Seeking Solutions for Gathering Feedback on AEM Pages from Non-AEM Users and Workflow Integration

[ParnianSh1]

Hi Adobe Community,

I’m an author in Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), and as part of our workflow for creating pages on our website, we often need input, comments, and approvals from product line managers or subject matter experts. However, these individuals are not AEM users, and due to limited licenses, we can’t provide them with direct access to AEM.

Here are my questions:

1. What are my options for sharing AEM pages with non-AEM users to gather their feedback?

   • Ideally, we’d like a way for them to view the page in its current state (e.g., a preview mode or similar) and provide comments without requiring an AEM license.

2. How can I incorporate feedback or approval steps into the AEM workflow if the reviewers are not AEM users?

   • Is there a way to include external feedback in the workflow efficiently, or would we need to collect feedback separately and manually integrate it?

3. Would integrating Adobe Workfront help in this scenario?

   • Since all employees in our organization have access to Workfront, could we use it to streamline the feedback and approval process, and if so, how would this integration work with AEM?

I’d greatly appreciate any suggestions or best practices for managing these types of workflows in AEM.

Thanks in advance!

[Shashi_Mulugu]

@ParnianSh1 welcome to AEM experience league community,  a great place to collaborate, learn and share.

1. Please setup a one time preview aem instance similar to publisher server and use it for preview of aem pages. Development team can setup with a basic auth or sso authentication where we publish every content change to preview and only on approval to live.

2 and 3 Workfront is a great collaboration tool and fits perfectly for all your needs. You can setup your workflow there and allow everyone to comment. If any comments, authors gets notifications in workfront and when clicked on link taken to aem page editor view.

[ParnianSh1]

Thank you @Shashi_Mulugu for your response!

My other question is, if our developers set the preview mode, and I share the pages with the non-AEM users, how can they comment on that page without having to do so externally through email? is there a comment/annotation option on preview mode?

[AmitVishwakarma]

To gather feedback on AEM pages from non-AEM users:

1. Share Preview Links: Use AEM’s preview mode or a publish instance to share a view-only link for non-AEM users to review the page.

2. External Feedback Tools: Use tools like Google Forms or JotForm to collect feedback and integrate it back into AEM workflows manually.

3. Integrate Adobe Workfront: Use Workfront for feedback and approval management. You can create tasks for non-AEM users to review and approve content, then link it back to AEM using API or webhooks.

4. Custom Workflows: Extend AEM workflows to trigger email notifications or feedback collection tasks, keeping the review process outside AEM but integrating it with the AEM workflow.

This will allow external users to review, approve, and provide feedback without needing AEM access.