Your AEM Project

For any AEM project with requirements from the business to functionalities required to implement, it is critical for the Analyst to know about Components. Components are the basic building blocks within AEM and will help the author achieve the goal or manage their content or interactions within the platform.

Components allow the user to interact with the site to perform any calculations, scroll through the digital media, present digital media in a certain way, or even integrate third party platforms within AEM. So, it is very important for any AEM team be it the business or consulting side to know their component inventory and usage thoroughly.

Component Syndication

Inventory of components can be summarized under the following categories:

1. Core Component
2. Core Structure Component
3. Core Form Component
4. Core Commerce Components
5. Custom Components

On any project, always start with identifying the different sets of Components. Core Structure Components are the building blocks of any template and would include components like Column Control and Layout Container Components. These components might not always be out of the box and can be part of customized components as well.

Apart from the Core Structure Components, start with core components. These components house the basic content within AEM and are also the building blocks for other custom Components. Analysts should be aware of any customizations within the core components as they might affect other custom components.

When looking at components, they can also be categorized as a functional component that helps display content on the site and Aesthetic components that highlight content on the site. Components can also be back-end components that perform a task for some service that user might not be using or interacting with. These components that do not need authoring or have user input are still very important for working of the complete system.

Aesthetic Components

Aesthetic Components normally are media or asset heavy. Hence performance of the system is very much dependent on these components. Search and look up components can also be part of this group by not requiring input from the author but are still very important to the working of the platform. Functional Components have more calculations or task performances which might not need author input but work independently for the user.

Multidimensional Components

Then there are some that are combination of both. A good example of this would be the Forms Component or Commerce components that require authoring, user input, and perform a back function as well. These components, when used, perform various backend tasks along with some third-party integration and it is very important to know the working and requirements for these components. Any small changes to these components might affect other functionalities as well as content that might exist on the page.

In Closing

Once you know the inventory then you know the scope of the project along with the hours of work that would be needed to perform various tasks. To know how much work is needed on the project, it is imperative to know the number of components that need to be developed and their functionalities.

Aesthetic Components used for Marketing and that enhance a user’s digital experience will take more time as they would be customized for personalization and improved authoring capabilities. These components will also have dynamic media and smart cropping.

Functional components can be quick as long as they don’t have any third-party integration but can be complicated to build and maintain.

If you would like to speak to a Perficient expert about your AEM journey, please do not hesitate to contact us.