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Welcome to Experience Manager

Navigation Path: Sidebar → Settings → Experience Manager Direct URL: /org/experience Permission: any one of Manage Org Level Global Settings for StoreFront, Menu Listing of Store Front settings, Open Page Managenet module, Browse & View Service Desk Pages, Manage Essential Customer Pages, Browse & View Orbit Brand Page Content records (org Level)

The Experience Manager is the single place that decides what your public-facing site looks like — brand, navigation menus, headers and footers, and every customer-facing page — across your whole organization and each individual project.

It is a full-screen studio, not a settings form

Opening Experience Manager hides the normal application chrome. The global sidebar and top bar disappear and the studio takes the whole window. To get back to the rest of the portal, use the amber Exit Experience Manager button at the bottom of the left rail — the browser back button works too.

1. The anatomy of the studio​

Figure 1 — The hub. Everything is authored from the left rail; the right pane is the editor for whatever tab is selected. (The project list in the detail pane is blurred here.)
#ControlWhat it does
1Search boxFilters the rail by tab name or surface. Typing force-opens every collapsed surface block, so it is the fastest way to reach a tab you can't see.
2Help & glossary (?)Opens the built-in glossary drawer — 16 terms grouped as Core ideas, The surfaces, Where settings come from and Account pages. Each entry carries an analogy and an "in practice" note.
3Organization panel (blue border)Defaults shared by every project.
4Project panel (amber border)Overrides that apply to one project only. The project is chosen from the picker in this panel's own header.
5Exit Experience ManagerLeaves the full-screen studio and returns you to where you came from.
6Detail paneThe editor for the selected tab. It changes completely per tab — a map, a brand form, a page list, a menu editor.
The blue and amber borders are the whole mental model

Blue = "set once, inherited everywhere." Amber = "applies to this project only, and beats the blue one." If you remember nothing else about this screen, remember the two colours.

2. The left rail — four sections​

Figure 2 — The rail as you first meet it: four sections, every surface block closed.

Overview — a single tab, Landing & URLs: the map of where each public URL sends a visitor. Always visible to everyone who can open the studio.

Brand — shared by every surface. Brand Identity (logo, colours, store name) and Brand Content (About, Privacy, Terms). These are organization-wide; there is no per-project version.

Organization — the defaults every project inherits. Holds Customer & Account Pages, Account Pages — Header/Footer, the read-only Site Map, and one collapsible block per audience surface.

Project — overrides for the project named in the picker at the top of the panel. Each surface block here adds Brand and Pages tabs that the organization scope does not have.

Surface blocks start collapsed

Every Storefront / Marketing / Resolve / Papers block in the rail is closed until you click it. This is the single most common "the tab I need isn't there" moment — the tab exists, its block is just shut. Click the surface name, or type into the search box to open them all at once.

3. The four audience surfaces (and the neutral fifth)​

A surface is a specialised face of your site built for one audience. Rather than forcing every visitor through one cluttered menu, each audience gets a focused frame while sharing your brand identity.

SurfaceAudienceHeader & footer carriesAuthored where
🛒 StorefrontShoppers and buyersSearch, cart drawer, category menus, shipping-policy footerOrganization and project
📰 MarketingBlog readers, campaign leadsArticle search, category dropdowns, newsletter signup footerOrganization and project
🛟 ResolveSupport customersKnowledge-base search, Submit a ticket, helpdesk-hours footerOrganization and project
📄 PapersDocument-portal clientsDocument search, download centre, client portal menuOrganization and project
🔑 AccountEveryone (neutral)Logo, minimal links, privacy & terms footerOrganization only
Account is not a project surface

The four audience surfaces above each get their own block in both the Organization and Project panels. Account does not — it is a single organization-level tab, Account Pages — Header/Footer, and it is deliberately minimal: no shop, blog or support menu. It is what visitors see when Primary Surface is set to Account in Landing & URLs.

4. Where a setting actually comes from​

The studio's inheritance is often described as two levels. It is really five, checked top to bottom — the first layer that has something saved wins, and everything below it is ignored.

You never have to work this out by hand. Open any Menu & Header/Footer tab and the studio shows you the answer at the top of the pane:

Figure 3 — 'What the visitor actually sees', on a project Storefront tab. All five layers, the winner tagged, and a plain-English line saying why. Layers marked – have nothing saved.
"System default" means empty, not tidy

Organization default = something your organization deliberately configured for all projects to share. System default = nothing is configured anywhere, and visitors get a blank menu, header and footer. The studio flags this in red for a reason — it is a broken-looking public site, not a clean one.

