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.
A blueprint configuration identifies an existing website that you want to use as the source for one or more Live Copy pages.
Blueprint configurations enable you to push content changes to Live Copies. See Live Copies - Source, Blueprints and Blueprint Configurations.
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:
A different structure requires a different blueprint template.
After you create the blueprint configuration, you configure the following properties:
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.
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.
To create a blueprint configuration:
Navigate to the Tools menu, then select the Sites menu.
Select Blueprints to open the Blueprint Configurations console:
Select Create.
Select the blueprint template, then Next to continue.
Select the source page to be used as the blueprint; then Next to continue.
Define:
Create will create the blueprint configuration based on your specification.
You can edit or delete an existing blueprint configuration:
Navigate to the Tools menu, then select the Sites menu.
Select Blueprints to open the Blueprint Configurations console:
Select the required blueprint configuration - the appropriate actions become available in the toolbar:
There are several ways to create a Live Copy.
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:
You can create a Live Copy of any page:
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:
To create a Live Copy:
In the Sites console select Create, then Live Copy.
Select the source page then select Next. For example:
Specify the destination path of the Live Copy (open the parent folder/page of the Live Copy) and then select Next.
The destination path cannot be within the source path.
Enter:
Use the Exclude sub pages checkbox:
(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.
Select Create. A confirmation message is shown, from here you can select either Open or Done.
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.
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 the blueprint source contains links and references that target a paragraph in a different branch, the targets are not updated in the Live Copy pages, but remain pointed to the original destination.
When you create the site, provide values for the following properties:
To create a Live Copy of a site from a blueprint configuration:
In the Sites console, select Create, then Site from the drop-down selector.
Select the blueprint configuration to use as the source of the Live Copy and proceed with Next:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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:
To view the properties:
In the Sites console, select the Live Copy page and open the properties.
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.
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.
There are several ways to synchronize your Live Copy.
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.
Conflicts can occur if new pages with the same page name are created in both the blueprint branch and a dependent Live Copy branch.
Such conflicts need to be handled and resolved upon rollout.
In the Sites console, select the page in the blueprint and open the properties.
Open the Blueprint tab.
Select Rollout.
Specify the pages and any sub-pages, then confirm with the check mark:
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.
In the Sites console, select the page in the live copy and open the References panel (from the toolbar).
Select the Blueprint option from the list, to show the blueprints associated with this page.
Select the required blueprint from the list.
Select Rollout.
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).
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.
The Rollout action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Blueprint page is selected.
Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Blueprint Page.
Select Rollout from the toolbar.
Specify the pages and any sub-pages, then confirm with the check mark:
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.
Synchronize a Live Copy page to pull content changes from the source to the Live Copy.
Synchronize a Live Copy to pull changes from the source to the Live Copy.
Synchronizing executes the rollout configurations that use the On Rollout trigger.
In the Sites console, select the Live Copy page and open the properties.
Open the Live Copy tab.
Select Synchronize.
Confirmation is requested, use Sync to proceed.
The Synchronize action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.
Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Live Copy Page.
Select Synchronize from the toolbar.
Confirm the Rollout action in the dialog after specifying whether you want to include:
To change Live Copy content, you can:
If you manually create a page in the Live Copy, the new page is local to the Live Copy, meaning it does not have a corresponding source page to which it is attached.
As a best practice so you can create a local page that is part of the relationship is to create the local page in the source and perform a deep rollout. This will create the page locally as Live Copies.
Conflicts can occur if new pages with the same page name are created in both the blueprint branch and a dependent Live Copy branch.
Such conflicts need to be handled and resolved upon rollout.
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.
Changes made locally to a component marked as a container will not be overwritten by the content of the blueprint on a rollout. See MSM Best Practices for more information.
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.
You can also detach a Live Copy from its blueprint to remove all connections. Unlike suspending inheritance, the detach action is permanent and non-reversible.
To suspend inheritance on a page:
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.
Select the Live Copy tab.
Select Suspend from the toolbar. You can then select either:
Select Suspend on the confirmation dialog.
The Suspend action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.
Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Live Copy Page.
Select Suspend from the toolbar.
Select the appropriate option from:
Confirm the Suspend action in the Suspend Live Copy dialog:
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.
When you re-enable inheritance, the page is not automatically synchronized with the source. If this is required, you can manually request a synchronization either at the time of resuming or later.
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.
The Resume action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.
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:
Switching to a shallow Live Copy, then back to deep:
[oldname]_msm_moved name
.To specify or change the depth:
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.
Select the Live Copy tab.
In the Configuration section, set or clear the Live Copy Inheritance option depending on whether child pages are included:
Switching to a shallow Live Copy will have immediate effect and is non-reversible.
See Live Copies - Composition for more information.
Select Save to persist your updates.
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.
When you re-enable inheritance, the component is not automatically synchronized with the source. You can manually request a synchronization if this is required.
Cancel inheritance to change the component content or delete the component:
Select the component for which you want to cancel inheritance.
On the component toolbar, select the Cancel Inheritance icon.
In the Cancel Inheritance dialog box, confirm the action with Yes.
The component toolbar is updated to include all (appropriate) editing commands.
To enable inheritance for a component, select the Re-enable Inheritance icon on the component toolbar.
If a Live Copy contains components that are part of a paragraph system, the inheritance of that paragraph system observes the following rules:
When reverting a cancelled inheritance on a paragraph system, the order of components will not be automatically restored from the blueprint. You can manually request a synchronization if this is required.
Use the following procedure to cancel inheritance of the paragraph system.
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.
When you re-enable inheritance, the Live Copy page property is not automatically synchronized with the source property. You can manually request a synchronization if this is required.
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.
To cancel inheritance of a property, select the link icon that appears to the right of the property.
In the Cancel Inheritance confirmation dialog, select Yes.
To enable inheritance for a property, select the Revert Inheritance icon that appears next to the property.
You can reset a Live Copy page to do the following:
Resetting affects changes that you have made to page properties, the paragraph system, and components.
In the Sites console, select the Live Copy page and select View Properties.
Open the Live Copy tab.
Select Reset from the toolbar.
In the Reset Live Copy dialog box, confirm with Reset.
The Reset action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.
Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Live Copy Page.
Select Reset from the toolbar.
Confirm the Reset action in the Reset Live Copy dialog:
To track the changes you have made, you can view the blueprint page in References and compare it with its Live Copy page:
In the Sites console, navigate to a blueprint or Live Copy page and select it.
Open the References panel and depending on context select either:
Select your specific Live Copy depending on context select either:
For example:
The Live Copy and blueprint pages are opened side-by-side.
For full information about using the comparison feature see Page Diff.
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.
You cannot reinstate the live relationship after you detach the Live Copy.
To remove the live relationship with the option of later reinstating it, you can cancel Live Copy inheritance for the page.
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:
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:
Rename the detached page(s):
Create a new Live Copy page with the original name, containing the changes from the rollout.
See MSM Rollout Conflicts for details of such situations.
To detach a Live Copy:
In the Sites console, select the Live Copy page and select View Properties.
Open the Live Copy tab.
On the toolbar, select Detach.
A confirmation dialo box is shown, select Detach to complete the action.
The Detach action is also available from the Live Copy Overview, when a Live Copy page is selected.
Open the Live Copy Overview and select a Live Copy Page.
Select Detach from the toolbar.
Confirm the Detach action in the Detach Live Copy dialog: