AEM ACS Integration Guide

Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following elements beforehand:

·       An AEM authoring instance

·       An AEM publishing instance

·       An Adobe Campaign instance

Configuring the aemserver user

The aemserver user must be configured in Adobe Campaign. The aemserver is a technical user that will be used to connect the AEM server to Adobe Campaign.

Go to Administration > Users & Security > Users, and select the aemserver user. Click it to open the user settings.

·       You must set a password for this user. This cannot be done through the UI. This configuration must be done in REST by a technical administrator.

·       You can assign specific roles to this user, such as deliveryPrepare, which allows the user to create and edit deliveries.

If you do not have administration role in Adobe Campaign. You still need password of aemserver user. To get password of aemserver user please send a request email to

Adobe Support Team - spphelp@adobe.com  

Configuring an Adobe Experience Manager external account

You must configure an external account that allows you to connect Adobe Campaign to your AEM instance.

Make sure AEM Instance you are using for integration with Adobe Campaign is hosted on pubic or hosted on cloud. If you are trying to integrate your local AEM instance with Adobe Campaign, then make sure it is public hosted.

To Host Local AEM Instance Pubic Please follow below steps.

1.       Install ngrock utility from https://dashboard.ngrok.com/get-started

2.      Extract the folder, right click on ngrok.exe and run as administrator.

how to make AEM localhost public

3.      On command prompt, please put command ngrok http 4502

4.      You will get the command prompt screen as below.

ngrok utility to public hosted local AEM 

5.      Copy the URL which is redirecting to http or http and use it to create external account in the Adobe Campaign console mentioned in the next step.

To configure an AEM external account:

AEM External Account in ACS Console

1.      Go to Administration > Application settings > External accounts.

2.      Select the default aemInstance external account or create a new one by clicking the Create button.

3.      Select Adobe Experience Manager in the Type field and enter the access parameters used for your AEM authoring instance: server address, account name and password.

Note:

Be sure that you do not add an ending / slash at the end of the URL or the connection will not work.

AEM External Account in ACS Console

4.      Make sure that the Enabled checkbox is selected, then click Save to save your modifications.

Verifying the AEMResourceTypeFilter option

The AEMResourceTypeFilter option is used to filter types of AEM resources that can be used in Adobe Campaign. This allows Adobe Campaign to retrieve AEM contents that are specifically designed to be used in Adobe Campaign only.

This option comes pre-configured; however, if you change this option, it may lead to a non-functioning integration.

To verify the AEMResourceTypeFilter option is configured:

1.      Go to Administration > Application settings > Options.

2.      In the list, you can ensure that the AEMResourceTypeFilter option is listed and that the paths are correct.

Creating an AEM-specific email delivery template

By default, the AEM feature is not enabled in Adobe Campaign's email templates. You can configure a new email delivery template that will be used to create emails with AEM content.

To create an AEM-specific email delivery template:

1.      Go to Resources > Templates > Delivery templates.

2.      Enable selection by clicking the checkmark in the action bar and selecting the existing Standard email (mail) default template, then duplicate it by clicking the Copy icon and clicking Confirm.

3.      Disable the selection mode by clicking the x and open the newly created Copy of Standard email (mail) template, then select Edit properties from the action bar of the template dashboard.

You can modify the template's Label.

4.      In the properties Content section, change the Content source to Adobe Experience Manager. Then select the external account that was previously created and click Confirm.

Save your modifications by clicking Confirm and clicking Save.

AEM Specific Email Delivery Template

Email deliveries created from this template will have the AEM content feature enabled.


Configuring Adobe Experience Manager

To configure AEM, you must do the following:

·       Configure replication between instances.

·       Connect AEM to Adobe Campaign.

·       Configure the externalizer.

Configuring replication between AEM instances

Content created from the AEM authoring instance is first sent to the publishing instance. This publishing instance then transfers the content to Adobe Campaign. The replication agent must therefore be configured to replicate from the AEM authoring instance to the AEM publishing instance.

Note:

If you do not want to use the replication URL but instead use the public-facing URL, you can set the Public URL in the following configuration setting in the OSGi (Tools > Web Console > OSGi Configuration > AEM Campaign Integration - Configuration):

Public URL: com.day.cq.mcm.campaign.impl.IntegrationConfigImpl#aem.mcm.campaign.publicUrl

This step is also necessary to replicate certain authoring instance configurations into the publishing instance.

