An experience exclusively for the Author.
Updated April 24, 2015

An experience exclusively for the Author.

Vagner Polund | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

6.0

Overall Satisfaction with Adobe Experience Manager

Since I work at a agency named Axis41 I have worked extensively with the product. It was formally known as CQ but has since been rebranded as AEM. Initially CQ started as a enterprise level CMS (Content Management System). Since then Adobe has integrated many different solutions into AEM. It excels at managing web content for large scale enterprise websites. It has many web content management facets as well such as: Personalization, Digital Asset Management, Analytics, and many other solutions on the way.
  • Manages web content with an intuitive WYSIWYG authoring experience.
  • Manages Digital Assets used by your website such as images, audio, documents, etc.
  • Creates an simple easy to use experience to generate web content. Centers all web content generation around the author.
  • A lot of the OOB (Out Of the Box) components are still a little buggy and not fully ready to go without some minor tweaks.
  • Since the software was acquired not too long ago by Adobe, a lot of Adobe integrated solutions are not fully baked yet. That is getting better with time.
  • Easier authoring experience for web management
  • Easy management of digital assets and other web content
  • Amazing server side caching strategy and invalidation
Much simpler than SharePoint and by far much easier to develop as well. Getting a unique look and feel into a SharePoint is like pulling teeth compared to Adobe Experience Manager. I also felt that the authoring experience was simpler and easier in Adobe Experience Manager as well. If I had the choice between the two, I would definitely choose AEM.
Adobe is an enterprise level software that is best suited for large amounts of web content. The entire web management experience is engineered around the author. It is a large solution with many capabilities readily available to you out of the box.

Adobe Experience Manager Implementation

Depending on your individual needs, It is really quite simple to create an authoring experience for a website that looks really good. I have been part of many implementations and many teams and have seen many projects that were super successful and others that were not implemented well. AEM has room for a lot of flexibility in the implementation process compared to other CMS like SharePoint.
Yes - The first phase was a primary focused on the engineering the page templates and basic components that authors would use to edit simple content.
The second phase focused on more complex components and current component enhancements.
Not sure - Since AEM is divided into components, change came rather easily depending on how the component was initially developed. I have been on many projects that started to deteriorate due to the fact that bad coding practices were used. The biggest thing I've seen is too much business login in JSP files. With the advent of sightly however a lot of these bad coding practices are disappearing. Easy maintenance comes as a result of well thought out designs.
  • How can I Migrate content from a Relational Database CMS (like Drupal) into AEM?
  • How can I integrate information from a SOAP service into my web content?
  • How can I import content from html files into AEM and automatically create author-able content from static html files.

Using Adobe Experience Manager

I personally feel that AEM is very intuitive to use from an authoring standpoint. The entire CMS was engineered around the author. Everything about AEM is geared to helping authors generate and maintain content. There are ways that tool tips can be customized so that any individual could simply hover over and be guided step by step on how to author web content
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
Inconsistent
  • Author content directly on a web page. Their WYSIWYG interface is very intuitive and simple to use.
  • Manage Digital content such as pictures, music, and movies that is used by my web pages
  • Publish new content fast and keep all live web content up to date.
  • Workflow implementation such as making an approval processes. They are a bit clunky and don't always function well
  • Redirects and vanity URLs can turn into a harry mess if you have too many
  • Creating newsletters are frustrating since the OOB newsletter are buggy
Yes - The new touch UI allows you to author content from any mobile device with relative ease. Before in 5.6 you did not have the capability to author content from an iPad. Now with the new Coral UI interface, everything is a simple touch. The main drawback comes from widgets that have large editing dialogs. If a widget has a editing dialog that has too many configuration options, it is very difficult to see in the dialog. You have to scroll through the dialog to see all the options. This can be frustrating if your on a cell phone.