Welcome to the Asset Bank online help documentation. This document is aimed at non-admin users of Asset Bank and covers all the basic functionality such as logging in, browsing and searching for assets, adding to a lightbox, download, uploading and editing assets, etc.

 

1. Accessing Asset Bank
2. Home page
3. My Messages
4. Searching
5. Browsing
6. Asset Details
7. Downloading Assets
8. Download
9. Uploading Assets
10. Updating Assets
11. Copying Assets
12. Approving Assets
13. Requesting Assets
14. Contact Us

Accessing Asset Bank

Asset Bank is a web application, and is accessed using a web browser in the same way that you access any website. You can get to your Asset Bank in one of the following ways:

• By entering the URL (or web address) of your Asset Bank directly into the address bar of your web browser.
• By visiting a page that contains a link to your Asset Bank, for example on your website or intranet, and clicking on that link.
• By choosing Asset Bank from your browser’s ‘Favorites’, if you have previously added the URL as a ‘favorite’.

If public users have the necessary permissions then on accessing Asset Bank you will be greeted by the home page . Otherwise, you will need to log in or register.

 

Logging in

To log in to the Asset Bank, enter your username and password on the Login page. Please note that passwords are case sensitive.

If you have forgotten your password you can click the "Forgotten your password?" link. You can then enter your username or email address and the system will email you a new password.

Once you have logged in you can log out again by clicking on the 'Log out' link in the top right of the page:

You don't have to log out - you can just close your browser or navigate to another website.

You will be logged out of the Asset Bank automatically if you don't do anything in the application for an extended period of time. This is most likely what has happened if you click on a link and unexpectedly see the login page.

 

 

Registration

You can begin the registration process by clicking on the ‘register here’ link on the main login page.

You will be asked to complete a short registration form. This includes choosing a username.

If you have added items to your lightbox prior to registering, these will be available in your lightbox once your registration has been approved.

Once an administrator has reviewed and approved your registration you will receive an email with your username and password. If for any reason your registration is refused you will receive an email telling you your registration has been unsuccessful.

 

 

 

Your Profile

Once you have successfully registered and logged in to Asset Bank you will have access to the Your Profile page. This is linked to at the top right of every page:

The Your Profile page enables you to update any of the details you supplied during registration (e.g. telephone number or email address). You can also change your password to something more memorable by clicking the 'change your password' link.

If relevant, you may be given the opportunity to request further permissions. If this is the case then on this screen you can enter a note for the administrator, who will be alerted to your request.

When multilanguage support is enabled you will be able to select your default language which will be used every time you log in to Asset Bank. Furthermore if you have any "edit" permissions you can select which languages should be visible when editing assets.

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Home page

The home page is the starting point for users of Asset Bank. If public users (those that have not logged in) are allowed access to certain items then the home page is the first page that users will see when they visit the application. Otherwise all users must log in before they see the home page (or any other page in the application).

 

Featured Image

The "featured image" is the large image shown towards the top right of the home page. Any image in the system can be shown here (either a single image or one on rotation from a pre-determined set). What appears is managed by an administrator.

Recently Added

The "recently added" panel shows a number of items that have recently been added to Asset Bank, and which the current user has permission to see. Clicking the 'See all recent items' link will take you to the Recent Items page where you will see up to 100 of the most recently added assets.

Promoted Items

Depending on how Asset Bank is configured you may see another list of thumbnails, similar to recently added, called promoted images. These are defined by a system administrator and can be useful for highlighting images of special importance or topicality. Clicking on the "see all promoted images link" will take you to the Promoted Items page, where you will see all the items that have been promoted.

Quick Search

You can perform a "Quick search" from the home page. Simply enter one or more words into the search field and click "Go".

Asset Bank will then search for matches in the metadata of the items (i.e. title, description, author etc.) as well as searching within the contents of textual items (for example Word files). For a more specific search click on the 'Advanced Search ' link. 

Browse Categories

The "browse categories" area shows a list of descriptive categories so that you can browse for items by category.

Browse Access Levels (if applicable)

This area enables you to browse the access levels that you have the right to see. Please note that this feature will not be visible if you can only see one access level, or if you are not making use of access levels in Asset Bank.

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My Messages

The My Messages page lists messages for a given logged in user, sorted into the groups Current and Archive. Messages can be sent by the application or an administrator to an asset bank user as an alternative to email. When the page is initially browsed the Current message list is shown:

The message list only shows a summary of each message which gives a message's sender, subject and date. 

Current Messages Group

Current Messages are messages which are new or read. A user can read a Current message which shows the full details of a Message:

 

The user can archive the message which will move it to the Archive message group.

If the message requires an acknowledgement, then the user will only be able to acknowledge the message by checking the check box and clicking 'Acknowledge' which will then move the message to the Archive messages group:

 

Archive Messages Group

Archive messages are message which have been archived or acknowledged:

 

The user can read or delete an archived message. Once a message is deleted it will no longer appear in the Archive messages group list.

Home Page Message Box

If a user has new or read messages then a number (configured by an administrator) of the most recent message summaries are displayed in a box on the Asset Bank home page (once the user has logged in):

 

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Searching

Asset Bank is equipped with a fast and powerful search, which enables you to quickly find the asset you need.

• Read about quick search
• Read about advanced search 
• Read about the search results page
  

Quick Search

You can perform a 'Quick Search' from any page in Asset Bank. Simply enter one or more words into the search field in the top-right of the screen and click 'Search'.

Asset Bank will then search for matches in the metadata of the assets (i.e. the attribute values) and you will then see a list of any assets that match.

There is also a prominent 'Quick Search' box on the home page, which behaves in the same way.

If the categories-on-quick-search setting on your Asset Bank is set to 'list' then both the quick search in the header and the one on the homepage will show top level categories as a filter option in a list box next to the keywords box.

If the setting is set to 'radio' then radio boxes for the top level categories will appear as a filter option against the quick search only on the homepage. 

Advanced Search

The Advanced Search page enables users to search for assets by entering values for specific attributes.

The Advanced Search page can be accessed by clicking on the link 'Advanced Search' (in the ‘quick search' area on the home page) or by selecting 'Advanced Search' from the left-hand menu.

If you enter values in more than one of the search criteria fields then the search results will show assets that have matching attributes for ALL fields entered. For example, if you enter a value 'Flower' in the 'Keywords' field and choose ‘Portrait' in the 'Orientation' dropdown, the search results will show all assets that are portrait in shape, AND which contain the keyword 'Flower' in their metadata.

Searching within Categories

To perform a more restricted search, you can elect to search only certain categories for your designated criteria. Simply select the desired categories from the dropdown category list located towards the bottom of the advanced search page, and add them to the category window by clicking 'Add'.

Once you click ‘Add' you should see your category in the second box entitled ‘To be included in your search'. Don't forget to click the 'Add' button or the selected category will not be included in the search. If you want to search the entire repository, do not select a category.

If you add multiple categories then by default the search will return assets that are in one or more of the selected categories. This is specified by the dropdown: Show items in any of the selected categories:

However, if you change the dropdown to all so that the text reads: Show items in all of the selected categories then the search will return only assets that are in ALL of the selected categories.

Adding a parent category (i.e. a category that has sub-categories) to the search criteria will search for assets that are in that parent category or any of its sub-categories. For example, if you have a category called 'Plants' that has two sub-categories 'Trees' and 'Shrubs' then if you include 'Plants' in your search criteria the results will show assets that are in the categories 'Plant', 'Trees' or 'Shrubs'. If, however, you add just 'Shrubs' to your search criteria then the search will return only assets that are in the 'Shrubs' category.

The search will only return assets that a user has permission to see. A particular user might not be able to see an image depending on their permissions and the status of the asset.

Search Geographically (GIS Search)

 Note: This function appears on Asset Bank Version 3.939 and later

 If a geographical location attribute is included in your assets’ metadata and enabled in your advanced search you will be able to search for your assets based on its location using our map functions.

If this item is available to you will see a search field that looks like this.

 

To define a search area:

• Select the Define a search area tab
• Click the map link - a map will open
• Click twice to create a red box which becomes your search area
• Click Apply and close
• Your search will search for items that have been tagged geographically within that area

To define a single point and radius:

• Select the Define a search point and radius tab
• Click the map link - a map will open
• Click once to create a single geographical point
• Click Apply and close
• Enter a value in the Search radius field
• Your search will search for items that are within your given radius of the single point that you have defined

 

 

Search Results

The Search Results page will show the assets that matched the search criteria submitted in your search.

If your search returned more than 20 assets, only the first 20 results will be shown on the first page by default. You can change how many assets are displayed on each page using the 'Results per page' dropdown in the top-right. To see the next page of results simply click 'Next' in the page navigation area at the top or bottom of the page.

You can sort the search results by relevance, popularity or specific attribute value using the 'Sort by' drop downs above the assets:

 

For example the above selection will sort the assets by how many times they have been downloaded, starting with the asset with the most downloads. This is useful for quickly finding the most popular assets in the system that match your search criteria.

In the list of results you will see summary information about each of the assets, for example its ID, title, short description and a thumbnail. If you hover over any of the thumbnail images a larger version of the image will automatically load and display below.

You can see the full details of an asset by clicking on its thumbnail or on its 'View details' link.

You can add the asset to your lightbox by clicking 'Add to lightbox', shown underneath ‘View details'. If the asset is already in your lightbox then you will see a message 'In lightbox' instead of the 'Add to lightbox' link.

Saved Searches

If your Asset Bank is configured to allow it, then it is possible to save any searches you perform so that you can quickly execute the same search again whenever you like. 

