Managing your DAM

Regardless of size, an unmanaged DAM can quickly get messy. Someone needs to own the DAM, look after it, and support the people who use it.

5 things to know about managing NetX

Best practices

Cataloging counts.
Search will only be as good as your cataloging efforts. Asset metadata should be reviewed from time to time to verify data integrity and ensure values are correctly and consistently applied. Attribute Grid Editor or Exporting Attribute Data to a CSV file can help when you need to review metadata in bulk. Use "no value" or "any value" criteria in an attribute value Advanced Search to identify gaps in metadata.

Save searches, save time.
Configure saved advanced searches to help monitor assets and metadata and send notifications when assets should be reviewed, updated, archived, or deleted. Saved searches are dynamic – they update automatically as relevant assets or data changes in NetX – and they can be shared with your team. Use descriptive titles for your saved searches to remind you of the criteria used in the search.

Steer clear of collisions.
Institute a naming convention to avoid filename collisions. Conflicting filenames can cause issues with metadata imports and when moving or adding assets to folders. It's best to rename files prior to importing to NetX with descriptive, intuitive, consistent, and concise filenames. Avoid illegal characters and excessively long filenames (under 25 characters is good practice). Case and spelling matter: image.JPG, image.jpg, and image.jpeg are treated as distinct files in NetX.

Deletions are forever.
Deleting assets or folders is permanent and cannot be undone. Instituting a trash workflow to route assets to an admin-only folder instead can avoid unintended loss of files and data. Enhanced ACL Permissions may also be employed to prevent deletions on certain folders. Deleting users results in the loss of all statistical information tied to the user. Instead, set their user level to No Access to prevent access but still retain user stats.

Everyone wins with a neat and tidy DAM!
DAM systems don't manage themselves. Periodic audits should be carried out to validate configurations and workflows against current use cases. Check for relevance and accuracy in attributes, user groups, folders, and permissions. Poll users about your taxonomy to find out if controlled vocabulary values need to be added, changed, or removed. Clean up expired or unused items like assets, share links, upload request links, and user accounts (these can all be set to automatically expire too).

How-to articles

Tips and tricks

When batch editing assets in a Selection, remember to ALWAYS click the X to clear your selection after performing an action and before making a new selection.

Replication is the key to troubleshooting an issue. Ask end users to provide the detailed steps that led to the issue. Some problems may be resolved by clearing the browser cache (a.k.a browsing history) and making sure NetX isn't open in multiple tabs. Always try this first.

The filter and sort panel is available in the asset gallery when viewing search results, saved collections, and saved searches, but is NOT available when viewing a selection of assets.

The filter box is available in many contexts throughout NetX. Start typing to quickly find the info you seek, like a subfolder name, user name, or a search filter value. 

Right-click on a folder name in the tree to access the folder actions menu. Use List all to display the assets of all subfolders in a single gallery view.

Right-click on any thumbnail in the gallery view for the asset actions menu. This is the only way to remove assets from a Collection.

Use the Reimport action when you want to replace an individual asset but retain its metadata (instead of deleting and importing the asset as new). 

Use the Resync action when you need to regenerate proxy files or update the search index for a single asset or selection.

When any folder permission is created or altered, all assets in the system will be reindexed. Plan to execute configuration changes in off-peak hours since a full reindex may impact performance.

Talk to us!

As NetX becomes more integrated into your core business, you're likely to discover new requirements or ways to improve upon current workflows. Our Professional Services Team is happy to engage with your team to discuss changes or assist with configurations. Even if you'd just like to suggest ways that NetX can improve, don’t hesitate to reach out — we love hearing from our customers!

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