5. Reading the status badges​

Figure 4 — All four badge states at once. Typing “Menu” in the search box produces this view.
BadgeScopeMeaning
ConfiguredOrganizationA default is saved and is serving every project that has no override.
⚠ Not setOrganizationNothing is saved. Visitors fall through to the empty system default — fix this.
Custom overrideProjectThis project has its own saved settings, which beat the organization default.
Inherits OrgProjectThis project saved nothing, so it follows the organization default.

Badges are shown only on Menu & Header/Footer tabs — those are the settings with a real inheritance chain. Brand, Pages and Site Map tabs carry no badge.

A project badge only appears once a project is selected in the picker.

The selected tab is written into the URL as ?tab=<id>, so any tab can be bookmarked, deep-linked from a runbook, or pasted to a colleague — and the browser back button steps through your tab history.

TabLink
Landing & URLs/org/experience?tab=overview:landing
Brand Identity/org/experience?tab=brand:identity
Brand Content/org/experience?tab=brand:content
Customer & Account Pages/org/experience?tab=org:pages
Account Pages — Header/Footer/org/experience?tab=org:account:chrome
Site Map/org/experience?tab=org:sitemap
Organization menu for a surface/org/experience?tab=org:<surface>:menu
Project menu for a surface/org/experience?tab=project:<surface>:menu
Project brand for a surface/org/experience?tab=project:<surface>:brand
Project pages for a surface/org/experience?tab=project:<surface>:pages

<surface> is one of storefront, marketing, servicedesk (Resolve) or papers.

Resolve's tab id is servicedesk

The product name is Orbit Resolve, but the surface key in URLs stays servicedesk. Both refer to the same support surface.

7. Tabs that leave the studio​

Three tabs carry an ↗ external-link icon instead of a badge. These open a full editor on its own route, because the editor needs the entire viewport:

TabOpensPermission
Storefront → Store Settings/org/ecom/storesettingsMenu Listing of Store Front settings
Resolve → Configurations/org/resolve/settingsManage Helpdesk Settings or Allows viewing Integration Telemetry charts and settings
Papers → Configurations/org/papers/project-settingsPapers module limits, defaults, integrations and signature-provider toggles.

They still behave as part of the studio: a Back to Experience Manager bar appears at the top and returns you to the exact tab you left from. The Page Builder Studio works the same way.

8. What you can see depends on your role​

Every tab in the rail is permission-gated and is hidden entirely rather than shown-and-refused, so two colleagues can see legitimately different rails.

TabPermission required
Landing & URLs(none — visible to anyone who can open the studio)
Brand Identity · Account Pages — Header/FooterManage Org Level Global Settings for StoreFront
Brand ContentBrowse & View Orbit Brand Page Content records (org Level)
Customer & Account PagesManage Essential Customer Pages
Site Mapany of Manage Essential Customer Pages, Browse & View Public Pages records, Open Page Managenet module, Browse & View Service Desk Pages
Storefront tabsMenu Listing of Store Front settings — Pages needs Browse & View Public Pages records
Marketing tabsOpen Page Managenet module
Resolve tabsBrowse & View Service Desk Pages
Papers tabsPapers module limits, defaults, integrations and signature-provider toggles. — Pages also accepts Browse & view Papers customer-portal pages.

If a tab you expect is missing, check the permission before assuming a bug — and remember the surface blocks are collapsed by default.

9. Quick start workflow​

Work top-down: brand → landing → organization defaults → pages → overrides. Setting an override before an organization default exists is the usual cause of "I changed it and nothing happened on the other projects."

10. Glossary​

The studio ships its own glossary — click the ? icon (2 in Figure 1) at the top of the rail. The terms you will meet most:

TermMeaning
SurfaceA face of your site built for one audience — Storefront, Marketing, Resolve, Papers, Account.
ChromeThe frame around your content: header, navigation menu and footer. Not the page content itself.
BrandLogo, colours and name. Shared by every surface.
Organization defaultA setting saved once and inherited by every project.
Custom overrideA project's own saved setting, which beats the organization default.
System defaultNothing configured anywhere — a built-in, empty header/footer.
LegacyOlder storefront settings kept as a fallback layer, Storefront only.
Primary surfaceWhich surface the root URL / lands on.

Next steps & user guides​