To save a search, simply click the 'Save search' link when you are on the Search Results page:

This will take you to the Save Search page, where you will need to specify a name for your saved search. You can also choose whether to display a link to the saved search on the homepage. Note: saved searches will only display on your homepage, no other users will see them. Also, you are generally limited to a maximum of 10 saved searches, although this may vary depending on how your Asset Bank is configured.

To manage your saved searches simply visit the Saved & Recent Searches tab in the Advanced Search section.

Here you will be presented with a list of your previous saved searches which you can run, edit or delete. You will also see a list of your recent searches. This provides details of the last 10 searches you have executed and gives you the option to run them again or turn them into a saved search.

 

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Browsing

You can browse the category hierarchy by clicking ‘Browse' in the menu, or by clicking on one of the top-level categories on the home page. The Browse Categories page shows all the items that are in that category, and a list of all the subcategories in that category. If there are more than 20 assets in a particular category then only the first 20 assets will be shown on the first page. As with the Search Results page, you can view the next page of assets in the category by clicking 'Next' in the page navigation area at the top or bottom of the page.

For each of the assets you will see summary information, for example its ID, title, short description and a thumbnail. You can see the full details of the asset by clicking on the thumbnail or the 'View details' link. You can add the asset to your lightbox by clicking 'Add to lightbox', shown next to the asset. If the asset is already in your lightbox then you will see a message 'In lightbox' instead of the 'Add to lightbox' link.

A breadcrumb trail is shown at the top of the page (labelled ‘You are here'): this shows you where you are in the category hierarchy and enables you to quickly navigate back to a higher level.

On the home page and the Browse Categories page a number is shown in brackets after the name of each category. This is the total number of assets in that category (whether in a subcategory of that category or directly in it).

Browse by Popularity

The Browse by Popularity page enables you to view all the assets in the system in order of popularity (or unpopularity if you select 'Least Viewed Items' or 'Least Downloaded Items'). This is a useful way of gauging the popularity of assets regardless of which category they are in.

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Asset Details

You can view the full details of any asset by clicking on either its thumbnail image or the 'View details' link for the asset in search results or when browsing the categories. 

The Asset Details page shows the details of the asset, and varies depending on whether the asset is an image, video, audio or other document.

For all types of asset, the asset’s attributes and their values are shown, for example ID, Title, Description and Size. Admin users will see all attributes. Other users may see only a subset of the attributes, depending on how admin users have configured the attribute visibility settings for the group(s) the user is in.

You can add the asset to your lightbox by clicking 'Add to lightbox'. If the asset is already in your lightbox then you will see a message 'In lightbox' instead of the 'Add to lightbox' link.

Download - If you have permission to download the asset you will see the ‘Download’ button. Clicking this leads to the Asset Download page. If you do not have permission, but you are able to request permission from an admin user, you can do so by adding the asset to your lightbox and then requesting approval of the asset from there.

Edit - If you have permission to edit this asset then you will see an 'Edit' button. If you click this you will see the Update Asset page, which enables you to update the metadata or file associated with the asset.

Delete - If you have permission to delete this asset then you will also see a 'Delete' button. If you click this then you will be asked to confirm, and then the asset will be permanently removed from your Asset Bank.

Batch Releases - If batch releases are enabled then when a update user is looking at the view assset page they should see a link that enables them to add the current asset to a batch release. If the asset is already in a batch release then this function enables the user to move the asset to a new batch release. 

Embed - If embedding is enabled this link creates embeddable code for image, file, video and audio assets which allows you to display them on other web pages. Once you have clicked 'embed' you will be given the embed code which can be inserted into any HTML page to display the asset on that page. You can also resize the asset dimensions prior to creating the embed code by clicking on the 'Create new version' link.

If you don't have the 'embed' link next to your assets on the asset details page, then you will need to enable the following setting in your ApplicationSettings.properties file:

# Is asset file repurposing (AKA embedding) enabled?
asset-repurposing-enabled=true

Once you have changed the setting to 'true' you will need to restart the web application for the setting to take effect.

Please be aware that if you delete the original asset file from your Asset Bank then any embeddable versions you may have created will also be deleted from the system.

Versioning: note, if you re-upload a new asset (e.g. to create an updated version of the original) then this new version will now be shown in the sites you have embedded the asset in.

For further information on embedding please read this KB article.

Image Details

For image assets, if you have the large image toggle enabled, you will see two tabs towards the top right of the page that enable you to switch between the standard preview with the action buttons down the right or a large image preview with the action buttons above the image.

If the large image toggle isn't enabled then you will see a large image popup link next to the standard image preview. 

If batch releases are enabled then when a update user is looking at the view assset page they should see a link that enables them to add the current asset to a batch release. If the asset is already in a batch release then this function enables the user to move the asset to a new batch release. 

Video Details

For video assets, you will see a medium-sized image representing the video (i.e. one of the frames of the video). Admin users can choose which frame to use as this preview image when adding or editing the asset.

