Creating and Synchronizing Live Copies

You can create a Live Copy from a page or blueprint configuration to reuse that content across your site. Manage inheritance and synchronization, you can control how changes to the content are propagated.

Managing Blueprint Configurations

A blueprint configuration identifies an existing website that you want to use as the source for one or more Live Copy pages.

When you create a blueprint configuration, you select a template that defines the internal structure of the blueprint. The default blueprint template assumes that the source website has the following characteristics:

• The web site has a root page.
• The immediate child pages of the root are language branches of the web site. When creating a Live Copy, the languages are presented as optional content to include in the copy.
• The root of each language branch has one or more child pages. When creating a Live Copy, child pages are presented so that you can include in the Live Copy.

After you create the blueprint configuration, you configure the following properties:

• Name: The name of the blueprint configuration
• Source Path: The path of the root page of the site that you are using as the source (blueprint)
• Description. (Optional) A description of the blueprint configuration, which appears in the list of blueprint configurations to choose from when creating a site

When your blueprint configuration is used, you can associate it with a rollout configuration that determines how the Live Copies of the source/blueprint are synchronized. See Specifying the Rollout Configurations To Use.

Creating and Editing Blueprint Configurations

Blueprint configurations are considered immutable data and as such are not editable at runtime. For this reason, any configuration changes must be deployed via Git using the CI/CD pipeline.

More information can be found in the article Notable Changes to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as a Cloud Service.

The following steps are available to an administrator on a local development instance only for testing and development purposes. These options are not available in any AEMaaCS cloud instance.

Creating a Blueprint Configuration Locally

To create a blueprint configuration:

1. Navigate to the Tools menu, then select the Sites menu.

2. Select Blueprints to open the Blueprint Configurations console:

   

3. Select Create.

4. Select the blueprint template, then Next to continue.

5. Select the source page to be used as the blueprint; then Next to continue.

6. Define:

   • Title: mandatory title for the blueprint
   • Description: an optional description to provide more details.

7. Create will create the blueprint configuration based on your specification.

Editing or Deleting a Blueprint Configuration Locally

You can edit or delete an existing blueprint configuration:

1. Navigate to the Tools menu, then select the Sites menu.

2. Select Blueprints to open the Blueprint Configurations console:

   

3. Select the required blueprint configuration - the appropriate actions become available in the toolbar:

   • Properties; you can use this to view and then edit the properties of the configuration.
   • Delete

Creating a Live Copy

There are several ways to create a Live Copy.

Creating a Live Copy of a Page

You can create a Live Copy of any page or branch. When you create the Live Copy, you can specify the rollout configurations to use for synchronizing the content:

• The selected rollout configurations apply to the Live Copy page and its child pages.
• If you do not specify any rollout configurations, MSM determines which rollout configurations to use. See Specifying the Rollout Configuration To Use.

You can create a Live Copy of any page:

• Pages that are referenced by a blueprint configuration
• And pages that have no connection to a configuration
• Live Copy within the pages of another Live Copy (nested Live Copies)

The only difference is that availability of the Rollout command on the source/blueprint pages is dependent on whether source is referenced by a blueprint configuration:

• If you create the Live Copy from a source page that is referenced in a blueprint configuration, then the Rollout command is available on the source/blueprint page(s).
• If you create the Live Copy from a source page that is not referenced in a blueprint configuration, then the Rollout command will not be available on the source/blueprint page(s).

To create a Live Copy:

1. In the Sites console select Create, then Live Copy.

   

2. Select the source page then select Next. For example:

   

3. Specify the destination path of the Live Copy (open the parent folder/page of the Live Copy) and then select Next.

   

   NOTE

   The destination path cannot be within the source path.

4. Enter:

   • a Title for the page.
   • a Name, that is used in the URL.

   

5. Use the Exclude sub pages checkbox:

   • Selected: create a Live Copy of the selected page only (shallow Live Copy)
   • Not Selected: create a Live Copy that includes all descendants of the selected page (deep Live Copy)

6. (Optional) To specify one or more rollout configurations to use for the Live Copy, use the Rollout Configs drop-down list to select them. Selected configurations are shown underneath the drop-down selector.

7. Select Create. A confirmation message is shown, from here you can select either Open or Done.

   NOTE

   An error dialog may appear with the message “Fail to submit the form”. This happens due to a network timeout. However, the process to create the live copy is running in the background. Wait a few minutes and check the pages of the live copy were correctly created.

Creating a Live Copy of a Site from a Blueprint Configuration

Create a Live Copy using a blueprint configuration to create a site based on the blueprint (source) content. When you create a Live Copy from a blueprint configuration, you select one or more language branches of the blueprint source to copy, then you select the chapters to copy from the language branches. See Creating a Blueprint Configuration.

