AddOn Communities
First note that starting with AEM 6.3, it is usually possible to demonstrate most of Communities with a standard QuickStart since the "Community" pages of the We.Retail reference implementation are making use of most features.
However, there are scenarios where more advanced AEM Communities demonstrations are needed, especially:
- When in need of a different SRP (e.g. MSRP, hence requires Mongo/SOLR)
- When in need of demonstrating the "enablement" features with SCORM tracking (hence requires MySQL)
By selecting the "Communities" add-on when building a new Demo configuration, your environment can be setup for there fully fledged Communities demos.
After the environment is setup, there are 4 demo sites that can be installed according to the following demo.communities.* Properties. You'll have to clone the associated Git project, build the Maven project, and place the resulting packages in a new /dist/samples/[demo name]/ folder, e.g.
- In /dist/samples/we-retail:
- we.retail.communities.ui.apps-0.2.2.zip
- we.retail.communities.ui.content-0.2.2.zip
- In /dist/samples/reference:
- aem-communities-reference-0.2.2
The links to the respecting GitHub projects are listed below.
| Property | Default Value | Description | Package |
|---|---|---|---|
| .samples.weretail | false | Recommended for all demos - A generic Demo site for AEM Communities, created as a sub-site for the AEM We.Retail demonstration site. Works with AEM 6.3 and beyond | Link |
| .samples.communities | true | A generic Demo site for AEM Communities, created from a Community Site template leveraging all of the AEM Communities features | Link |
| .samples.enablement | true | The reference Demo site for AEM Communities "Enablement" features | [Link] (https://github.com/Adobe-Marketing-Cloud/aem-communities-samples/tree/master/enablement) |
| .samples.scoring | false | The reference Demo site for AEM Communities "Advanced gamification" features. Requires the Advanced Scoring packages (ant download_communities_advanced with VPN access) | Link |
Note: If not using the AEM Demo Machine "Communities" addon, you can also manually upload the respective packages as regular AEM package, then double-click on the Home page under /content/sites to go through a setup wizard for your own AEM instances.
In order to demonstrate the AEM Communities features, it is recommended to proceed as follows:
- Install the required infrastructure
- MongoDB and SOLR for MSRP (recommended Common Store)
- MySQL and FFMEG for the Enablement features
- Download the latest Communities Feature Packs from the GUI (will also download SCORM package)
- Optional since 6.3: Set the "demo.communities.featurepack" property to the desired Feature Pack, e.g. "aem61-fp4" or "aem62-fp1" as per the files downloaded under /dist/communities/featurepacks
- Set the "demo.communities.enablement" property to "true" if needed
If you already are using MySQL, you can also point at an existing instance:
- From the Demo Machine GUI, set the "demo.mysql.external" to "true" and verify the credentials
If you are already using MongoDB, you can point at an existing instance:
- From the Demo Machine GUI, set the "demo.mongo.external" to "true" and verify the credentials
Primary forum, activity feeds and file sharing
Enablement features
Calendar, blog and analytics
Here's an example of an end to end scenario to get a Demo Machine configured for demonstrating AEM Communities with the sample demo sites:
- Download (or clone) the AEM Demo Machine
- It's better if you can clone it using GitHub, so that any changes or updates are kept in sync
- Only follow the steps (2a-2e) below to setup GitHub Desktop app to keep updates on AEM Demo Machine in sync, between the GitHub repository and your local computer, otherwise if you are manually downloading AEM Demo Machine, can skip to Step#2 below
a. Download GitHub Desktop (https://desktop.github.com), available for Mac and Windows
b. Sign into GitHub Desktop app (via Preferences>Accounts) and also sign in on GitHub.com where you download AEM Demo Machine from
c. On GitHub.com, where you download AEM Demo Machine, click on the green "close or download" button and click "Open in Desktop"
d. This should bring up GitHub desktop app and will ask you where you want to download AEM Demo Machine and then keep it in sync, choose the location on your computer where you want to install AEM Demo Machine and hit "Clone"
e. This should install and setup the clone of AEM Demo Machine on your local computer, once done, you should see a "Synch" button in GitHub Desktop app on the top right, which you can use from time to time to ensure AEM Demo Machine updates are synced to your local computer - If you downloaded from GitHub rather than cloning, then extract the zip file
- Put an AEM license file under /dist/license folder and make sure it says “license-aem6.properties”.
- (VPN) You can obtain the license file from this internal link, or use one of your previous AEM instances you’re running on your machine to get the license file. Partners and system integrators can use their own license obtained as part of the development license or partner program.
- Run the AEM Demo Machine GUI by double-clicking in “demomachine.jar” in the extracted folder
- Go to “Infrastructure > All in one setup” and let it finish
- This is going to download roughly 500Mb of software, so a good quality Internet access is required
- Add the path to FFMPEG binaries {demomachinehome}/ffmpeg to your system PATH variable
- Special instructions apply on Windows and Unix for MySQL
- (VPN) Setup the Marketing Cloud Integrations
- In the Demo Machine GUI, go to “New>Demo Properties”
- Click on "One Click Setup"
- Save your changes
- Now perform the following, to update some additional properties:
- set the “AdobeID.user” property to [your Adobe ID username or email address]
- set the “AdobeID.password” property to [your Adobe ID password]
- set the "demo.communities.featurepack" property to the desired feature pack, e.g. "aem61-fp3" (without the double-quotes!) or "aem61-fp4" or "aem62-fp1" or "aem63-sp1"
- set the "demo.communities.enablement" property to "true" (without the double-quotes!)
- Hit save on the GUI window where properties are loaded and then hit apply
- Download latest hotfixes, without Step 7 you can't download the hotfixes
- Go to "Other > Download Latest Hotfixes (PackageShare)" in the Demo Machine GUI
- Download latest feature packs, without Step 7, you can’t download the packages
- Go to “Add-ons > Communities>Download Packages (PackageShare)” in the Demo Machine GUI
- (VPN) Download AEM jar file by going to “Other>AEM & License files (VPN)>Download AEM 6.x” in the Demo Machine GUI (6.1, 6.2...)
- In the Demo Machine GUI, go to New > Demo Environment
- demo config: Demo (Communities)
- topology: Author and Publish
- aem/cq .jar: aem61.jar or aem62.jar or aem63.jar
- micro-kernel: tarmk
- communities: MSRP if possible, or JSRP if not
- Wait for the build to complete - approximately 20 minutes.
- Check the main Communities demo site on the Publish instance.
(VPN): Make sure you are on the Adobe VPN before starting this download. If you do not have access to the Adobe VPN, replace these steps accordingly.
The main demo users and credentials are:
- On Publish:
- [email protected] (community moderator)
- [email protected] (community member)
- On Author:
- [email protected] (community administrator)
- [email protected] (enablement manager)
If you want to prepare your existing AEM author and publish instances for AEM Communities demo, without having the AEM instances setup by the demo machine:
- From the Demo Machine GUI, set the "demo.external" to "true"
- From the Demo Machine GUI, set the "demo.communities.upload" to "true"
- From the Demo Machine GUI, run the "Add-on / Communities / Install add-on" command