From here you can play a preview of the video (the default preview length is 20 seconds).  These previews help users decide whether or not they want the entire video clip without having to download the original file in advance, which could be very large.

If video keywords is enabled in the application's settings and the video has any video keywords, these will be shown in a table below the video preview player: 

If you click on one of the keywords link rows, the video will play from the given time. Video keywords are added to the application's search index, allowing you to search for any videos with a given keyword through quick search (top right 'Search' button) or the 'Advanced Search' page (left menu link to page). Admin users can add or edit video keywords from this page by clicking on the 'Add/Edit video keywords' button.

If batch releases are enabled then when a update user is looking at the view assset page they should see a link that enables them to add the current asset to a batch release. If the asset is already in a batch release then this function enables the user to move the asset to a new batch release. 

Audio Details

For audio assets, you will be able to hear a preview (by default this is the first 20 seconds). As with video previews, this allows the user to clarify if this is the asset they need before download.

If batch releases are enabled then when a update user is looking at the view assset page they should see a link that enables them to add the current asset to a batch release. If the asset is already in a batch release then this function enables the user to move the asset to a new batch release.

Other Document Details

For assets that are of other file formats, if the format is recognised by Asset Bank then the document type's icon will be shown (for example, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF). Otherwise, a ‘generic file' icon will be shown.

If batch releases are enabled then when a update user is looking at the view assset page they should see a link that enables them to add the current asset to a batch release. If the asset is already in a batch release then this function enables the user to move the asset to a new batch release. 

 

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Downloading Assets

How do I download an asset?

If you have permission to download an asset you will see a download button when viewing its detail page. Clicking this will take you straight to the appropriate download page depending on the type of asset (e.g. video, image, document).

If you don't have permission, you will not see a download button, but you may have the option of adding the item to your lightbox where you can request permission.

It is possible to download assets in bulk (assuming you have permission) by adding them to your lightbox and downloading from there .

Downloading an Image

The Download Image page enables you to download either the original image, or a resized and converted version.

Before you download the item you may be asked to select a value in the intended usage dropdown list, to indicate how you intend to use the item. If the usage has sub-usage types then you may need to select those too.

Before preview or download of the asset, you may need to tick a checkbox to confirm that you have read the Terms and Conditions.

To reduce the size of your download you can tick the checkbox that asks you whether you want to compress your file. This will add your file to a ZIP archive, so you will need the necessary software to unzip it once you have downloaded it.

You may be given the option to send the item via email rather than a direct download. Selecting this option, and clicking the "email now" button will take you to a new page where you can specify the email address(es) to send the item to. You will also be able to add a message to the email and choose whether the item is included as an attachment or simply as a download link in the email. Note, if the attachment is over a pre-determined limit then you may only have the option to send a download link. This has been set up to ensure the intended recipient gets the files as most email accounts cannot accept attachments of a very large size.

Depending on your permissions as a user you will be shown either Quick Download options, Advanced Download options or both:

Quick Download

The quick download tab simply requires you to specify the desired size of the image to be downloaded from a drop down. Depending on your configuration you may be given the option to convert the image to a different colorspace. If you wish to convert the image simply select the desired colorspace.

Advanced Download

The advanced download tab allows you to edit the image before downloading it:

 

• Convert - use the dropdown to select the file format of the image.
  JPEG is generally the best format to use - it is well suited to detailed images, e.g. photographs. GIF is good for simple diagrammatic images containing large blocks of colour. PNG is a better quality format, but if it is for web use be aware that some older browsers do not fully support it.
• Crop - You can use the text boxes to manually define a crop area, or click on "Select crop area..." to draw a crop area with your mouse. Once defined, you can preview your crop by clicking the "Preview" button at the bottom of the page.
• Mask - This alternative to cropping allows a mask to be overlaid on top of the image.  Click on "Configure mask..." to choose the mask from the selection defined by your administrator and draw the position and size of the mask with your mask. Once defined, you can preview the mask by clicking the "Preview" button at the bottom of the page.
• Resize - Use the text fields to define the desired size of your image download. Keep the aspect ratio locked to maintain the original height/width ratio of the image.
• Advanced options - If the image is intended for print then you may wish to define a dpi value here. Find out more about image density»
  If you have selected JPEG as your format then you can specify a conversion quality. Enter a number between 0 and 100, where 100 would provide the best image quality but the largest file size.
  You can use the Rotate dropdown to alter the orientation of an image. For example if a photo is meant to be portrait but is displaying as landscape, then this can be corrected here.
  Depending on your configuration you may be given the option to convert the image to a different colorspace. If you wish to convert the image simply select the desired colorspace.
  Finally, ticking the 'Strip' checkbox will strip out any embedded metadata from the original image.

At any stage you can preview your changes to the original image by clicking the "Preview" button.

To download the image in the selected format click the "Download now" button. Your browser will then display a "File download" dialog box, in which you should click the "Save" button in order to save item to your local computer.

