Documentation AEM as a Cloud Service User Guide

Manage assets manage-assets

Last update: Mon Dec 04 2023 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

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AEM as a Cloud Service

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This article describes how to manage and edit assets in Adobe Experience Manager Assets. To manage Content Fragments, see Content Fragments assets.

Create folders creating-folders

When organizing a collection of assets, for example, all Nature images, you can create folders to keep them together. You can use folders to categorize and organize your assets. Experience Manager Assets does not require you to organize assets in folders to work better.

NOTE

Sharing an Assets folder of the type sling:OrderedFolder, is not supported when sharing to Experience Cloud. If you want to share a folder, do not select Ordered when creating a folder.
Experience Manager does not allow using subassets word as the name of a folder. It is a keyword reserved for node that contain subassets for compound assets

Navigate to the place in your digital assets folder where you want to create a folder. In the menu, click Create. Select New Folder.
In the Title field, provide a folder name. By default, DAM uses the title that you provided as the folder name. Once the folder is created, you can override the default and specify another folder name.
Click Create. Your folder is displayed in the digital assets folder.

The following (space-separated list of) characters are not supported:

An asset file name cannot contain any of these characters: * / : [ \\ ] | # % { } ? &
An asset folder name cannot contain any of these characters: * / : [ \\ ] | # % { } ? \" . ^ ; + & \t

Upload assets uploading-assets

See add digital assets to Experience Manager.

Extract ZIP archives extract-zip-archives

Select ZIP archives that are managed in Experience Manager and extract the files directly into Experience Manager without downloading them.

To extract the ZIP files, perform the following steps:

Select the ZIP file type.
Click the Extract Archive option available on the action bar.
Select the folder where you need to save the extracted assets that are available in the compressed folder.
Click Next.
Select the appropriate behavior to handle file name conflicts during extraction. You can select to create a version of an existing asset, replace the asset, keep both the assets in the destination folder, or skip the extraction of the new asset.
Click Extract. Zip extraction process starts. Once the process is complete, you can view the extracted assets in the destination folder.

NOTE

The maximum supported ZIP file size is 15 GB.
You can extract a maximum of three ZIP files at one time.

Preview assets previewing-assets

To preview an asset, follow these steps.

From the Assets user interface, navigate to the location of the asset you want to preview.
Select the desired asset to open it.
In the preview mode, zoom options are available for supported Image types (with interactive editing).

To zoom into an asset, select + (or select the magnifying glass on the asset). To zoom out, select -. When you zoom in, you can look closely at any area of the image by panning. The reset zoom arrow brings you back to the original view.

Select Reset to reset the view to the original size.

Edit properties editing-properties

Navigate to the location of the asset whose metadata you want to edit.
Select the asset, and select Properties from the toolbar to view asset properties. Alternatively, choose the Properties quick action on the asset card.

In the Properties page, edit the metadata properties under various tabs. For example, under the Basic tab, edit the title, description, and so on.

note note
NOTE
The layout of the Properties page and the metadata properties available depend on the underlying metadata schema. To learn how to modify the layout of the Properties page, see Metadata Schemas.

To schedule a particular date/time for the activation of the asset, use the date picker beside the On Time field.
To deactivate the asset after a particular duration, choose the deactivation date/time from the date picker beside the Off Time field. The deactivation date should be later than the activation date for an asset. After the Off Time, an asset and its renditions are not available either via the Assets web interface or through the HTTP API.

Copy assets copying-assets

When you copy an asset or a folder, the entire asset or the folder is copied, along with its content structure. A copied asset or a folder is duplicated at the target location. The asset at the source location is not altered.

A few attributes that are unique to a particular copy of an asset are not carried forward. Some examples are:

Asset ID, creation date and time, and versions and version history. Some of these properties are indicated by the properties jcr:uuid, jcr:created, and cq:name.
Creation time and referenced paths are unique for each asset and each of its rendition.

The other properties and metadata information is retained. A partial copy is not created when copying an asset.

From the Assets UI, select one or more assets, and then select the Copy icon from the toolbar. Alternatively, select the Copy quick action from the asset card.

