The Grand Journey: Driving Content Management, Workflow & UX - Adobe Summit 2022

Hi everyone! And welcome to our session, “The Grand Journey: Driving Content Management, Workflow, and UX”! In this session we will share how we helped Grand Design RV transform their digital experience and work management using Adobe Experience Manager, and Adobe Workfront. 

By the end of this session, you’ll have a better understanding of:

• How Workfront can streamline and organize your company’s workflow.
• How Experience Manager can transform corporate asset management into an organized and workable solution
• And finally, how combining systems together with AEM can bring faster content velocity for your authoring teams

I’m Lauren McCumber, and I am a Senior Solutions Consultant here at Hoodoo Digital. I’d like to start by telling you a little bit about who we are here at Hoodoo. We work with clients in a variety of industries who are looking to evolve and upgrade their digital experience with the Adobe Experience Cloud technology stack. 

We are Platinum level Adobe partners, holding several Adobe Experience Cloud specializations, focused on helping customers with Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, and Adobe Workfront. We have an expert team of developers, architects, QA, creatives, and consultants dedicated to solving your business needs. 

At the start of the year, we were acquired by Rightpoint, a Genpact company. Rightpoint helps their clients embed experience across their operations from front to back office to accelerate digital transformation through a human-centric lens. Our skill sets are complementary, and as part of Rightpoint, we are excited to be able to offer a full suite of digital experience solutions. 

I’m extremely happy to be joined today by Tom Holt, the Director of Brand Experience and Marketing Operations from Grand Design RV. We’ve had the privilege of working with Tom and his team since January 2021. 

We collaborated with the great people at GDRV to help them transform their digital experience, both internally and externally. Tom has been driving this transformation at GDRV, helping to set them up to deliver extraordinary user experiences. 

So I’ll hand it over to him to tell us a little more about GDRV.

Hi, I’m Tom Holt, and I am the Director of Brand Experience and Marketing Operations for Grand Design RV, or GDRV for short. To give you a little bit of background on who we are as a company, Grand Design RV has been in business since 2013, and it was built from the ground up with the singular goal to improve the RV ownership experience.     

While we have seen growth during this time, in the last 6 years our growth has increased exponentially - making us the third largest producer of towable recreational vehicles in North America. Beyond that, we are the fastest growing company ever in the history of recreational vehicles.

As I’m sure you can imagine, when we hit 2020, and airline travel became potentially hazardous, many people turned their attention to RVs. While this has been great for business, it also highlighted some significant deficiencies in our organization.

Naturally, since our primary focus is to improve the entire RV ownership experience, having a website that wasn’t tailored to this new digital experience was not an option.

So we took the time to evaluate the feedback we were receiving on our digital experience - both internally and externally, and we found we had several problems. 

• The first was an internal work process that was chaotic and unorganized
• Second, a large volume of assets that were disorganized and inefficient to update and manage, on top of a self-managed and out of date website platform
• And finally, multiple complicated integrations that required significant developer resources and made content updating a nightmare.

With those issues in mind, we partnered with Hoodoo to find solutions to address these concerns. So let’s talk about those concerns in more detail.

Challenge #1: Disorganized workflows and processes

Our first problem was an issue of standardized protocols. Our workflows were broken and utterly lacking in consistency across the company for our in-house teams. 

On any given day, the workflows, action items, and documentation could consist of everything from emails, to face-to-face conversations in the hallway, to post-it notes left on a desk. 

Beyond simply inefficient and inconsistent communication, the tools that we did have available were not integrated. As you can imagine, this was problematic to begin with, but as we began to grow at unprecedented rates, it shifted from problematic to costly. 

So, we adopted Workfront to help address the problems we were having and then turned to Hoodoo to guide us through the implementation process.

Solution #1: Use Workfront to streamline processes

To address this issue we utilized Workfront to streamline their request and delivery process. 

Simply put, they needed to establish trackable protocols that provided visibility to the rest of the team members. 

For those who may not be familiar, Adobe Workfront is a work management application that helps organizations manage the entire lifecycle of work in a single location. Workfront provides users with the ability to manage projects, assign tasks, issues, requests, and even resources to help standardize processes and establish governance.

Our first step was to determine the types of asset requests GDRV required and evaluate the processes they currently had in place to meet these requests. We relied on the capabilities of Workfront to streamline these processes. Users will now submit requests into a queue where they will then be evaluated and prioritized. From there, a new project will be created in Workfront. 

The next step was to create asset request templates. These templates captured all the steps in the creation of an asset to ensure they were consistent and could be tracked every step of the way. When a project uses templates, completing certain steps will automatically trigger specific actions, including the necessary approvals.

Overall this had several outcomes for GDRV. First was that it standardized their asset request protocols. It also took a disorganized and inconsistent system with no visibility and transitioned it into something with high visibility and tracking, enabling the team to evaluate and prioritize tasks and respond if timelines were slipping. 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what this type of workflow would look like.

Demo #1: Workfront

We’re going to start by making a new request!  Say we need an updated image for new marketing material for the Momentum RV. As a marketer, I would log into Workfront and head over to my request queue. 