Notes to admin users: You can configure whether users see both the Quick and Advanced Download tabs by editing the permissions of the group that the user is in. To do this, go to the Groups section of the Admin area. You can configure masks by going to the Download Options section of the Admin area.

Downloading a Video

The Download Video page enables you to download either the original video, or a converted version.

Before you download the item you may be asked to select a value in the intended usage dropdown list, to indicate how you intend to use the item. If the usage has sub-usage types then you may need to select those too.

Before preview or download of the asset, you may need to check a checkbox to confirm that you have read the Terms and Conditions.

To reduce the size of your download you can check the checkbox that asks you whether you want to compress your file. This will add your file to a ZIP archive, so you will need the necessary software to unzip it once you have downloaded it.

You may be given the option to send the item via email rather than a direct download. Selecting this option, and clicking the "email now" button will take you to a new page where you can specify the email address(es) to send the item to. You will also be able to add a message to the email and choose whether the item is included as an attachment or simply as a download link in the email. Note, if the attachment is over a pre-determined limit then you may only have the option to send a download link. This has been set up to ensure the intended recipient gets the files as most email accounts cannot accept attachments of a very large size.

Depending on your permissions as a user you will be shown either Quick Download options, Advanced Download options or both:

Quick Download

The quick download tab simply allows you to downloaded the original video.

Advanced Download

The advanced download options allow you to convert and modify the video before downloading it:

Note: depending on how Asset Bank is configured, you may not see all of these options.

• Convert - use the dropdowns to select the file format of the video and the video quality.
• Resize - Use the text fields to define the desired size of your image download. Keep the aspect ratio locked to maintain the original height/width ratio of the video.
• Advanced options - set the offset to start you download version from, the duration of clip you want to download and video quality factors like frame rate.

At any stage you can preview your changes to the by clicking the "Preview" button.

To download the video in the selected format click the "Download now" button. Your browser will then display a "File download" dialog box, in which you should click the "Save" button in order to save item to your local computer.

Note to admin users: You can configure whether users see both the Quick and Advanced Download tabs by editing the permissions of the group that the user is in. To do this, go to the Groups section of the Admin area.

Downloading an Audio file

The Download Audio page enables you to download either the original audio clip, or a converted version.

Before you download the item you may be asked to select a value in the intended usage dropdown list, to indicate how you intend to use the item. If the usage has sub-usage types then you may need to select those too.

Before preview or download of the asset, you may need to check a checkbox to confirm that you have read the Terms and Conditions.

To reduce the size of your download you can check the checkbox that asks you whether you want to compress your file. This will add your file to a ZIP archive, so you will need the necessary software to unzip it once you have downloaded it.

As for other types of file, you may be given the option to send the item via email rather than a direct download.

Depending on your permissions as a user you will be shown either Quick Download options, Advanced Download options or both:

Quick Download

The quick download tab simply allows you to downloaded the original audio file.

Advanced Download

The advanced download options allow you to convert and modify the audio clip before downloading it:

Note: depending on how Asset Bank is configured, you may not see all of these options.

You can use the Convert form to adjust the Bitrate of the converted audio clip. You can also select to download a particular chunk of the audio clip by setting the offset start position and the duration you want to download.

To download the audio in the selected format click the "Download now" button. Your browser will then display a "File download" dialog box, in which you should click the "Save" button in order to save item to your local computer.

Notes to admin users: You can configure the audio download options in the Admin > Download Options > Audio Options tab. You can configure whether users see both the Quick and Advanced Download tabs by editing the permissions of the group that the user is in. To do this, go to the Groups section of the Admin area.

Downloading a File

The Download File page enables you to download the original item file.

Before you can download the asset, you may need to check a checkbox to confirm that you have read the Terms and Conditions.

To reduce the size of your download you can check the checkbox that asks you whether you want to compress your file. This will add your file to a ZIP archive, so you will need the necessary software to unzip it once you've downloaded it.

You may be given the option to send the item via email rather than a direct download. Selecting this option, and clicking the "email now" button will take you to a new page where you can specify the email address(es) to send the item to. You will also be able to compose a message and choose whether the item is included as an attachment or simply as a download link in the email.

To download the file, click the "Download Now" button. Your browser will then display a "File download" dialog box, in which you should click the "Save" button in order to save the item to your local computer.

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Download

Your lightbox is similar to a shopping basket. You can add assets to it from the Search Results, Browse Categories or Asset Details pages.

A summary of your lightbox is displayed on every page in the area 'Lightbox' under the left-hand menu.

To see the details of your lightbox, click on the menu item 'My Lightbox', or click 'View contents' in the 'My Lightbox' area.

The My Lightbox page lists all the assets you have so far added to your lightbox:

For each asset in the list, you can click on thumbnail or 'View details' link to view its full details. Click the link 'Remove', shown under each asset, to remove that asset from your lightbox. If you want to remove all of the assets from your lightbox, click the link 'Remove all assets' shown above the assets.

