Configure the Adobe Experience Manager Connector

Updated

Use this guide after reviewing Ingesting Data with a CMS DXP Connector.

Configure the Adobe Experience Manager Connector

Use the AEM connector to synchronize published AEM pages and assets with your SearchStax Site Search App. The connector extracts AEM content and metadata, sends it to SearchStax, and supports both incremental indexing and full indexing.

Prerequisites

Before you configure the connector, make sure you have:

  • Access to AEM Author.
  • Access to Tools > Searchstax Connector in AEM.
  • SearchStax API endpoints and tokens for search, indexing, auto-suggest, analytics, discovery, or geocoding features your implementation uses.
  • A list of AEM metadata properties, language mappings, and content paths that should be indexed.

1. Open AEM Package Manager

  1. Log in to AEM Author.
  2. Go to Tools > Deployment.
  3. Select Packages.
    AEM Tools screen with Deployment selected and the Packages card highlighted.
  4. In CRX Package Manager, select Upload Package.
    AEM CRX Package Manager toolbar with Upload Package highlighted.

2. Open the Searchstax Connector in AEM

  1. Log in to AEM Author.
  2. Go to Tools.
  3. Select Searchstax Connector.

The Searchstax Connector Tools screen includes cards for Indexing Configurations, API Configuration, Metadata Field Mapping Configurations, Language Mapping Configurations, Email Configurations, and Indexing Report.

AEM Tools screen showing the Searchstax Connector option and related configuration screens.

3. Configure Indexing Settings

Use Indexing Configuration Settings to enable the connector, define the content paths monitored for incremental indexing, exclude paths that shouldn't be indexed, and select supported file types for asset indexing.

  • Enable Connector: Turn on the connector before running full indexing or processing incremental events. When disabled, indexing events are ignored and no requests are sent to SearchStax.
  • Root Paths: Add content paths monitored for incremental indexing, such as /content/wknd or /content/dam.
  • Indexing Exclude Paths: Add paths to ignore during incremental indexing, such as test or archive sections.
  • Allowed File Types For Asset Indexing: Choose the asset file types to index. The connector guide lists common document, image, video, text, and JSON formats.
AEM Indexing Configuration Settings screen with connector enablement, root paths, exclude paths, allowed file types, and Run full indexing button.

4. Configure SearchStax APIs

From the Tools screen, select API Configuration to open Search Configuration Settings and connect AEM to the SearchStax endpoints used by your implementation.

  • General: Configure the endpoint URL, API token, and connection test settings.
  • Search & Indexing: Configure the Select endpoint and token, Update endpoint and token, and Auto-Suggest API.
  • Discovery: Configure related-searches and popular-searches endpoints and the Discovery API key when you use Discovery features.
  • Analytics: Configure the tracking URL, tracking key, reporting endpoint, and reporting token when your implementation sends analytics.
  • Geocoding: Configure forward and reverse geocoding endpoints when your search experience uses location-based features.

Use the General tab to configure the connector endpoint URL and API token, then test the connection. Use the other tabs for the SearchStax features your implementation needs.

AEM Search Configuration Settings page, opened from API Configuration, showing the General tab with endpoint, token, and Test Configuration controls.

5. Configure Metadata and Language Mapping

Use Metadata Field Mapping Configuration to map AEM metadata properties to SearchStax index fields. You can select predefined AEM and JCR properties such as jcr:title, jcr:description, and cq:tags, or enter custom AEM properties.

For each mapping, choose the SearchStax index field name, field type, whether the mapping is enabled, and whether the field is mandatory during indexing.

AEM Metadata Field Mapping Configuration screen showing AEM metadata fields mapped to SearchStax index fields and field types.

Use Language Mapping Configuration to map AEM languages to SearchStax language codes. English is preconfigured and enabled by default. Add additional mappings for multilingual websites. Enable each mapping that should apply during full and incremental indexing.

AEM Language Mapping Configuration screen showing an enabled English language mapping.

6. Configure Email Notifications

Use Email Configuration when administrators should receive connector notifications, such as indexing failure alerts or test emails.

  • SMTP Server: Configure SMTP Host, SMTP Port, SMTP User, SMTP Password, and From Email. Select Use SSL and Use StartTLS as required by your mail server.
  • Notifications: Turn on Notify on indexing failures and add the Receiver Emails that should receive failure notifications.
  • Send Test Email: Send a test message to verify SMTP connectivity, authentication, and delivery before relying on failure notifications.
AEM Email Configuration screen showing From Email, Use SSL, Use StartTLS, Receiver Emails, and Send Test Email controls.

7. Use Incremental Indexing

Incremental indexing keeps SearchStax synchronized with content changes in AEM. When an eligible page or asset is published, updated, unpublished, or deleted, the connector processes the event and updates the SearchStax index.

Before using incremental indexing, confirm that the connector is enabled, root paths and exclude paths are configured, API connectivity is verified, and metadata and language mappings match your implementation.

  • Pages: Publish new, updated, or multiple selected pages from AEM Author to index them in SearchStax. Republish modified pages to synchronize the latest content.
  • Assets: Assets referenced by published pages are indexed automatically when the page is published. Publish an asset directly from AEM Assets when it needs to be indexed independently.
  • Removals: Unpublish a page or asset in AEM to remove the corresponding document from SearchStax.

To verify incremental indexing, go to Tools > Searchstax Connector > Indexing Report, open the Incremental Indexing tab, and confirm the operation completed successfully.

8. Run Full Indexing

Use full indexing when you need a complete synchronization of published AEM content and assets with SearchStax, such as initial setup, creating or rebuilding an index, after large content migrations, or after updating metadata or language mappings.

  1. Go to Tools > Searchstax Connector > Indexing Configurations.
  2. Review the root paths, indexing exclude paths, and allowed file types.
  3. Update the configuration as needed, then click Save.
  4. Click Run full indexing.

Only published pages and assets are considered during full indexing. Unpublished content is ignored.

AEM Indexing Configuration Settings screen with root paths, exclude paths, allowed file types, and Run full indexing button.

Monitor full indexing in Tools > Searchstax Connector > Indexing Report on the Full Reindex tab. If the operation fails, review the report message.

AEM Indexing Report screen showing the Incremental Indexing and Full Reindex tabs, action and status filters, and an empty event table.

The Incremental Indexing tab shows SUCCESS, FAILURE, and SKIPPED events from the last 24 hours. Events are automatically removed after 24 hours.

9. Verify Indexed Content

  1. Confirm the indexing status is SUCCESS in the Indexing Report.
  2. Open SearchStax Studio for the configured index.
  3. Verify that the expected published pages and assets are available.

Depending on the SearchStax environment and indexing workload, newly indexed content may take approximately 5 to 7 minutes to become visible in SearchStax Studio.

10. Add the SearchStudio Search Component

The SearchStudio Search component lets AEM authors add a SearchStax-powered search bar to AEM pages. Before adding it, configure the Select endpoint and Select endpoint token in the Search & Indexing tab of API Configuration.

  1. In AEM Author, go to Tools > General > Templates.
  2. Open the required editable template.
  3. Select the layout container and open its Policy.
  4. Under Allowed Components, expand Searchstax AEM Connector Project - Content and select SearchStudio Search.
  5. Click Done.

To add the component to a page, open the page in Edit mode, select the layout container, click the add component icon, and select SearchStudio Search. Verify the integration by previewing or publishing the page, entering a search keyword, and confirming that results are returned from the configured SearchStax Select endpoint.

What's next?

After you verify the AEM index, preview your search in SearchStax.

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