Case Study

Cloudinary for SAP Commerce

Unifying the Commerce Experience: A Seamless Cloudinary DAM Integration for SAP Commerce.

Executive Summary

From chaos to clarity: smarter asset management inside SAP Commerce

Cloudinary, the industry leader in cloud-based image and video management, empowers thousands of brands to deliver optimal digital experiences. For clients on SAP Commerce, managing a world-class digital asset library alongside a powerful commerce engine created significant operational drag. The lack of native integration forced content teams into inefficient, manual workflows, increasing operational costs, slowing down time-to-market for campaigns, and risking brand inconsistency.

Portaltech Reply developed the SAP Commerce Connector for Cloudinary, a comprehensive solution that deeply integrates the Cloudinary DAM across the entire SAP Commerce suite.

This provides SAP Commerce customers with critical capabilities they previously lacked: a single source of truth for all digital assets, true content agility for business users, and a future-proof media strategy for any storefront. By embedding key features like the Cloudinary Media Library directly into the Backoffice and SmartEdit, and enabling dynamic transformations that allow teams to adapt imagery on-the-fly without costly photoshoots, the connector eliminates workflow friction. The result is a dramatic increase in content velocity, a significant reduction in operational overhead, and a powerful, unified platform for both traditional and composable commerce.

Cloudinary is a market-leading SaaS technology company that provides a comprehensive, cloud-based platform for managing the entire lifecycle of digital assets. Trusted by over 10,000 businesses worldwide, from innovative startups to global enterprises, Cloudinary's solutions are essential for developers and marketers looking to optimise and deliver rich media at scale. Their platform streamlines image and video management, enabling brands to create visually engaging and high-performing digital experiences across all channels.

For brands leveraging both Cloudinary's powerful DAM and the robust capabilities of SAP Commerce, a critical operational gap hindered their ability to work at scale. Business users faced a fragmented and inefficient content workflow that created a "swivel-chair" problem between the two platforms.

The primary pain point was the lack of deep integration. A content manager's typical process involved manually moving assets and data between systems, a workflow that was slow, prone to error, and created unnecessary dependencies. The client's goal was to create a single, fluid experience where a user could manage their entire digital asset lifecycle—from upload and transformation to storefront delivery—without ever leaving the familiar SAP Commerce environment. This required a solution that went beyond a simple media selector, encompassing the Backoffice, content synchronisation, and delivery to both accelerator-based and modern composable (headless) storefronts. The key technical limitation was that the standard SmartEdit customisation options were insufficient for this level of deep, metadata-based DAM integration.

Portaltech Reply engineered a holistic, enterprise-grade integration by developing the SAP Commerce Connector for Cloudinary. The solution provides a rich set of features that are seamlessly embedded into the daily workflows of SAP Commerce users, covering everything from initial setup to advanced storefront experiences.

  • Centralised Backoffice Configuration: The connector introduces a dedicated Cloudinary module within the SAP Backoffice. This allows administrators to manage the entire integration from one place, including API credentials, default folder paths, and global transformation settings for different product and content catalogs.

  • Embedded Media Library: We eliminated the need to switch between dashboards by embedding the Cloudinary Media Library directly into the SAP Commerce Backoffice and SmartEdit. When creating or updating a product, banner, or any other media-dependent component, users can now launch the Cloudinary library, browse their entire asset repository, and select images or videos with a single click.

  • Automated Synchronisation and Transformations: The solution includes robust cronjobs for synchronising media and applying transformations. This allows for bulk updates and ensures that any changes made in SAP Commerce (like associating an image with a new product category) can trigger powerful, automated transformations in Cloudinary, such as applying a specific watermark or overlay.

  • Enhanced Storefront Delivery: The connector is built for the modern web. It delivers optimised, transformed Cloudinary assets to both traditional accelerator storefronts and modern composable (headless) frontends. This includes support for advanced features like the Cloudinary Product Gallery for rich Product Detail Pages and a dedicated Cloudinary Video Player component for immersive brand storytelling.

This end-to-end solution provides a fast, intuitive, and fully integrated user experience that bridges the gap between a world-class DAM and a leading commerce platform.

The SAP Commerce Connector for Cloudinary transformed the client's content management process from a cumbersome, multi-system task into a fluid, single-interface operation.

  • Unified Workflow & Increased Efficiency: The most significant outcome is the elimination of separate dashboards. Content managers can now perform all media-related tasks—from selection and transformation to placement—without ever leaving the SAP Commerce environment. This has drastically reduced the time and complexity required to manage campaign and product imagery.

  • Enhanced Content Velocity: By streamlining the entire workflow, business teams can now build and update rich media experiences significantly faster. This agility is critical for reacting to market trends and launching new products and campaigns on schedule.

  • Empowered Business Users: The connector empowers marketing and content teams with full autonomy over their digital assets. The intuitive interface and powerful automation features have eliminated the need for developer assistance for routine content updates, fostering greater independence and creativity.

Before vs. After Snapshot:

  • Before: A fragmented process involving multiple dashboards, manual downloads, and re-uploads.

  • After: A unified, end-to-end process within a single interface: find, select, transform, and publish, all from within SAP Commerce.

Key Takeaways and Why It Matters.

  • Deep Integration Unlocks True Value: A successful connector goes beyond surface-level links. The key to this project's success was creating a deeply embedded workflow that automated and simplified the entire media lifecycle, leading to maximum efficiency gains.

  • A Holistic Solution is Essential: The connector's value comes from its presence across the entire platform—Backoffice for configuration, SmartEdit for content management, and the storefront for optimised delivery. This holistic approach ensures a consistent and powerful experience for all users.

  • Empowering Users Reduces Bottlenecks: The most effective technical solutions are those that empower business users. By putting the full power of the Cloudinary DAM directly into the hands of content managers within their familiar commerce platform, this connector removed dependencies and accelerated the entire content lifecycle

Speak with us to see how Portaltech delivers measurable impact.