The assets in your lightbox are grouped by the permissions that you have for those assets:

Ready to download

Assets that you have permission to download are shown at the top of your lightbox. This includes assets that you always have permission to download, and assets for which you have requested and been granted permission. Click the 'Download all' button to download all of these assets, via the Download lightbox page.

Approval required

These assets must be approved by an admin user before you can download them. Click on the button 'Request approval' to request approval from an admin user to download these assets.

Approval rejected

Assets for which you have requested approval to download but your request has not been approved. If the admin user has entered a comment against an asset, for example to explain why approval was not granted, you can view the note by clicking the link 'Approval details'. You can also request approval again by clicking ‘Resubmit'.

Download Lightbox

If you click the 'Download all' button on the Lightbox page, you see the Download Lightbox page.

This is similar to the Download Asset page in that it enables you to specify the purpose of your download and to resize or reformat image files. If you choose to resize the image files then the size you specify will apply to all the image files in your download. This can be useful, for example, if you want to resize all the images so that they fit in a PowerPoint presentation.

When you click the ‘Download now' button, the images will be resized and then all the assets will be compressed into a ZIP file, which you can then download.

Download Lightbox as PowerPoint

When downloading a lightbox, if you select a Usage Type that has been configured with the 'can download as PPT/PPTX' option, you can download images and other PowerPoint files in your lightbox as a PowerPoint presentation. Please note that this functionality may require an upgrade or an update to your license, which may be chargeable.

Your administrator will usually create an appropriate Usage Type, called (e.g.) PowerPoint.

When you select this usage type a new checkbox will appear called 'Download as PowerPoint Presentation' .
This will be checked by default (you can untick it if you want to download the images in a zip file as usual).
When this checkbox is checked each image will be added to the presentation on a new slide in the order they are shown in your lightbox.

If your lightbox contains PowerPoint files then these will be merged into the presentation, although note that PPTX files cannot be merged into a PPT file and vice versa.

 

If you select the Download as PPT/PPTX option Asset Bank will do one of three things,

• If no PowerPoint template have been added to your Asset Bank then a blank PPT file will be created, and the images (and presentations) will be inserted into this, one on each slide. 
• If there is one PowerPoint template, the system will determine the file format is ppt/pptx, insert the images (and presentations) and then provided the generated file to download in its respective file format.
• If there are multiple PowerPoint templates, you will be able to select which template is to be used:

 

Requesting Approval to Download

If you do not have permission to download certain assets, but you have permission to request approval to download them then you will not see the ‘Download' button on the Asset Details page:

To request approval add the assets to your lightbox and then click the 'Request approval' button on the My Lightbox page. When you click this button, you will see the Request Approval page:

You can enter notes against each asset, if required, and then click 'Submit' to send the request to an admin user.

When your download requests have been approved (or rejected) by an admin user you will be notified by email. After logging into Asset Bank, you can see which assets have been approved by going to the My Lightbox page. If the admin user entered comments against an asset you can view the notes by clicking the link 'Approval details'.

All approved assets will now be listed under the section ‘Ready to download'.

Lightbox Actions

You will notice that the assets in your Lightbox that you have permission to download are selectable by clicking on the 'Select Item' checkbox at the top of each asset. Once you have selected some assets you can then perform actions on them using the drop down box:

The actions you can perform are as follows (note: you may not see all of these actions depending on your permissions as a user):

Download

This is the same process as downloading your lightbox, except the system will create a zip file of only the currently selected assets.

Print or compare images

Allows you to see assets and their attributes side by side for comparison, and enables you to print out a contact sheet of the selected images. Find out more.

Note: this only works for assets that are images.

Remove from My Lightbox

Removes the selected assets from your Lightbox. 

Bulk Update

Allows you to perform a Bulk Update on the selected assets.

Link items

This will make all the selected assets related items. This means that when viewing the details of any of these assets you will find links to all of its related items.

Export items

Available to admin users, org unit admin users (if  org-unit-admins-can-export is true) and any users that are in a group that has been ticked as 'can export assets'. Takes the selected assets and offers the user the ability to export their metadata and (optionally) files.

Copy or move items

This will allow all the selected assets to me copied or moved to another lightbox.

 

 

Multiple Lightboxes

If your application is configured to allow for Multiple Lightboxes, you will see the ‘Manage Lightboxes' tab when you go into your Lightbox.

In the Manage Lightboxes page you are able to add, remove, rename, reorder, copy and share Lightboxes.

If you have created additional Lightboxes, you are then able to set the current Lightbox via the ‘My Lightbox' box dropdown in the left-hand navigation:

The Lightbox that is chosen in this drop-down menu is then shown in the ‘Current Lightbox' tab when you click ‘View contents'.

Lightbox sorting

Lightbox sorting

Lightboxes can optionally be sorted by attribute values associated with the assets in the lightbox.