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NOTE
If you use the Copy quick action, you can only copy one asset at a time.

Navigate to the location where you want to copy the assets.

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NOTE
If you copy an asset at the same location, Experience Manager automatically generates a variation of the name. For example, if you copy an asset titled `Square`, Experience Manager automatically generates the title for its copy as `Square1`.

Click the Paste asset icon from the toolbar. Assets are copied to this location.

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NOTE
The Paste icon is available in the toolbar until the paste operation is completed.

Move or rename assets moving-or-renaming-assets

Navigate to the location of the asset you want to move.
Select the asset, and select the Move icon from the toolbar.

In the Move Assets wizard, do one of the following:

Specify the name for the asset after it is moved. Then select Next to proceed.
Select Cancel to stop the process.

note note

NOTE

You can specify the same name for the asset if there is no asset with that name at the new location. However, you should use a different name if you move the asset to a location where an asset with the same name exists. If you use the same name, the system automatically generates a variation of the name. For example, if your asset has the name Square, the system generates the name Square1 for its copy.
When renaming, whitespace is not allowed in the file name.

On the Select Destination dialog, do one of the following:
- Navigate to the new location for the assets, and then select Next to proceed.
- Select Back to return to the Rename screen.
If the assets being moved have any referencing pages, assets, or collections, the Adjust References tab appears beside the Select Destination tab.

Do one of the following in the Adjust References screen:
- Specify the references to be adjusted based on the new details, and then select Move to proceed.
- From the Adjust column, select/unselect references to the assets.
- Select Back to return to the Select Destination screen.
- Select Cancel to stop the move operation.
If you do not update references, they continue to point to the previous path of the asset. If you adjust the references, they are updated to the new asset path.

Manage renditions managing-renditions

You can add or remove renditions for an asset, except the original. Navigate to the location of the asset for which you want to add or remove renditions.
Select the asset to open its asset page.
Select the GlobalNav icon, and select Renditions from the list.

In the Renditions panel, view the list of renditions generated for the asset.

renditions_panel

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NOTE
By default, Experience Manager Assets does not display the original rendition of the asset in the preview mode. If you are an administrator, you can use overlays to configure Assets to display original renditions in the preview mode.

Select a rendition to either view or delete the rendition.

Deleting a rendition

Select a rendition from the Renditions panel, and then select the Delete Rendition icon from the toolbar. Renditions cannot be deleted in bulk after asset processing is complete. For individual assets, you can remove renditions manually from the user interface. For multiple assets, you can customize Experience Manager to delete either specific renditions or delete the assets and re-upload the deleted assets.

Uploading a new rendition

Navigate to the asset details page for the asset, and select the Add Rendition icon in the toolbar to upload a new rendition for the asset.

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NOTE
If you select a rendition from the Renditions panel, the toolbar changes context and displays only those actions that are relevant to the rendition. Options, such as the Upload Rendition icon is not displayed. To view these options in the toolbar, navigate to the details page for the asset.

You can configure the dimensions for the rendition you want displayed in the details page of an image or video asset. Based on the dimensions you specify, Assets displays the rendition with the exact or closest dimensions.

You cannot create renditions with the following prefixes, as these are internal to Adobe:

cq5
cqdam
cq5dam

To configure rendition dimensions of an image at the asset detail level, overlay the renditionpicker node (libs/dam/gui/content/assets/assetpage/jcr:content/body/content/content/items/assetdetail/items/col1/items/assetview/renditionpicker) and configure the value of the width property. Configure the property size (Long) in KB in place of width to customize rendition on asset detail page based on image size. For size-based customization, the property preferOriginal assigns preference to the original if the size of the matched rendition is greater than the original.

Similarly, you can customize the Annotation page image by overlaying libs/dam/gui/content/assets/annotate/jcr:content/body/content/content/items/content/renditionpicker.

To configure rendition dimensions for a video asset, navigate to the videopicker node in the CRX repository at the location /libs/dam/gui/content/assets/assetpage/jcr:content/body/content/content/items/assetdetail/items/col1/items/assetview/videopicker, overlay the node, and then edit the appropriate property.