If you omit some language branches from the Live Copy, you can add them later. See Creating a Live Copy Inside a Live Copy (Blueprint Configuration) for details.

When you create the site, provide values for the following properties:

• Initial Languages: The language branches of the blueprint source to include in the Live Copy
• Initial Chapters: The child pages of the blueprint language branches to include in the Live Copy
• Destination Path: The location of the root page of the Live Copy site
• Title: The title of the root page of the Live Copy site
• Name: (Optional) The name of the JCR node that stores the root page of the Live Copy (the default value is based on the title)
• Site Owner: (Optional) Information about the party responsible for the Live Copy
• Live Copy: Select this option to establish a live relationship with the source site. If you do not select this option, a copy of the blueprint is created but is not subsequently synchronized with the source.
• Rollout Configs: (Optional) Select one or more rollout configurations to use for synchronizing the Live Copy. By default, the rollout configurations are inherited from the blueprint. See Specifying the Rollout Configurations to Use for more details.

To create a Live Copy of a site from a blueprint configuration:

1. In the Sites console, select Create, then Site from the drop-down selector.

2. Select the blueprint configuration to use as the source of the Live Copy and proceed with Next:

   

3. Use the Initial Languages selector to specify the languages of the blueprint site to use for the Live Copy.

   All available languages are selected by default. To remove a language, select the X that appears next to the language.

   For example:

   

4. Use the Initial Chapters drop-down to select the sections of the blueprint to include in the Live Copy. All available chapters are included by default, but can be removed.

5. Provide values for the remaining properties and then select Create. In the confirmation dialog box, select Done to return to the Sites console, or Open Site to open the root page of the site.

Creating a Live Copy Inside a Live Copy (Blueprint Configuration)

When you create a Live Copy inside the existing Live Copy (created using a blueprint configuration), you can insert any language copy or chapters that were not included when the Live Copy was originally created.

Monitoring your Live Copy

Seeing the Status of a Live Copy

The properties of a Live Copy page show the following information about the Live Copy:

• Source: The source page of the Live Copy page

• Status: The synchronization status of the Live Copy including whether the Live Copy is up to date with the source, when the last synchronization occurred, and who performed the synchronization

• Configuration:

  • Whether the page is still subject to Live Copy inheritance
  • Whether the configuration is inherited from the parent page
  • Any rollout configurations that the Live Copy uses

To view the properties:

1. In the Sites console, select the Live Copy page and open the properties.

2. Select the Live Copy tab.

   For example:

   

   See the section Using the Live Copy Overview in the article Live Copy Overview Console for more details.

Seeing the Live Copies of a Blueprint Page

Blueprint pages (that are referenced in a blueprint configuration) provide you with a list of the Live Copy pages that use the current (blueprint) page as the source. Use this list to keep track of the Live Copies. The list appears on the Blueprint tab of the page properties.

Synchronizing your Live Copy

There are several ways to synchronize your Live Copy.

Rolling Out a Blueprint

Roll out a blueprint page to push content changes to Live Copies. A Rollout action executes the rollout configurations that use the On Rollout trigger.

Rolling Out a Blueprint from Page Properties

1. In the Sites console, select the page in the blueprint and open the properties.

2. Open the Blueprint tab.

3. Select Rollout.

   

4. Specify the pages and any sub-pages, then confirm with the check mark:

   

5. Specify if the rollout job should be executed immediately (Now) or at another date/time (Later).

   

Rollouts are processed as asynchronous jobs and can be checked on the *Async Jobs Status page.

Roll Out a Blueprint from the Reference Rail

1. In the Sites console, select the page in the live copy and open the References panel (from the toolbar).

2. Select the Blueprint option from the list, to show the blueprints associated with this page.

3. Select the required blueprint from the list.

4. Select Rollout.

   

5. You are asked to confirm details of the rollout:

   • Rollout scope:

     Specify whether the scope is for the selected page alone, or should include subpages.

   • Schedule:

     Specify if the rollout job should be executed immediately (Now) or at a later date/time (Later).

     

6. After confirming these details, select Rollout to perform the action.

Rollouts are processed as asynchronous jobs and can be checked on the Async Jobs Status page.

Roll Out a Blueprint from the Live Copy Overview

The Rollout action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Blueprint page is selected.

1. Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Blueprint Page.

2. Select Rollout from the toolbar.

   

3. Specify the pages and any sub-pages, then confirm with the check mark:

   

4. Specify if the rollout job should be executed immediately (Now) or at another date/time (Later).

   

Rollouts are processed as asynchronous jobs and can be checked on the Async Jobs Status page.