From the sorting listbox in the top right select the attribute you would like to sort your lightbox by and whether you want the sort to be ascending or descending.

Click the button to apply the sort to all images in the lightbox. 

Slideshow

Once enabled the slideshow can be accessed from any search results page, any browse page or the lightbox. A 'view these images as slideshow' link should be present at the top right of the image results on any of these pages.

You can also show a slideshow of only selected images in the Lightbox. Simply tick the images you want to include in the slideshow then select the 'view as slideshow' option from the 'Actions...' dropdown list.

In any instance the slideshow will start up and images on the slideshow will be presented in the same order as they appear on the browse/search/lightbox page.

Once the slideshow has loaded there are a number of changes that can be made to how the slideshow is displayed from the drop down 'Options' control panel at the top of the page.

You can tick attribute values to display below the images in the slideshow (the title or id of the image for instance). You can decide whether to show labels for these values and you can specify the duration in seconds that each image in the slideshow should display for. Once you have made these changes you need to click the 'Apply' button, at which point the slideshow will restart reflecting your new settings.

The number of the image currently being shown along with the total number of images is displayed at the bottom of the slideshow next to the display control buttons that can be used to pause and play the slideshow and manually cycle through the images.

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Uploading Assets

If you have permission to add assets you will see the link 'Upload' in the left-hand menu. You can add files one at a time, using the Single Upload, or a number at once, using the Bulk Upload.

Single Upload

To add an asset you need to first upload the file, and then you will be asked to fill out the attribute values or metadata for the file.

If you click on the ‘Single Upload' menu item, you will see the following page:

Click the 'Browse' button (in the 'File' field) to browse to the file you want to add. Then click the ‘Upload' button.

The file will then be uploaded to the server: this may take some time, depending on the size of the file.

Once the file successfully uploads, you will be asked to enter the attribute values for the asset:

You should try to enter as much information about the asset as you can, as the more descriptive the metadata the easier it will be for users to find the image when they perform a search. Fields marked with (*) are mandatory, which means you must enter a value for them.

The bottom section of the form enables you to add the asset to one or more categories or Access Levels. To add the asset to a category, select the category you want in the 'Available categories' dropdowns and then click 'Add' to add that category to the box showing the categories you have chosen:

There are some radio buttons before the final 'Submit' button which allow you to choose the manner in which your asset is uploaded to the system:

• Submit to live. On pressing Submit, the item will immediately be live in the system.
• Submit for approval. The item will be passed to an administrator for approval before going live in the system.
• Do not submit yet. The item will not be visible in the system but will be stored in your unsubmitted items, until you are ready to submit it to live.
  

If there are any problems with your submission, for example if you do not include values for all mandatory fields, you will see a message informing you of the error, which you should correct. Otherwise, if the asset was uploaded successfully, you will see a success page.

Bulk Upload

The 'Bulk upload' area is used to add a number of files at once. On entering the the bulk upload page you can click the 'Start a new data import' button to view the Start Import page. There are 3 different methods of importing files depending on how your Asset Bank has been configured and the capabilities of your browser. These are:

• Flash uploader - requires you to have the Adobe Flash plugin installed in your browser.
  
• Java applet uploader
• FTP upload - versions of Asset Bank earlier than 3.89 require the use of FTP to bulk upload.

 

 

 

Unsubmitted Assets

When uploading an asset one of the options available is 'Do not submit yet'. As an uploader, selecting this option means the asset is only available to you until you decide to submit the asset to the application (either for approval or directly live). 

The 'Unsubmitted Assets' page records those assets in one location so that you can edit and update them until you are happy to submit them for other users to view or approve.

The page lists all the unsubmitted assets along with a thumbnail representation of the asset and the actions that can be performed for each asset ('Submit to live', 'Submit for approval' and/or 'Delete').

The page also provides a link to batch update all the current user's unsubmitted assets. 

 

Submitted Assets

Assets can be subject to workflows (so they require some level of approval prior to appearing live on the Asset Bank).

The 'Submitted Assets' page records all the assets that the current user has submitted to the application that are currently involved in a workflow.

If the application is setup with multiple workflows then the page enables the user to select the workflow they are interested in at the top of the page.

Once a workflow has been selected (either automatically because there is only one or manually by the user) then all the assets that the current user has uploaded that are currently in the workflow in question are listed.

The assets are broken down by the state they are currently in ('requires approval', 'rejected for resubmission', etc.)  and in cases where the state requires input from the owner (like 'rejected for resubmission') then the actions that the user can perform will be listed next to the asset. A thumbnail representation of the asset is also shown for each.

Assets that require an action can be individually acted on by the user. The user selects the action they would like to perform for the asset, optionally provides a message that will be available to the next user and then clicks the 'Submit' button for the asset.

