuration

The last step lets you review your configuration and specify the sync frequency.

Checking the Enabled option to immediately enable the sync on saving. If you leave this unselected, the sync will be saved in a disabled state, ready to be enabled at a later point in time.

Click the Save connection button.

Once saved, an overview of the configuration is displayed.

Icons are available for you to perform the following actions:

• Enabled - You can enable or disable the sync by toggling the switch.
• Refresh - You can trigger an immediate resync of all assets. This action does not impact the configured frequency schedule.
• Duplicate - You can create a new connection for a different Division or reuse the connection with different settings.
• Edit - You can edit the configuration settings.
• Delete - You can delete the connection.

You can access your configuration settings at any time via the dashboard. Please refer to the Dashboard section for more information.

Designate Showpad permissions at the asset level

Within the Showpad tab in AEM, you will have the option to apply certain properties on the asset-level.

With an AEM asset open, click Properties and select the Showpad tab.

You can now select Showpad-specific properties in the Showpad Permissions column, which can be synced with your assets. Note: Tags will only be synced if they are added to an asset.

Click Save & Close once you're done.

Dashboard

The AEM dashboard will give you an overview of actions happening with your assets.
At first glance, the Metrics tab shows stats about the total number of files currently synced from AEM, the last successful sync, and the last failed sync.
The chart below demonstrates how many assets were created, updated, and deleted by the sync in a given timeframe. Change the date ranges to compare data and group by month, week, day, or hour.

In the Events tab, you’ll find an overview of assets synced to AEM with more granular details related to the sync, such as status, operation, timestamps, external ID, and failure reason. You can search for a specific asset, filter by date range, or sort the results as needed. You can also search for failed events with a particular reason for failure. Please check the dropdown menu to see all possible failure scenarios that could occur within your integration.

Property reference table

Here is a list of Out of the Box AEM integration fields and their values for Attribute Mapping: