Does AEM offer content staging so non-users can preview and approve a new page and eliminating the need for the author to re-create the page in production?

[LHaras]

I'm wondering if there is a solution that allows AEM authors to create and publish pages in Stage that then can be pushed live to production without the redundancy of rebuilding the new page in Production. 

In our organization business unit owners do not have AEM accounts or access to preview items in Author. The only way for them to truly preview a page is for the AEM author to build and publish the page live on our closed Stage environment.

For complex new page authoring, the AEM author has to build a full page in Stage, publish it, and then send the front end URL to the business owner to review the page as it would be seen on the live site. All edits are worked out on Stage. Once approved, the AEM author has to build that page again on the Production environment and publish it to take the new page live. 

This process is cumbersome and time consuming. The ideal state would be building the page once, have it reviewed, and being able to schedule publishing without re-building in the Production environment. 

Keep in mind, the Author is not a developer in our organization, they are a marketing manager. The reviewers are outside of the marketing department and need a 1:1 representation of what the page will actually look like without logging in to AEM. 

Is this possible out of the box or with a workflow of some kind? 

[HrishikeshKa]

Hi @LHaras ,

Yes, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) offers content staging capabilities that can help streamline the process you described. AEM provides a feature called "Blueprints" that allows you to create and manage content across multiple environments, such as staging and production, without the need for manual duplication.

Here's how you can achieve the workflow you described using AEM Blueprints:

1. Authoring in Stage Environment: Marketing managers (AEM authors) create and author the pages in the Stage environment just as they currently do. They can use AEM's WYSIWYG editor to design the pages without needing development skills.

2. Preview and Approval: Once the pages are ready for review, they can be submitted for approval to the business unit owners or other stakeholders who do not have AEM accounts. AEM provides preview functionality that allows users to view the pages exactly as they would appear on the live site without needing to log in to AEM.

3. Blueprint Creation: After the pages are approved in the Stage environment, the marketing manager can create a Blueprint. A Blueprint is essentially a template or a set of content that can be replicated across different environments.

4. Deployment to Production: The approved Blueprint can then be deployed to the Production environment with a simple action. This will replicate the pages and content from Stage to Production without the need for manual rebuilding.

5. Scheduled Publishing: AEM allows you to schedule publishing actions, so the replicated pages can be scheduled to go live at a specific time without manual intervention.

By using Blueprints and the built-in deployment and scheduling features of AEM, you can significantly reduce the redundancy and time-consuming aspects of your current process. This allows marketing managers to focus more on content creation and less on manual tasks like rebuilding pages in different environments.

[LHaras]

Thank you for the reply! I did some additional research. It appears AEM Blueprints is not available for AEM 6.5 (on prem version). 

Is this only available with AEM Cloud?