To configure replication between AEM instances:

Replication agent settings to make connection between AEM and ACS

1.      From the authoring instance, select AEM logo> Tools icon > Deployment > Replication > Agents on author, then click Default Agent.

Note:

Avoid using localhost (that is a local copy of AEM) when configuring your integration with Adobe Campaign unless the publish and author instance are both on the same computer.

2.      Click Edit then select the Transport tab.

3.      Configure the URI by replacing localhost with the IP address or the address of the AEM publishing instance.

Replication agent settings to make connection between AEM and ACS

Connecting AEM to Adobe Campaign

Before you can use AEM and Adobe Campaign together, you must establish the link between both solutions so that they can communicate.

1.      Connect to your AEM authoring instance.

Adobe Campaign Cloud Services Configuration

2.      Select Tools > Operations > Cloud > Cloud Services, then Configure now in the Adobe Campaign section.

3.      Create a new configuration by entering a Title and click Create, or choose the existing configuration that you want to link with your Adobe Campaign instance.

4.      Edit the configuration so that it matches the parameters of your Adobe Campaign instance.

·       Username: aemserver, the Adobe Campaign AEM Integration package operator used to establish the link between the two solutions.

·       Password: Adobe Campaign aemserver operator password. You may have to re-specify the password for this operator directly in Adobe Campaign.

·       API End Point: Adobe Campaign instance URL.

AEM ACS Connection Settings

5.      Select Connect to Adobe Campaign and click OK.

Note:

Adobe Campaign Settings in AEM

After you create your email and publish it, you need to re-publish the configuration onto your publish instance.

Note:

If the connection fails, make sure you check the following:

·       You may encounter a certificate problem when using a secure connection to an Adobe Campaign instance (https). You will have to add the Adobe Campaign instance certificate to the cacerts file of your JDK.

·       In addition, see Troubleshooting your AEM/Adobe Campaign Integration.

Configuring the externalizer

You need to configure the externalizer in AEM on your author instance. The Externalizer is an OSGi service that lets you transform a resource path into an external and absolute URL. This service provides a central place to configure those external URLs and build them.

See Configure the externalizer for general instructions. For the Adobe Campaign integration, make sure you configure the publish server at http://<host>:<port>/system/console/configMgr/com.day.cq.commons.impl.ExternalizerImpl not point to localhost:4503 but to a server that is reachable by the Adobe Campaign console.

Adobe Campaign - Externalizer Configuration in AEM

If it points to localhost:4503 or another server that Adobe Campaign cannot reach, your images will not appear on the Adobe Campaign console.

Push AEM Content to ACS

Create Email Content in AEM

1.       Create campaign content inside /content/campaigns path

2.       Create a Brand page inside /content/campaigns path using Brand Template

3.       Create an Area page inside /content/campaign/<brandpage> path using Area Template

4.       Create a Campaign page inside /content/campaign/<brandpage>/<areapage> path using Campaign Template

Campaign Page in AEM Setup

5.       Open the Campaignpage properties, goto ‘Cloud Services’ tab and select the cloud configuration from the dropdown.
6.       Create a ‘emailcontentpage’ inside /content/campaign/<brandpage>/<areapage>/<campaignpage> path using Adobe Campaign Standard Template

7.       Open the ‘emailcontentpage’ properties, enter details as per below screenshots.

campaign page in aem page properties 

campaign page in aem page properties

campaign page in aem page properties

8.       Open the email content page, page layout will be displayed as below.

Campaign Page in AEM

9.       Once you click on + icon to insert a component on page, 7 OOOB components will be listed in the side kick.

Campaign Components List in AEM

Text and Personalization Component in AEM

10.   Add Text & Personalization component and click on edit pencil button.

Personalize Campaign Icon

11.   We can personalize the content of any profile by using adobe campaign icon.

personalize adobe campaign variables

personalize adobe campaign variables

output post personalize adobe campaign variables

Approve AEM Content and Pushed to ACS

1.       Click on ‘Start Workflow’ and select ‘Approve for Adobe Campaign’ from list.

start workflow

Approve for Adobe Campaign

2.       After completion the workflow steps, Status ‘Approved’ will be displayed on the page.

Status Approved

3.       Go to Adobe Campaign and open the Delivery Template which was created in this document above.

4.       Click on the ‘Use the default editor’ section.

Use the default editor

5.       Click on ‘AEM’ link displayed on the screen below.

AEM link in Email Delivery Template

6.       List of AEM contents will be listed as per below screenshot.

List of AEM Contents in ACS Console