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NOTE
Video annotations are supported only on browsers with HTML5 compatible video formats. In addition, depending on the browser, different video formats are supported. However, MXF video format is not yet supported with video annotations.

Delete assets delete-assets

To resolve or remove the incoming references from other pages, update the relevant references before deleting an asset.

Also, disable the force delete button using an overlay, to disallow users from deleting referenced assets and leaving broken links.

Navigate to the location of the assets you want to delete.
Select the asset, and click Delete from the toolbar.

In the confirmation dialog, click:

Cancel to stop the action
Delete to confirm the action:
- If the asset has no references, the asset is deleted.
- If the asset has references, an error-message informs you that One or more assets are referenced. You can select Force Delete or Cancel.

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NOTE
You require delete permissions on dam/asset to be able to delete an asset. If you only have modify permissions, you can only edit the asset metadata and add annotations to the asset. However, you cannot delete the asset or its metadata.

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NOTE
To resolve or remove the incoming references from other pages, update the relevant references before deleting an asset. You can disallow deletion of referenced assets as it causes broken links. Disable the force delete button using an overlay.

Download assets download-assets

See download assets from Experience Manager.

Publish or unpublish assets publish-assets

Navigate to the location of the asset or the asset folder that you want to publish or that you want to remove from the publish environment (unpublish).
Select the asset or the folder to publish or unpublish and select Manage Publication option from the toolbar. Alternatively, to publish quickly, select the Quick Publish option from the toolbar. If the folder you want to publish includes an empty folder, the empty folder is not published.
Select the Publish or Unpublish option as required.

Figure: Publish and unpublish options and the scheduling option.
Select Now to act on the asset right away or select Later to schedule the action. Select a date and time if you choose the Later option. Click Next.
When publishing, if an asset references other assets, its references are listed in the wizard. Only those references are displayed, that are either unpublished or modified since last publish. Choose the references that you want to publish.
When unpublishing, if an asset references other assets, choose the references that you want to unpublish. Click Unpublish. In the confirmation dialog, click Cancel to stop the action or click Unpublish to confirm that the assets are to be unpublished at the specified date.

Understand the following limitations and tips related to publishing or unpublishing assets or folders:

The option to Manage Publication is available only to the user accounts that have replication permissions.
While unpublishing a complex asset, unpublish the asset only. Avoid unpublishing the references because those may be referenced by other published assets.
Empty folders are not published.
If you publish an assets that is being processed, only the original content is published. The renditions are missing. Either wait for processing to complete and then publish or re-publish the asset once the processing completes.

Closed user group closed-user-group

A closed user group (CUG) is used to limit access to specific asset folders published from Experience Manager. If you create a CUG for a folder, access to the folder (including folder assets and subfolders) is restricted to assigned members or groups only. To access the folder, they must log in using their security credentials.

CUGs are an extra way to restrict access to your assets. You can also configure a login page for the folder.

Select a folder from the Assets UI, and select the Properties icon from the toolbar to display the properties page.
From the Permissions tab, add members or groups under Closed User Group.

To display a login screen when users access the folder, select the Enable option. Then, select the path to a login page in Experience Manager, and save the changes.

login_page

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NOTE
If you do not specify the path to a login page, Experience Manager displays the default login page in the publish instance.

Publish the folder, and then try accessing it from the publish instance. A login screen is displayed.
If you are a CUG member, enter your security credentials. The folder is displayed after Experience Manager authenticates you.

Search assets search-assets

Searching assets is central to the usage of a digital asset management system – be it for further use by creatives, for robust management of assets by the business users and marketers, or for administration by DAM administrators.

For simple, advanced, and custom searches to discover and use the most appropriate assets, see search assets in Experience Manager.

Quick actions quick-actions

Quick action icons are available for a single asset at a time. Depending upon your device, perform the following actions to display the quick action icons:

Touch devices: Touch and hold. For example, on an iPad, you can select-and-hold an asset so that the quick actions display.
Non-touch devices: Hover pointer. For example, On a desktop device, the quick action bar is displayed if you hover the pointer over the asset thumbnail.

Timeline timeline

The timeline lets you view various events for a selected item, such as active workflows for an asset, comments/annotations, activity logs, and versions.

