Use Dash to Build to Web Apps on Adobe Experience Manager Data

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData Python Connector for Adobe Experience Manager, the pandas module, and the Dash framework, you can build Adobe Experience Manager-connected web applications for Adobe Experience Manager data. This article shows how to connect to Adobe Experience Manager with the CData Connector and use pandas and Dash to build a simple web app for visualizing Adobe Experience Manager data.

With built-in, optimized data processing, the CData Python Connector offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Adobe Experience Manager data in Python. When you issue complex SQL queries from Adobe Experience Manager, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Adobe Experience Manager and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Adobe Experience Manager Data

Connecting to Adobe Experience Manager data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

The driver connects to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) instances that expose the JCR repository over WebDAV. It supports both on-premises AEM and AEM as a Cloud Service deployments.

To establish a connection, set the following properties:

• URL: The WebDAV-enabled JCR server URL.
  • AEM as a Cloud Service: https://author-pXXXXX-eXXXXX.adobeaemcloud.com/crx/server
  • Local development: http://localhost:4502/crx/server
• User: Your AEM username.
• Password: Your AEM password.

Note: Tables are dynamically generated based on the JCR repository structure. Ensure that the configured user has sufficient permissions to access the required content paths in the AEM repository.

After installing the CData Adobe Experience Manager Connector, follow the procedure below to install the other required modules and start accessing Adobe Experience Manager through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the required modules and frameworks:

pip install pandas
pip install dash
pip install dash-daq

Visualize Adobe Experience Manager Data in Python

Once the required modules and frameworks are installed, we are ready to build our web app. Code snippets follow, but the full source code is available at the end of the article.

First, be sure to import the modules (including the CData Connector) with the following:

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.adobeexperiencemanager as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the connect function for the CData Adobe Experience Manager Connector to create a connection for working with Adobe Experience Manager data.

cnxn = mod.connect("URL=https://author-p12345-e67890.adobeaemcloud.com/crx/server;User=admin;Password=admin;")

Execute SQL to Adobe Experience Manager

Use the read_sql function from pandas to execute any SQL statement and store the result set in a DataFrame.

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Content WHERE Name = 'example'", cnxn)

Configure the Web App

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, we can begin configuring the web app, assigning a name, stylesheet, and title.

app_name = 'dash-adobeexperiencemanageredataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'

Configure the Layout

The next step is to create a bar graph based on our Adobe Experience Manager data and configure the app layout.

trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.Name, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Adobe Experience Manager Content Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

Set the App to Run

With the connection, app, and layout configured, we are ready to run the app. The last lines of Python code follow.

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)

Now, use Python to run the web app and a browser to view the Adobe Experience Manager data.

python adobeexperiencemanager-dash.py

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData Python Connector for Adobe Experience Manager to start building Python apps with connectivity to Adobe Experience Manager data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.adobeexperiencemanager as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

cnxn = mod.connect("URL=https://author-p12345-e67890.adobeaemcloud.com/crx/server;User=admin;Password=admin;")

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Content WHERE Name = 'example'", cnxn)
app_name = 'dash-adobeexperiencemanagerdataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'
trace = go.Bar(x=df.Id, y=df.Name, name='Id')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='Adobe Experience Manager Content Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)