Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is a software solution that combines a content management system (CMS) and a digital asset management (DAM) system. It serves as the content management system for content changes to AARP’s websites, mobile app, and marketing emails. It allows for easy editing of content, including assets such as images, videos, etc., and the reuse of content and experiences. To access AEM, all users need their own individual account to abide by AARP’s internet security guidelines.
Key features of AEM
Authors can create, manage, and deliver digital content across various channels (websites, mobile apps, emails, etc.).
Authors can seamlessly schedule content publishing.
Content teams can set versioning and workflow approvals for overall content governance.
With AEM, authors can create and maintain text content, manage assets (images, videos, documents), and handle workflows efficiently.
It provides a user-friendly interface for authors, allowing them to collaborate seamlessly.
AEM’s DAM capabilities focus on managing digital assets—such as images, videos, and other media files.
Authors can organize assets into folders, apply metadata, and ensure consistent branding across their digital properties.
AEM DAM handles versioning, approvals, and rights management for assets.
AEM is used to display video content powered by Brightcove to end users.
In short, AEM helps companies control their digital content by providing a unified platform and structure their content.
Authoring Environments
Most authors will have access to at least the Prod and PI environments, some may have access to Stage.
Staging (https://cms-s.aarp.org/) is an initial development testing environment; it is where software development and QA takes place. It is where engineers write the initial code, collaborate, and perform updates. It is also used for experimentation, code creation, and debugging. Only engineering, Quality Assurance (QA) team members and select Product/Project Managers have access to this environment. It is very rare for an author to be given access to this instance of AEM.
PI (https://cms-pi.aarp.org/) is a QA testing environment; it is where experience fragment, content fragment, template, and component testing is done. It allows thorough QA testing of the entire system, ensuring that all experience fragments, content fragments, components work seamlessly together before deploying the new code to production.
It is also an environment where authors can practice, and test new content and their knowledge of AEM before authoring the same content in the Production (PROD) environment. QA, engineers, select individual authors, and product/project managers have access to PI. This instance of AEM closely resembles the PROD environment, with the latest versions of content (except for recent changes from the development team).
NOTE: PI is the instance of AEM that is used by the QA and engineering teams for testing. Therefore, the environment can run slow and is sometimes unstable. Authors should be aware that on occasion the environment cannot be accessed, and content authored there can sometimes disappear because of code changes.
PROD (https://cms.aarp.org/) is the production environment; it houses the content that is user facing. At times some experience fragments, content fragments and components get their final testing on PROD by the QA. However, there is no code development on PROD and engineers do not use the PROD environment for their testing. This also the environment where authors create all user facing imagery and content. Because PROD is the only environment that can be seen by the end user, only authors, product/project managers, stakeholders, and QA have access to this environment.