Sort timeline entries for an asset
Figure: Sort timeline entries for an asset

NOTE

In the Collections console, the Show All list provides options to view comments and workflows only. Moreover, the timeline is displayed only for top-level collections that are listed in the console. It is not displayed if you navigate inside any of the collections.

NOTE

Timeline contains several options specific to content fragments.

Annotate assets annotating

Annotations are comments or explanatory notes added to images or videos. Annotations provide marketers the ability to collaborate and leave feedback about assets.

Video annotations are only supported on browsers with HTML5-compatible video formats. Video formats that Assets supports depend on the browser. However, MXF video format is not yet supported with video annotations.

NOTE

For Content Fragments, annotations are created in the fragment editor.

Navigate to the location of the asset to which you want to add annotations.
Select the Annotate icon from one of the following:
- Quick actions
- From the toolbar after selecting the asset or navigating to the asset page
Add a comment in the Comment box at the bottom of the timeline. Alternatively, mark up an area on the image and add an annotation in the Add Annotation dialog.

NOTE

For a non-administrator user, suggestions appear only if the user has Read permissions at /home in CRXDE.

After adding the annotation, click Add to save it. A notification for the annotation is sent to Aaron.

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NOTE
You can add multiple annotations, before you save them.

Select Close to exit from the Annotation mode.

To view the notification, log in to Assets with Aaron MacDonald’s credentials and click the Notifications icon to view the notification.

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NOTE
Annotations can also be added to video assets. While annotating videos, the player pauses to let you annotate on a frame. For details, see managing video assets. However, MXF video format is not yet supported with video annotations.

To choose a different color so you can differentiate between users, select the Profile icon and select My Preferences.

Specify the desired color in the Annotation Color box and then select Accept.

NOTE

You can also add annotations to a collection. However, if a collection contains child collections, you can add annotations/comments to the parent collection only. The Annotate option is not available for child collections.

View saved annotations viewing-saved-annotations

You can view only one annotation at a time.

NOTE

If you are selecting multiple annotations, the latest annotation is visible on the user interface.

Multi-select is supported only for printing the annotated asset as PDF.

To view saved annotations for an asset, navigate to the location of the asset and open the asset page for the asset.
Select the GlobalNav icon, and choose Timeline from the list.
From the Show All list in the timeline, select Comments to filter the results based on annotations.

Select a comment in the Timeline panel to view the corresponding annotation on the image.

Select Delete, to delete a particular comment.

Print annotations printing-annotations

If an asset has annotations or it has been subjected to a review workflow, you can print the asset along with annotations and review status as a PDF file for offline review.

You can also choose to print only the annotations or review status.

NOTE

You can select multiple annotations while printing the annotated asset as PDF.

To print the annotations and review status, select the Print icon and follow the instructions in the wizard. The Print icon appears in the toolbar only when the asset has at least one annotation or review status assigned to it.

From the Assets UI, open the preview page for an asset.
Do one of the following:
- To print all the annotations and the review status, skip step 3 and directly go to step 4.
- To print specific annotations and review status, open the timeline and then go to step 3.
To print specific annotations, select the annotations from the timeline.

To print the review status only, select it from the timeline.
Select the Print icon from the toolbar.
From the Print dialog, choose the position you want the annotations/review status to be displayed on the PDF. For example, if you want the annotations/status to be printed at the top-right of the page that contains the printed image, use the Top-Left setting. It is selected by default.

You can choose other settings depending on the position where you want the annotations/status to appear in the printed PDF. If you want the annotations/status to appear in a page that is separate from the printed asset, choose Next Page.
Click Print. Depending upon the option you choose in step 2, the generated PDF displays the annotations/status at the specified position. For example, if you choose to print both annotations and the review status using the Top-Left setting, the generated output resembles the PDF file depicted here.
Download or print the PDF using the options at the top-right.

To modify the appearance of the rendered PDF file, for example, the font color, size, and style, background color of the comments and statuses, open the Annotation PDF configuration from Configuration Manager, and modify the desired options. For example, to change the display color of the approved status, modify the color code in the corresponding field. For information around changing the font color of annotations, see Annotating.