Synchronizing a Live Copy

Synchronize a Live Copy page to pull content changes from the source to the Live Copy.

Synchronize a Live Copy from Page Properties

Synchronize a Live Copy to pull changes from the source to the Live Copy.

1. In the Sites console, select the Live Copy page and open the properties.

2. Open the Live Copy tab.

3. Select Synchronize.

   

   Confirmation is requested, use Sync to proceed.

Synchronize a Live Copy from the Live Copy Overview

The Synchronize action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.

1. Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Live Copy Page.

2. Select Synchronize from the toolbar.

3. Confirm the Rollout action in the dialog after specifying whether you want to include:

   • Page and Sub Pages
   • Page Only

   

Changing Live Copy Content

To change Live Copy content, you can:

• Add paragraphs to the page.
• Update existing content by breaking the Live Copy inheritance for any page or component.

Adding Components to a Live Copy Page

You can add components to a Live Copy page at any time. The inheritance status of the Live Copy and its paragraph system does not control your ability to add components.

When the Live Copy page is synchronized with the source page, the added components remain unchanged. See also Changing the Order of Components on a Live Copy Page.

Suspending Inheritance for a Page

When you create a Live Copy, the Live Copy configuration is saved on the root page of the copied pages. All child pages of the root page inherit the Live Copy configurations. The components on the Live Copy pages also inherit the Live Copy configuration.

You can suspend the Live Copy inheritance for a Live Copy page so that you can change page properties and components. When you suspend inheritance, the page properties and components are no longer synchronized with the source.

Suspending Inheritance from Page Properties

To suspend inheritance on a page:

1. Open the properties of the Live Copy page either using the View Properties command of the Sites console or using Page Information on the page toolbar.

2. Select the Live Copy tab.

3. Select Suspend from the toolbar. You can then select either:

   • Suspend: to suspend current page only.
   • Suspend with children: to suspend the current page together with any child pages.

4. Select Suspend on the confirmation dialog.

Suspending Inheritance from the Live Copy Overview

The Suspend action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.

1. Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Live Copy Page.

2. Select Suspend from the toolbar.

3. Select the appropriate option from:

   • Suspend
   • Suspend with children

   

4. Confirm the Suspend action in the Suspend Live Copy dialog:

   

Resuming Inheritance for a Page

Suspending Live Copy inheritance for a page is a temporary action. Once suspended the Resume action becomes available, allowing you to reinstate the live relationship.

When you re-enable inheritance, the page is not automatically synchronized with the source. You can request a synchronization, if this is required, either:

• In the Resume/Revert dialog; for example:

  

• At a later stage, by manually selecting the synchronize action.

Resuming Inheritance from Page Properties

Once suspended the Resume action becomes in the toolbar of the page properties:

When selected, the dialog box is shown. You can select a synchronization, if necessary, then confirm the action.

Resume a Live Copy Page from the Live Copy Overview

The Resume action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.

1. Open the Live Copy Overview and select a suspended Live Copy Page. The page is shown as INHERITANCE CANCELLED.
2. Select Resume from the toolbar.
3. Indicate whether you want to synchronize the page after reverting inheritance, then confirm the Resume action in the Resume Live Copy dialog.

Changing Inheritance Depth (Shallow/Deep)

On an existing Live Copy you can change the depth for a page, that is, whether child pages are included.

• Switching to a shallow Live Copy:

  • Will have immediate effect and is non-reversible.

  • Detaches child pages explicitly from the Live Copy. Further modifications on children cannot be preserved if undone.

  • Will remove any descendant LiveRelationships even if there are nested LiveCopies.

• Switching to a deep Live Copy:

  • Leaves child-pages untouched.
  • To see the effect of the switch, you can make a roll-out, any content modifications are applied according the roll-out configuration.

• Switching to a shallow Live Copy, then back to deep:

  • Treats all children of the (formerly) shallow Live Copy as if they had been created manually and are therefore moved away using [oldname]_msm_moved name.

To specify or change the depth:

1. Open the properties of the Live Copy page either using the View Properties command of the Sites console or using Page Information on the page toolbar.

2. Select the Live Copy tab.

3. In the Configuration section, set or clear the Live Copy Inheritance option depending on whether child pages are included:

   • Checked - a deep Live Copy (the child pages are included)
   • Unchecked - a shallow Live Copy (child pages are excluded)
   CAUTION

   Switching to a shallow Live Copy will have immediate effect and is non-reversible.

   See Live Copies - Composition for more information.

4. Select Save to persist your updates.

Cancelling Inheritance for a Component

Cancel the Live Copy inheritance for a component so that the component is no longer synchronized with the source component. You can enable inheritance at a later point if necessary.

