Experience Manager/Dynamic Media Classic integration versus Dynamic Media

Experience Manager users have a choice between two solutions to work with Dynamic Media. You can use one of the following:

  • Integrate your instance of Experience Manager with Dynamic Media Classic.
  • Use Dynamic Media that is integrated into Experience Manager.

Use the following criteria to determine which solution to choose:

  • Are you an existing Dynamic Media Classic customer whose assets reside in Dynamic Media Classic for publishing and delivery, but you want to integrate those assets with Sites (WCM) authoring, or Experience Manager Assets, or both? If so, use the Experience Manager/Dynamic Media Classic point-to-point integration described in this document.

  • If you are a new Experience Manager customer who has rich media delivery needs, select the Dynamic Media option. This option makes the most sense if you do not have an existing S7 account and many assets stored in that system.

  • In certain cases, use both solutions. The dual-use scenario describes that scenario.

Experience Manager/Dynamic Media Classic point-to-point integration

When you work with assets in this solution, you do one of the following:

  • Upload assets directly to Dynamic Media Classic and then access by way of the Dynamic Media Classic content browser for page authoring or
  • Upload to Experience Manager Assets and then enable automatic publishing to Dynamic Media Classic; you access via Assets content browser for page authoring

The components you use for this integration are found in the Dynamic Media Classic component area in Design mode.

Experience Manager Dynamic Media

Experience Manager Dynamic Media is the unification of Dynamic Media Classic features directly within the Experience Manager platform.

When you work with assets in this solution, you follow this workflow:

  1. Upload single image and video assets directly to Experience Manager.
  2. Encode videos directly within Experience Manager.
  3. Build image-based sets directly within Experience Manager.
  4. If applicable, add interactivity to images or videos.

The components you use for Dynamic Media are found in the Dynamic Media component area in Design mode. They include the following:

  • Dynamic Media - The Dynamic Media component is smart - depending on whether you add an image or a video, you have various options. The component supports image presets, image-based viewers such as image sets, spin sets, mixed media sets, and video. In addition, the viewer is responsive - the size of the screen changes automatically based on-screen size. All viewers are HTML5 viewers.

  • Interactive Media - The Interactive Media component is for assets such as carousel banners, interactive images, and interactive video. Such assets have interactivity in them such hotspots or image maps. This component is smart. That is, depending on whether you add an image or a video, you have various options. In addition, the viewer is responsive - the size of the screen changes automatically based on-screen size. All viewers are HTML5 viewers.

Dual-Use Scenario

Out of the box, you can use both Dynamic Media and Dynamic Media Classic integration features of Experience Manager simultaneously. The following use cases table describes when you turn certain areas on and off.

To use Dynamic Media and Dynamic Media Classic simultaneously:

  1. Configure Dynamic Media Classic in Cloud Services.

  2. Follow the specific instructions particular to your use case:

    Dynamic Media
    Dynamic Media Classic Integration
    If you are ...
    Use Case Workflow
    Imaging/Video
    Dynamic Media Component
    S7 Content Browser and Components
    Automatic Upload from Assets to S7
    New to Sites and Dynamic Media
    Upload assets to Experience Manager and use Experience Manager Dynamic Media component to author assets on Sites pages

    On

    (See step 3)

    Off
    Off
    In retail, and new to Sites and Dynamic Media
    Upload NON-product assets to Experience Manager for management and delivery. Upload PRODUCT assets to Dynamic Media Classic and use Dynamic Media Classic content browser in Experience Manager and component to author Product Detail Pages on Sites.

    On

    (See step 3)

    Off
    New to Assets and Dynamic Media
    Upload assets to Experience Manager Assets and use published URL/embed code from Dynamic Media

    On

    (See step 3)

    Off
    Off
    Off
    New to Dynamic Media and Templating
    Use Dynamic Media for imaging and video. Author image templates in Dynamic Media Classic and use Dynamic Media Classic content finder to include templates in Sites pages.

    On

    (See step 3)

    Off
    An existing Dynamic Media Classic customer and are new to Sites
    Upload assets to Dynamic Media Classic and use Experience Manager Dynamic Media Classic content browser to search and author assets on Sites pages
    Off
    Off
    Off
    An existing Dynamic Media Classic customer and are new to Sites and Assets
    Upload assets to DAM and automatically publish to Dynamic Media Classic for delivery. Use Experience Manager Dynamic Media Classic content browser to search and author assets on Sites pages.
    Off
    Off

    On

    (See step 4)

    Existing Dynamic Media Classic customer and new to Assets

    Upload assets to Experience Manager and use Dynamic Media to generate renditions for download/share. Automatically publish Experience Manager assets to Dynamic Media Classic for delivery.

    Important: Incurs duplicate processing and renditions generated in Experience Manager are not synchronized to Dynamic Media Classic

    On

    (See step 3)

    Off
    Off

    On

    (See step 4)

  3. (Optional; see use case table) - Set up the Dynamic Media cloud configuration and enable the Dynamic Media server.