Return to the rendered PDF file and refresh it. The refreshed PDF reflects the changes you made.

Asset versioning asset-versioning

Versioning creates a snapshot of digital assets at a specific point in time. Versioning helps restore assets to a previous state at a later time. For example, if you want to undo a change that you made to an asset, restore the unedited version of the asset.

The following are scenarios where you create versions:

You modify an image in a different application and upload to Assets. A version of the image is created so your original image is not overwritten.
You edit the metadata of an asset.
You use Experience Manager desktop app to checkout an existing asset and save your changes. A new version is created every time the asset is saved.

You can also enable automatic versioning through a workflow. When you create a version for an asset, the metadata and renditions are saved along with the version. Renditions are rendered alternatives of the same images, for example, a PNG rendition of an uploaded JPEG file.

The versioning functionality lets you do the following:

Create a version of an asset.
View the current revision for an asset.
Restore the asset to a previous version.

Navigate to the location of the asset for which you want to create a version, and select it to open its asset page.
Select the GlobalNav icon, and the choose Timeline from the menu.
Select the Actions (arrow) icon at the bottom to view the available actions you can perform on the asset.
Select Save as Version to create a version for the asset.

Add a label and comment, and then click Create to create a version. Alternatively, select Cancel to exit the operation.
To view the new version, open the Show All list in the timeline from the asset details page or the Assets UI, and choose Versions. All versions created for an asset are listed under the timeline tab. You can filter the list to show Versions, by clicking the drop arrow and selecting Versions from the list.
Select a specific version for the asset to preview it or enable it to appear in the Assets UI.
Add a label and comment for the version to revert to the particular version in the Assets UI.
To generate a preview for the version, select Preview Version.
To display this version in the Assets UI, select Revert to this Version.
To compare between two versions, go to asset page of the asset and select the version to be compared with the current version.
From the timeline, select the version you want to compare and drag the slider to the left to superimpose this version over the current version and compare.

Start a workflow on an asset starting-a-workflow-on-an-asset

Navigate to the location of the asset for which you want to start a workflow, and select the asset to open the asset page.
Select the GlobalNav icon, and the choose Timeline from the menu to display the timeline.
Select the Actions (arrow) icon at the bottom to open the list of actions available for the asset.
Select Start Workflow from the list.
In the Start Workflow dialog, select a workflow model from the list.
(Optional) Specify a title for the workflow, which can be used to reference the workflow instance.
Select Start and then select Proceed in the dialog to confirm. Each step of workflow is displayed in the timeline as an event.

Collections collections

A collection is an ordered set of assets. Use collections to share assets between users.

A collection can include assets from different locations because they only contain references to these assets. Each collection maintains the referential integrity of assets.
You can share collections with multiple users with different privilege levels, including editing, viewing, and so on.

To know details of Collection management, see manage Collections.

Hide expired assets when viewing assets in desktop app or Adobe Asset Link hide-expired-assets-via-acp-api

Experience Manager desktop app allows access to the DAM repository from Windows or Mac desktop. Adobe Asset Link allows access to assets from within the supported Creative Cloud desktop applications.

When browsing assets from within Experience Manager user interface, the expired assets are not displayed. To prevent viewing, searching, and fetching of expired assets when browsing assets from desktop app and Asset Link, administrators can do the following configuration. The configuration works for all users, irrespective of administrator privilege.

Execute the following CURL command. Ensure read access on /conf/global/settings/dam/acpapi/ for the users who access assets. Users who are part of dam-user group have the permission by default.

curl -v -u admin:admin --location --request POST 'http://localhost:4502/conf/global/settings/dam/acpapi/configuration/_jcr_content' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \
--data-urlencode 'jcr:title=acpapiconfig' \
--data-urlencode 'hideExpiredAssets=true' \
--data-urlencode 'hideExpiredAssets@TypeHint=Boolean' \
--data-urlencode 'jcr:primaryType=nt:unstructured' \
--data-urlencode '../../jcr:primaryType=sling:Folder'

To know more, see how to browse DAM assets using desktop app and how to use Adobe Asset Link.

See also

recommendation-more-help

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