Bulk import assets feature in AEM as Cloud allows administrators to import large number of assets in bulk from cloud storage like Azure, Amazon S3, Google Cloud, Dropbox and onedrive in a safe and efficient manner. This feature is available both in Admin view as well as Asset view. In this tutorial , i will cover how to import bulk assets using Azure in Asset view.

There are two main use case for using bulk import feature in AEM as Cloud :-

• First when someone is planning to migrated from AEM 6.5 on premise / AMS to AEMAsCloud environment because this is generally a one time activity Admin view is used to create the configurations and bulk import is performed.
• Secondly, when you have assets coming from multiple sources and you don’t want to provide all of the vendors AEM access for bulk import. In that case they can bulk upload assets to any cloud storage provider and in AEM Administrators or Content Approvers run the bulk import feature to constantly consume assets in bulk. In this tutorial , we will focus on this second use case.

In this tutorial, we will cover below topics :-

• How to access AEM Asset View.
• Prerequisites for Bulk Import Assets
• Create Bulk Import Configuration in AEMAsCloud for Azure
• Important points to remember during bulk import

Accessing Asset View in AEM:-

You can access the Assets view in the following ways :-

• Login to AEM cloud instance.
• Navigates to assets folder
• Click on profile icon on top right corner.
• Click on Switch view.

• To use Assets View, log in at https://experience.adobe.com/#/@<Program-Name>/assets. When logging in, select Company or School Account. For Example:- https://experience.adobe.com/#/@abccompany/assets

Note:- If you are not able to see Switch View option or Asset view under cloud Programs then contact your organization’s administrator to receive access.

Prerequisites for Bulk Asset Import :-

• Azure Storage Account
• Azure Blob Container
• Azure Access Key or SAS Token based on the authentication mode

Create Bulk Import Configuration in AEMAsCloud for Azure :-

Once the prerequisites are completed, follow below steps to create bulk import asset configuration in AEMAsCloud for Azure :-

• Navigate to Asset view Workspace.
• Click Bulk Import in left pane and click Create Import.

• Select the Azure data source from available options.
• Specify a name for the bulk import configuration in the Name field.
• Specify the data source specific credentials. There are 2 ways to add credentials, using Azure Access Key or Azure SAS Token.
  Note:- We will use the Access Key approach for our AzureStorageAccount , Access key we can get from Azure portal.

• Provide name of the root folder that contains assets in the data source in the Source Folder field.
  https://azuredev.blob.core.windows.net/ankur-test-container/ test-bulk-upload /comic mugshot small.jpg then specify ankur-test-container/test-bulk-upload in the Source Folder field.
  Note:- If we keep source folder as empty then it will take it as root folder.
• (Optional) Select the Delete source file after import option to delete the original files from the source data store after the files are imported into Experience Manager Assets.
• Select the Import Mode. Select Skip, Replace, or Create Version. Skip mode is the default and in this mode, the ingestor skips to import an asset if it exists already.

• (Optional) Specify the metadata file to import, provided in CSV format, in the Metadata File field. The metadata source file must be in the source folder. Click Next to navigate to Location & Filters.
• To define a location in DAM where assets are to be imported using the Assets Target Folder field, specify a path. For example, /content/dam/imported_assets.
• (Optional) In the Choose Filters section, provide the minimum file size of assets in MB to include them in the ingestion process in the Filter by Min Size field.
• (Optional) Provide the maximum file size of assets in MB to include them in the ingestion process in the Filter by Max Size field.
• (Optional) Select the MIME types to include in the ingestion process using the Include MIME Type field. You can select multiple MIME types within this field. If you do not define a value, all MIME types are included in the ingestion process.
• (Optional) Select the MIME types to exclude in the ingestion process using the Exclude MIME Type field. You can select multiple MIME types within this field. If you do not define a value, all MIME types are included in the ingestion process.

Click Next. Select one of the following options as per your preference:-

• Save import to save the configuration for now so that you can run it later.
• Save & run import to save the configuration and run the bulk import.
• Save & schedule import to save the configuration and schedule the bulk import for a later time. You can choose the frequency of the bulk import, and set the date and time for the import. The bulk import will run on the set date and time in the chosen frequency.

Click Save to execute the selected option.

Important points to remember during bulk import

Handling filenames during bulk import :-

When you import assets or folders in bulk, Experience Manager Assets imports the whole structure of what exists in the import source. Experience Manager follows the inbuilt rules for special characters in the asset and folder names, therefore these filenames need sanitization. For both folder name and asset name, the title defined by the user remains unchanged and is stored in jcr:title. For more info folder names during bulk import, see Handling filenames during bulk import in Admin view.

Perform a dry run before executing an import :-

Click  corresponding to the configuration name and click Dry Run to invoke a test run for the Bulk Import job. Experience Manager Assets displays the following details about the Bulk Import job:-

Adding Processing Profiles :-

To do additional processing on the uploaded assets, you can apply processing profiles on the upload folders. The profiles are available in the Properties page of a folder in Assets. These processing profiles will be applied on assets only after asset if fully imported/uploaded in AEM.