[AEM Assets]{class="badge positive" title="Applies to AEM Assets)."}
Assets Sourcing portal for AEM Assets assets-sourcing-portal-aem-assets
Organizations often rely on photographers, creative agencies, and other external contributors to provide digital assets. Collecting these assets through email, shared drives, or file-sharing services can lead to inconsistent metadata, manual processing, and additional administrative effort. Providing external contributors with direct access to a digital asset management (DAM) system may also require additional licenses and expose internal content.
The Assets Sourcing Portal provides a secure, self-service experience for collecting assets from external contributors without granting them access to Adobe Experience Manager Assets. Contributors can upload assets, provide the required metadata, and submit content directly to a designated intake location while administrators maintain control over asset organization and governance.
For information on how to get it enabled for your deployment, see Assets as a Cloud Service release notes.
Benefits benefits-asset-sourcing-aem-assets
Using the Assets Sourcing Portal provides the following benefits:
- Allow external contributors to upload assets without requiring an AEM Assets license.
- Simplify asset intake through a dedicated upload experience.
- Reduce manual processing by automatically applying metadata and ingestion policies.
- Improve governance by controlling where uploaded assets are stored and what metadata contributors provide.
- Scale onboarding for multiple contributors without creating custom upload solutions.
How assets sourcing works? how-asset-sourcing-works-in-aem-assets
An administrator configures a sourcing portal for an external contributor by defining:
- The destination intake location for uploaded assets.
- The metadata fields contributors must complete.
- Optional ingestion policies, such as naming conventions and notifications.
Contributors receive a dedicated upload experience where they can:
- Upload one or more assets.
- Complete the required metadata fields.
- Submit assets for ingestion into Adobe Experience Manager Assets.
During ingestion, uploaded assets are processed according to the configured policies before they are stored in the designated intake location.
Upload methods upload-methods-asset-sourcing-aem-assets
The Assets Sourcing Portal supports multiple upload methods so contributors can work within their preferred workflows.
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Browser portal: Provides a web-based upload experience where contributors can drag and drop files and complete the required metadata before submitting assets.
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REST API: Allows organizations to integrate asset uploads into existing production systems or automated workflows.
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Vendor MCP: Enables contributors working in AI-assisted environments to upload assets through supported conversational workflows.
All upload methods provide the same core asset ingestion capabilities.
Key capabilities key-capabilities-asset-sourcing-aem-assets
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Secure contributor access: External contributors can upload assets without accessing the DAM, browsing repositories, or viewing other assets.
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Configurable metadata collection: Administrators select metadata fields from the AEM Assets metadata schema. The portal automatically generates the contributor’s submission form based on the selected fields.
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Automated asset ingestion: Uploaded assets are routed to a designated intake location with configured metadata applied during ingestion.
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Configurable ingestion policies: Administrators can define ingestion rules for each contributor, including required and optional metadata fields, prepopulated values, batch identifiers, asset naming conventions, destination paths, minimum asset dimensions, and administrator notifications.
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Scalable contributor onboarding: Configure multiple contributors with different upload destinations, metadata requirements, and ingestion policies without developing custom upload applications.
Example use cases example-use-cases-asset-sourcing
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Collect assets from creative agencies: Allow agencies to submit campaign assets through a dedicated upload portal without granting access to the organization’s DAM.
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Receive photography submissions: Provide photographers with a simple upload experience that automatically captures required metadata and stores assets in the appropriate intake location.
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Integrate external production systems: Use the REST API to automatically submit assets from third-party production or content creation systems.
When to use this capability when-to-use-this-capability
Use the Assets Sourcing Portal when you need to:
- Collect assets from photographers, agencies, and external vendors.
- Standardize metadata collection during asset intake.
- Secure asset submissions without providing DAM access.
- Automate asset ingestion into designated intake locations.
- Support large numbers of external contributors.
When not to use this capability when-not-to-use-this-capability
The Assets Sourcing Portal is not intended for:
- Managing assets within the DAM after ingestion.
- Providing contributors with access to browse, search, or download DAM assets.
- Internal collaboration workflows that require full DAM functionality.