Document Authoring (DA) - a New, Simple CMS for Edge Delivery Services (EDS)

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Document Authoring - a New, Simple CMS for Edge Delivery Services

by @daniel-strmecki

Introduction

The first time I saw our partners at Adobe present document-based authoring, I thought it was a great solution for smaller and short-lived sites. However, most enterprises would probably not use it as it lacks advanced enterprise CMS features like automated translations, market/language rollouts, bulk updates, custom workflows, etc. Looks like Adobe might have gotten similar feedback from customers as they recently announced early access to a new, simple CMS for Edge Delivery Services (EDS) called Document Authoring (DA).

DA is a user-friendly, high-performance, and highly available document-based authoring solution for managing, editing, and publishing sites. It’s built around the EDS document model, using concepts like blocks and sections. DA has an SDK, APIs, and integrated Adobe technologies to support modern content creation workflows.

Adobe chose to name it "Document Authoring", which can be quite confusing for customers, especially since both SharePoint and Google Drive already support "document-based editing" in a more literal and widely understood sense. Therefore, think of it as a new lightweight CMS for EDS, an alternative to the existing SharePoint and Google Drive content repositories for documents.

Key points

EDS is not a CMS itself; it is a delivery layer that serves sites and assets stored in different content repositories. The OOTB supported content repositories are AEM and classic Word/Excel documents. By choosing AEM as the repository, we could use Sites with Universal Editor or a fully headless implementation with Content Fragments. On the other hand, for a document repository, we could choose between SharePoint and Google Drive. Now, DA offers a third, alternative document repository with some additional authoring features.

DA combines the simplicity of document-based editing with essential CMS authoring features, such as:

• Automated translations
• Bulk operations
• Live preview
• Built-in versioning and audit trails
• Real-time collaboration
• Fast, block-based editing

While AEMaaCS remains the gold standard for enterprise content management, supporting live copy inheritance and blueprint structures, advanced content modeling with fragments, AI-powered metadata, advanced permission management, WYSIWYG editing experience, deep integrations with Adobe and internal tools, allowing for any customization or complex workflows. DA now offers a faster and simpler alternative, ideal for clients prioritising speed and simplicity.

Full Article

Read the full article on https://meticulous.digital/blog/f/document-authoring---a-new-simple-cms-for-edge-delivery-services to find out more.

Q&A

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