Digital Asset Management Solutions
Digital Asset Management (dig ·i ·tal as ·set man ·age
·ment)
The management, organization, and distribution of digital assets from a central
repository.
Digital Assets
Digital assets are comprised of various file types including, but not limited
to, the following: product images, lifestyle photography, audio & video
formats, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Auto CAD, Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator,
PageMaker, In-Design, PDF, and various other file formats.
Management
Management of digital assets is controlled by personnel designated as administrators.
Administrators have varying degrees of control and the ability to manage both
assets and users. Managing the assets involves controlling the entry of new
digital assets, assigning and editing metadata associated with the asset,
and associating the assets to groups of users with role-based permissions.
Each group of users has varying permissions to view and order certain assets
and in designated cases, view and edit other users. Users can be granted permission
to or be restricted from groups of assets, file formats, delivery methods,
quantity of assets ordered, editing and adding other users, and varying degrees
of administrative functionality.
Organization
Organization is a key element to the centralization of digital assets. The
former or current way (depending on what stage you are at) of organization
involved file cabinets and drawers full of transparencies, photographs, and
CD's. Some assets already reside in the digital format and exist on a network
drive on occasion named with a letter such as the "G-Drive" or "J-Drive".
Other assets already in the digital format reside at the ad agency, prepress
provider, or on the designer's computer. Bringing these analog and digital
locations of assets together is the start of centralization. Once centrally
located, the organization involves tracking how the asset got to the location
and the approval process involved.
Distribution
Distribution of digital assets is critical to ensuring consistency across
a global network. Users locate digital assets from a corporate branded site
via a web-browser with a login and password. The ease of searching and ordering
allows users to establish a comfort level to use the digital assets across
a variety of applications. On-the-fly file conversions from one master file
ensure that multiple renditions of the same file do not exist to ensure the
quantity of digital assets residing in the application does not become unmanageable.
It also creates an easy update process when a digital asset changes because
it only needs to be updated in one file format.
Immediately converting a high-resolution CMYK file to a low-resolution RGB file for PowerPoint becomes a powerful distribution method. Taking advantage of typical shopping cart and checkout internet ordering, users add applicable images to a cart and proceed to a checkout process asking how it will be used, how it needs to be delivered, and where it needs to go. Users throughout the world access the same repository of digital assets solidifying the consistent use of digital assets globally.