In this queue when we click on “new request,” we are given a selection of the types of requests GDRV generally receives. After selecting a request, you will be required to fill out specific information relating to the type of request you’ve selected. 

For the purposes of this demonstration, we have created a pre-populated request. You can see for this project, the required information includes things like the goal of this campaign, target audience, and target due date. There are also optional fields including general information, asset types, and file format.

Once submitted, you can view the request you just created, as well as all of your open requests, their status, if they have been turned into projects, and much more. 

To simplify this further, we used a plugin to connect Workfront with Outlook, making it even easier for GDRV to submit project requests directly from their email client. 

Now, let’s look at it from the project manager perspective. You’ll see that I can review all submitted requests, including the one we just submitted. As the project manager, I need to turn this request into a project. I’m going to use project templates to automatically create the project workflow, duration, and necessary approvals which were predetermined by the template I selected.

Now your team can see exactly where a project is, who has the current tasks, and whether or not the project is meeting timelines. For GDRV, Workfront allowed them to standardize their project request and management processes, ensuring that they weren’t relying on illegible post-it notes and hallway conversations to track their project requests.

Challenge #2: Out of date CMS + Disorganized & inaccessible assets

The next issue we faced was asset storage and access. The first part of this problem is that we were using an out-of-date, self-managed system. This system wasn’t easy to author and was poorly connected with our assets. 

The second facet was that our assets were scattered and disorganized, stored in a myriad of systems that weren’t universally accessible across our company.

It’s important to keep in mind that we work in a product-based industry, and as a result, we have a tremendously robust body of assets that we need to store, access, and share with our customers. We had no system in place to effectively search for and utilize our assets. 

This not only led to inefficiencies, but it also created issues with versioning, large-file-transfer, and members of our team storing files on their local machines or other disparate systems. Beyond that, it was relatively problematic for our content authoring process on our self-managed system. 

We decided to use Adobe Experience Manager with a unique Workfront integration to address this, and I’ll turn the presentation back to Lauren to talk about what that looked like.

Solution #2: Connect AEM and Workfront

Since we’ve mentioned AEM a couple times now, it might be good to just make sure everyone knows what it is. Simply put, Adobe Experience Manager is the industry leading content management system for companies looking to create, manage, optimize, and deliver personalized digital experiences, assets, and forms to customers across all their various digital channels.

GDRV selected AEM to create and manage their digital experiences, and we used the Workfront For Experience Manager Enhanced Connector to help them continue to streamline their processes. This ensured that the assets and their relevant metadata were delivered to the DAM from Workfront. We then utilized Experience Manager Assets and dynamic media to automate asset access across media platforms.

Here’s how this worked: When assets were created and approved in Workfront, they would automatically be sent to the DAM. We set up AEM with metadata schemas to ensure that it captured the necessary data for each asset created. This means that when the asset was delivered to the DAM, it could automatically be stored, searched, and organized into specific project brand folders. 

Beyond that, if the GDRV team ever needed to update a particular asset, once it was updated in the DAM, it was automatically updated across all web instances, including Experience Manager Sites. This was especially useful when their product team updates information related to specifications, floorplans, or imagery. 

In this next demonstration, we’ll show you how to push an asset through to the DAM containing all of the relevant metadata.

Demo #2: Asset syncing between Workfront and AEM

One of the best ways to organize and search for Assets in AEM is to ensure that you have established metadata profiles that are relevant to your assets and your business. 

With the Workfront for Experience Manager enhanced connector, we can apply metadata to assets during our project workflows. In this demo, we’ll start with an asset that has not completed the approval process. 

With this unapproved asset, I’m going to attach a Custom Form by selecting Asset Metadata rom the dropdown menu. This will open the custom form that has data fields I need to apply to this asset.

From there, I will enter the appropriate metadata information into the form and click save. This has allowed us to tie the necessary details to the asset in Workfront. Once this is complete and the asset has been approved, Workfront will automatically send it to the linked folder in AEM. I can also drag the asset to the same linked folder at the top of the page. Both of these methods will push the asset and all its related information from Workfront to Experience Manager.

You can view the approved assets that have already been sent to the DAM in the linked folder. What you see here is also what you’ll see in AEM. For example here is an approved asset, and all it’s collected metadata. 

You can continue to add metadata to an asset and it will have a bidirectional sync between Experience Manager and Workfront - so teams in Workfront can see any changes that are happening in AEM. 

For GDRV, including asset metadata in their Workfront workflows has not only made their team more efficient, but it has also helped ensure that their assets have consistent and functional metadata. AEM as a whole has allowed GDRV to store all their assets in a single location, making them accessible to anyone that needs them. 

Challenge #3: Back Office Database disconnected from CMS

One of the most important parts of our business, both internally and externally, is our product specifications. This information is one of the first things that customers look at - it’s incredibly detailed and a crucial component of our website. 

All of our spec information lives in a system we call the Back Office Database, or the BOD. Part of the problem we faced was getting the data from the BOD into our website as manual entry was very inefficient. Additionally, our specifications in the BOD are updated frequently enough that maintaining them on the website and in the BOD created a fair amount of redundant work. 