Cancel inheritance to change the component content or delete the component:

1. Select the component for which you want to cancel inheritance.

   

2. On the component toolbar, select the Cancel Inheritance icon.

   

3. In the Cancel Inheritance dialog box, confirm the action with Yes.

   The component toolbar is updated to include all (appropriate) editing commands.

Re-Enabling Inheritance for a Component

To enable inheritance for a component, select the Re-enable Inheritance icon on the component toolbar.

Changing the Order of Components on a Live Copy Page

If a Live Copy contains components that are part of a paragraph system, the inheritance of that paragraph system observes the following rules:

• The order of components in an inherited paragraph system can be modified, even with inheritance established.
• On rollout, the order of the components are restored from the blueprint. If new components were added to the Live Copy before rollout, they are reordered along with the components above which they were added.
• If inheritance of the paragraph system is cancelled, the order of components will not be restored on rollout and will remain as-is in the Live Copy.

Use the following procedure to cancel inheritance of the paragraph system.

1. Open the Live Copy page.
2. Drag an existing component to a new location on the page.
3. In the Cancel Inheritance dialog box, confirm the action with Yes.

Overriding Properties of a Live Copy Page

The page properties of a Live Copy page are inherited from the source page by default and are not editable.

You can cancel inheritance for a property when you need to change the property value for the Live Copy. A link icon indicates that inheritance is enabled for the property.

When you cancel inheritance, you can change the property value. A broken-link icon indicates that inheritance is cancelled.

You can later re-enable inheritance for a property if necessary.

1. Open the properties of the Live Copy page using either the View Properties option of the Sites console or Page Information icon on the page toolbar.

2. To cancel inheritance of a property, select the link icon that appears to the right of the property.

   

3. In the Cancel Inheritance confirmation dialog, select Yes.

Revert Properties of a Live Copy Page

To enable inheritance for a property, select the Revert Inheritance icon that appears next to the property.

Resetting a Live Copy Page

You can reset a Live Copy page to do the following:

• Remove all inheritance cancellations and
• Return the page to the same state as the source page.

Resetting affects changes that you have made to page properties, the paragraph system, and components.

Reset a Live Copy Page from the Page Properties

1. In the Sites console, select the Live Copy page and select View Properties.

2. Open the Live Copy tab.

3. Select Reset from the toolbar.

   

4. In the Reset Live Copy dialog box, confirm with Reset.

Reset a Live Copy Page from the Live Copy Overview

The Reset action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.

1. Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Live Copy Page.

2. Select Reset from the toolbar.

3. Confirm the Reset action in the Reset Live Copy dialog:

   

Comparing a Live Copy Page with a Blueprint Page

To track the changes you have made, you can view the blueprint page in References and compare it with its Live Copy page:

1. In the Sites console, navigate to a blueprint or Live Copy page and select it.

2. Open the References panel and depending on context select either:

   • Blueprint
   • Live Copies

3. Select your specific Live Copy depending on context select either:

   • Compare to Blueprint
   • Compare to Live Copy

   For example:

   

4. The Live Copy and blueprint pages are opened side-by-side.

   For full information about using the comparison feature see Page Diff.

Detaching a Live Copy

The detach action permanently removes the live relationship between a Live Copy and its source/blueprint page. All MSM-relevant properties are removed from the Live Copy and the Live Copy pages become a standalone copy.

There are implications on where within the tree that you use Detach:

• Detach on a Root Page of a Live Copy

  When this operation is performed on the root page of a Live Copy it removes the live relationship between all pages of the blueprint and its Live Copy.

  Further changes to pages in the blueprint will not impact the Live Copy.

• Detach on a Sub-Page of a Live Copy

  When this operation is performed on a sub-page (or branch) within a Live Copy:

  • The live relationship is removed for that sub-page (or branch) and
  • The (sub-)pages in the Live Copy branch are treated as if they had been manually created.

  However, the sub-pages are still subject to the live relationship of the parent branch so a further rollout of the blueprint page(s) will both:

  1. Rename the detached page(s):

     • This is because MSM considers them as manually created pages that cause a conflict as they have the same name as the Live Copy pages it is trying to create.

  2. Create a new Live Copy page with the original name, containing the changes from the rollout.

  NOTE

  See MSM Rollout Conflicts for details of such situations.

Detach a Live Copy Page from the Page Properties

To detach a Live Copy:

1. In the Sites console, select the Live Copy page and select View Properties.

2. Open the Live Copy tab.

3. On the toolbar, select Detach.

   

4. A confirmation dialo box is shown, select Detach to complete the action.

Detach a Live Copy Page from the Live Copy Overview

The Detach action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.

1. Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Live Copy Page.

2. Select Detach from the toolbar.

3. Confirm the Detach action in the Detach Live Copy dialog: