Using Bulk Import

AEM’s bulk import is a great way to move volumes of assets into AEM without the need for custom coding and is recommended for migrations and occasional bulk ingestions. Bulk import, available under tools, assets, bulk import lets you safely and efficiently import folders and assets from either Azure blob storage or Amazon S3 containers. Import configurations can be saved, making them great for both single or repeat use. For example, an import configuration could be used for a one-time bulk asset migration and another could be run repeatedly over time to periodically pull in new assets. Let’s create a bulk import to pull in assets from a back catalog of photo-shoots. First, we have to select which cloud storage provider we’ll import assets from, and provide the necessary coordinates and credentials. I’ve already uploaded some images to an Azure blob storage account organized by folder. So we have a root photo-shoot folder in the container and in that folder for a specific photo-shoot, and within that files is all sub folders and sub files.

So I’ll add the information from my Azure blob storage container, which has the photo-shoot files to import. The source folder that you specify the path in the cloud storage from which to import assets.

So let’s scope this to the containers photo-shoots folder.

Next, we can optionally filter assets in or out of the import by file size. This can be helpful in avoiding importing junk files generated by operating systems or devices that might have accidentally been copied to the cloud storage.

Similarly, MIME types can be used to include or exclude files to import. And again, this can be a useful way to help ensure we only import relevant files.

The import mode defines the behavior of how the import should handle importing assets. If something already exists in AEM in the same location allowing import to be run repeatedly without ill effect on existing assets. And lastly, we need to specify which folder in AEM the assets will be imported into.

Upon saving, the configuration displays in the list. Existing configurations can be edited which will pull up in the configuration form we just filled out or deleted completely. They can also be checked for validity which ensures the cloud storage credentials are valid and AEM is able to connect to the configured cloud storage. Perform a dry run, which provides a summary of what will be imported along with an estimate of how long will take. Note that we’re only importing a handful of assets to illustrate bulk import. But typically this capability is reserved for large bulk migrations or occasional bulk ingestions of assets.

And finally run, which executes the import process.

Once the import has been run, a new option of job status presents in the top bar, allowing you to see the details of the job. This tends to be most useful for checking on large imports or understanding if and why an import might’ve failed.

The view assets option opens up the configured assets target folder. So we can quickly navigate and review the important assets.

Note that the import process, not only ingests the files themselves, but also maintain the folder structure defined by a cloud storage keeping the import of assets tidy and organized.

Imported assets, of course are processed by AEM in the usual manner, applying any configured processing profiles and presets to them. -