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Setting up a multichannel delivery connector in Content Manager

When implementing a multichannel delivery connector, there are some tasks that you need to perform in Content Manager to enable this functionality.

About this task

This task describes how to set up Publications for publishing to external channels that are connected to Tridion Sites through a connector. In addition, to expose the external content to Content Manager users, you also need to configure stub Folders in each Publication.

Procedure

  1. In Content Manager Explorer, define one or more Publications for publishing to each external channel. We recommend that you use a dedicated publication for each channel, similar to how you might create dedicated Publications for different websites.
    1. Create a new Publication and make sure you inherit from an existing Publication in the Blueprint structure.
    2. If no business process types are inherited from the parent Publication, set up a new one now for the new Publication. Make sure your topology is configured accordingly.
    3. In the Publication's properties, set up publishing by selecting a business process type and path mapping for the type. (The path mapping is not used, so it can be set to any value)
  2. For each Publication that you defined for the external channel, configure the Schemas and Multimedia Schemas for templateless, data-only publishing (of "headless" publishing):
    1. For each Schema that will be used in publishing content to the external channel, ensure that the following options are selected on the Schema's General tab:
      • Enable each Schema field to be made publishable when authors publish an item based on this Schema
      • Enable each Schema field to be made searchable for website visitors
    2. On the Schema's Design tab, ensure that the following options are selected for individual fields to be published:
      • Publish this field when you publish an item that uses this Schema
      • Make this field searchable for website visitors
    3. For each Multimedia Schema you want to use for publishing images to the external system, select the same two options on the General tab as you did for the Schemas.
  3. If you will be using images links in your Components, go to Administration > Link Resolver Settings increase the value for the Link Resolver Recursion Depth to something greater than zero.
  4. In each Publication where you want to expose the external content in Content Manager, prepare one or more stub Folders as follows:
    1. Under the Building Blocks node, create a new Folder to contain the stub items for the external system.
    2. Click Save, but keep it open for now.
    3. Go to the Info tab and note the value of the Item URI field, such as tcm:1-10-512. You will need to add this information to your connector's configuration.
    4. Click Save and Close.
    Repeat these steps for additional stub Folders, as needed.
  5. Add the connector to Tridion Sites and configure it for use as a connector in the desired environments.
  6. Return to Content Manager Explorer and use the Refresh option (of F5) to ensure that the connector appears in the user interface.

What to do next

Proceed with the connector setup and create the JSON configuration file.