  4. (Optional; see use case table) - If you choose to enable Automatic Upload from Assets to Dynamic Media Classic, then you must add the following:

    1. Set up automatic upload to Dynamic Media Classic.
    2. Add the Dynamic Media Classic upload step after all the Dynamic Media workflow steps at the end of Dam Update Asset workflow ( https://<server>:<host>/cf#/etc/workflow/models/dam/update_asset.html)
    3. (Optional) Restrict Dynamic Media Classic asset upload by MIME type in https://<server>:<port>/system/console/configMgr/com.day.cq.dam.scene7.impl.Scene7AssetMimeTypeServiceImpl. Asset MIME types not in this list are not uploaded to Dynamic Media Classic server.
    4. (Optional) Set up video in Dynamic Media Classic configuration. You can enable video encoding for either or both Dynamic Media and Dynamic Media Classic simultaneously. Dynamic renditions are used for preview and playback locally in Experience Manager instance, whereas Dynamic Media Classic video renditions are generated and stored on Dynamic Media Classic servers. When setting up video encoding services for both Dynamic Media and Dynamic Media Classic, apply a video processing profile to the Dynamic Media Classic asset folder.
    5. (Optional) Configure Secure preview in Dynamic Media Classic.

Limitations

When you have both Dynamic Media Classic and Dynamic Media enabled, there are the following limitations:

  • Manually uploading to Dynamic Media Classic by selecting an asset and dragging it to a Dynamic Media Classic component on an Experience Manager page does not work.
  • Even though Experience Manager-Dynamic Media Classic synced assets are updated to Dynamic Media Classic automatically when the asset is edited in Assets, a rollback action does not trigger a new upload. As such, Dynamic Media Classic does not get the latest version immediately after a rollback. The workaround is to edit again after rollback is complete.
  • Is it necessary for you to use Dynamic Media for one use case and Dynamic Media Classic integration for another so that Dynamic Media assets do not interact with the Dynamic Media Classic system? If so, then do not to apply the Dynamic Media Classic configuration to the Dynamic Media folder. And, do not apply the Dynamic Media configuration (processing profile) to a Dynamic Media Classic folder.

Best practices for integrating Dynamic Media Classic with Experience Manager

When integrating Dynamic Media Classic with Experience Manager, there are some important best practices that must be observed in the following areas:

  • Test-driving your integration
  • Uploading assets directly from Dynamic Media Classic recommended for certain scenarios

Test-drive your integration

Adobe recommends that you test-drive your integration by having your root folder pointing to a subfolder only rather than an entire company.

CAUTION
Importing assets from an existing Dynamic Media Classic company account can take a long time to show in Experience Manager. Ensure that you designate a folder in Dynamic Media Classic that does not have too many assets (for example, the root folder often has too many assets and can crash your system).

Upload assets from Experience Manager Assets versus from Dynamic Media Classic

You can upload assets either by using the Assets (digital asset management) functionality or by accessing Dynamic Media Classic directly in Experience Manager by way of the Dynamic Media Classic content browser. Which one you choose depends on the following factors:

  • Dynamic Media Classic asset types that Experience Manager Assets does not yet support must be added to an Experience Manager website from Dynamic Media Classic directly, by way of the Dynamic Media Classic content browser. For example, image templates.

  • For asset types that are supported by both Experience Manager Assets and Dynamic Media Classic, deciding how to upload them depends on the following:

    • Where the assets are today AND
    • How important managing them in a common repository is

Suppose that the assets are already in Dynamic Media Classic and managing them in a common repository is not important. If that is the case, then exporting the assets to Experience Manager Assets only to sync them back to Dynamic Media Classic for delivery is an unnecessary roundtrip. Adobe recommends that you keep assets in a single repository and sync to Dynamic Media Classic for delivery only.

Configure Dynamic Media Classic integration

You can configure Experience Manager to upload assets to Dynamic Media Classic. Assets from a CQ target folder can be uploaded (automatically or manually) from Experience Manager to a Dynamic Media Classic company account.

NOTE
Adobe recommends that you use only the designated target folder for importing Dynamic Media Classic assets. Digital assets that reside outside of the target folder can only be used in Dynamic Media Classic components on pages where the Dynamic Media Classic configuration has been enabled. In addition, they are placed in an on-demand folder in Dynamic Media Classic. The on-demand folder is not synchronized with Experience Manager (but assets are discoverable in the Dynamic Media Classic content browser).

To configure Dynamic Media Classic to integrate with Experience Manager:

  1. Define a cloud configuration - Defines the mapping between a Dynamic Media Classic folder and an Assets folder. Complete this step even if you only want one-way (Experience Manager Assets to Dynamic Media Classic) synchronization.
  2. Enable the Adobe CQ s7dam Dam Listener - Done in the OSGi console.
  3. If you want Experience Manager Assets to automatically upload to Dynamic Media Classic, you must turn on that option and add Dynamic Media Classic to the DAM Update Asset workflow. You can also manually upload assets.
  4. Adding Dynamic Media Classic components to the sidekick. This functionality lets users use Dynamic Media Classic components on their Experience Manager pages.
  5. Map the configuration to the page in Experience Manager - This step is required to view any video presets that you have created in Dynamic Media Classic. It is also required if you must perform a publish an asset from outside the CQ target folder to Dynamic Media Classic.

This section covers how to perform all of these steps and lists important limitations.