As a result, we needed a solution that could integrate our internal database with our website and our DAM. We also needed a website redesign to make it easier for our customers to find the specs they were looking for.

Solution #3:

This was the most unique aspect of the GDRV system requirements. They needed to integrate AEM Assets and Sites with their external database, the Back Office Database, or, as Tom previously mentioned, the BOD. This would automatically update specifications across AEM when they were updated in the BOD. 

To make this even more effective, we created templates to automate pages with this data and ensure consistency across their site. It’s important to note that with things like product specifications, accuracy is paramount. Requiring authors to update the same specification manually across multiple pages and locations is a process with a high margin for error. 

This integration pulled information from the database into content fragments. For those unfamiliar with Content Fragments, think of them as reusable content, composed of elements like text, dates, tags, or references. 

Authors would then use a shortcut to populate the BOD information from content fragments into the page itself. With page templates, using this integration allowed authors to quickly create consistent and accurate pages.

For the final demonstration, we’ll walk through the BOD integration, and show you how easily the authors can create pages using this templated system within AEM.

Demo #3:

The purpose of connecting the Back Office Database with AEM was to ensure consistency, accuracy, and efficiency when authoring the website. 

We set up this integration so that the specs for each model populated content fragments in Experience Manager. These content fragments, like you see here, include specifications such as standard options for the kitchen, electrical, bathroom, etc. 

Now that we’ve taken a look at how the data from the BOD is being integrated into AEM, let’s go over to see how we can use this information to populate our pages. I’ve made a sample page for the purpose of this demonstration.

The author will start by adding a page property that identifies the RV model. For GDRV, we’ve added a new tab in the properties called Back Office Content Fragment where the author will select the RV model. 

From there, just like standard authoring, the author can put any component on the page. When they open the component dialog, they can call up data from the BOD by typing a dollar sign into the text field. 

This will pull up a menu with information from the BOD pertaining to the model they identified in the page properties. As you can see here, this menu includes information like the model name, MSRP, floorplan name, etc .

Once you’ve selected the feature you want in that component, click okay, and you’ll see the script that tells the component what information should show. You can see the public-facing variable you’ve selected when you view it as a published page.

We’ve also set up page templates to make authoring easier. What you’re looking at right now is the floorplan page template for GDRV. Authors simply select the model in the page properties, and those components will be completely populated without any further work from the author. 

This will create very consistent pages across each of the RV brands and models throughout the site. And you can see what the public-facing page looks like when you View it as Published.

Since data in the BOD changes with relative frequency, we have set up the system so that the BOD importer will run every night. When this happens, it will automatically update and republish any pages that contain new information. 

When you look at the volume of content GDRV has to contend with, integrating information from the BOD with Experience Manager not only improves their team’s efficiency, but it also ensures that the content on their website is accurate and consistent. This is critical to ensuring that their customers have the best buying experience possible.

Summary

GDRV used integrations between Workfront, AEM, and their Back Office Database to maximize their content velocity, ensuring a faster time to value. With the help of Hoodoo, they connected these three disparate systems to make sure their team could efficiently get information into the hands of dealers and potential buyers. GDRV now has a well-thought-out website that scales to fit their needs.

As you think about how these systems might be applied to your business, there are three key takeaways you should consider.

1. Make sure your workflows are working for you
2. “We’ve always done it this way” is not a legitimate excuse to continue using ineffective or impractical workflows. Really dig in and evaluate whether or not your business workflows are working effectively and efficiently.
   
   
3. You can use integrations to maximize your technology stack
4. Many companies don’t consider the power of integrations when they evaluate their disparate technologies. The fact of the matter is, if you have systems with related information, you should take some time to evaluate whether or not integrating those two systems will serve you better in the long run.
   
   Adobe Experience Manager is a platform that can integrate with a myriad of third-party systems, and you shouldn’t pigeonhole yourself with the idea that your technology stacks are separate and thus can’t share information.
    
5. Design with your future state in mind
6. This encompasses a variety of aspects. The first being the logistical storage of your system. GDRV used Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service to alleviate the main pain points that come with on-site hosting. Primarily security, maintenance, management, and versioning.
   
   By choosing Experience Manager as a Cloud Service, they took the burden of server management off their internal team, allowing them to focus on projects that can help move the needle.
   
   Beyond the impact of the location of your system, you should be thinking about things like how to set your site up to make it versatile, scalable, and integrated. 

Keeping these things in mind as you go through the process of evolving your digital presence can be crucial in maximizing your ROI today and in the future.

We have found that things have been so successful with Workfront and Experience Manager that we’re going to continue to partner with Adobe and Hoodoo to heavily invest in additional Adobe Experience Cloud products like Adobe Commerce and Adobe Experience Platform, as well as systems like Sprinklr and Drift for expanded social and chat functionality.

Thanks to everyone who made it over to our presentation! We hope you are as excited as we are for the year GrandDesign RV has in store!

If you have any questions please reach out to Hoodoo Digital - unless it’s for an RV. Then reach out to Grand Design. Thanks, Tom! And thanks everyone for joining. We’ll see you on the open road.