 

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Updating Assets

If you have permission to add or update assets you will see a link 'Update Items' in the left-hand menu.
If you click on this option, you will notice that there are two update functions:

• Batch Update - Performing a batch update enables you to search for assets to create a selection to work on, then step through each asset, one at a time, to update its metadata. So for example, if you wanted to add descriptions to all assets in a particular category, you would use Batch Update to complete this (as each description will vary from asset to asset).
• Bulk Update - In a Bulk Update, you again start by searching for assets to create a group of items to act upon. You can then define changes or additions to the metadata which will be applied to the entire group of assets in one operation. So for example, if you wanted to move assets from one category to another, you would use Bulk Update to apply the change to all these assets in one go (as stepping through each one individually and making the change would be inefficient).
  

 

Updating Single Assets

If you have permission to update an asset then you will see an 'Edit' button on the Asset details page. You can access this page by searching for the asset and then clicking 'View details' in the search results.

On the Update asset page you can change the metadata of the assets, upload a different file for the asset (e.g. replace a document with a new version), and change the categories and access levels that the asset resides in.

If Advanced Viewing is enabled then you can optionally mark the asset as being available for advanced viewing by groups of users that have also been marked as advanced viewing. Advanced viewing enables groups of users to see unnapproved assets (only if the assets would be visible to the user if approved).

When looking at the edit page if batch releases are enabled then the user is forced to select a batch release for the asset, this will either be a new release if the asset is a new upload or if the asset is an existing one being edited then the choice will either be to leave the asset in the release it is currently in or select a release that the asset should be moved to. 

Click ‘Save' and your changes will be saved.

Batch Update

The Batch Update page enables you to enter metadata against a set of images quickly, without having to return to a search results page after each update. You will want to use Batch Update if you need to add metadata to a particular group of assets, but the information you are adding is not the same for all assets.

To start a new batch update, click 'Start new batch update'.

Then enter the search criteria that will be used to select the assets that will form the batch to be updated (for example, select a category to update all assets in a particular category, or select Metadata Status ‘Incomplete' to update all assets that are still flagged as ‘Incomplete'). When you click 'Search' Asset Bank will find all the assets that match your criteria and take the first 100 to create your batch.

You will then see the details of the first asset in the batch. Change the metadata of the asset, and then click 'Save & Continue' to save the changes. If you do not want to change the asset then click 'Skip' to skip the asset and take it out of your batch.

When you click 'Save' or 'Skip' you will be presented with the next asset, until you reach the end of your batch. The heading will keep a running total of how many you have remaining in your batch:

To pause the batch update you can click 'Cancel', or simply navigate to another page of the Asset Bank. Whenever you have a batch update in progress you will see an alert panel below the navigation menu, which contains a link back to the batch update.

To resume a batch update, click on this link or click on 'Batch update' in the left-hand navigation and then click 'Return to your current batch update' on the Batch Update page.

When a batch update is in progress, all assets that are in your batch (that you haven't either saved or skipped) will be unavailable to another user if they start a new batch update: this is to prevent users updating the same image. These images will become available again when you either finish the batch or log out of Asset Bank.

You can only have one batch update in progress at a time for a particular user.

Bulk Update

Bulk Update is similar to Batch Update - the important difference is that instead of changing all the assets individually, you are able to search for a group of assets and then apply the same metadata to all of the assets in the batch simultaneously.

To start a Bulk Update, first click on the Bulk Update tab within the main ‘Update Assets' section.

Then click on the link ‘Start a new Bulk Update'.

You can then create a batch using search exactly as Batch Update.

Once you've entered your search criteria and clicked the ‘search' button, the system will let you know how many assets were collected in your ‘batch':

Having created a batch of assets, you now have a few options on which action to take:

• Select assets in batch for update. This will take you to a screen showing all the assets in your current batch. Simply click on any of the assets to select them for update. When selecting the assets in the batch you can hover over any image thumbnails to see a larger version and click the thumbnail to popup the asset's details in a new window.
• Run an update on the selected items in this batch. Any upcoming metadata changes will be applied to all assets in your search results. See Running a Bulk Update below.
  
• Run a Find and Replace on the selected items in this batch. Any upcoming 'find and replace' changes on text metadata will be applied to all assets in your search results. See Running a Bulk Find and Replace below.
• Delete the selected items in this batch. This option presents you with a warning asking you to confirm that you want to permanently delete the assets in the current batch from the system. Warning: this is a permanent deletion. You will not be able to retrieve the assets afterward.
• Finish with this batch. This option cancels the current Bulk Update, releasing the assets for other users to update them.

Running a Bulk Update

Once you have selected your assets, you can choose to Run an Update:

 

This page lists all of the possible metadata fields that can be changed.

For each attribute that you want to be updated in bulk, choose to either replace or append the current value, then fill in the new value in the right-hand column. If you leave the left hand drop down at its default '-Skip-' value, then that attribute will not be updated.

You can select a new thumbnail to assign to the assets. However, this will only apply to assets that are non-image assets for example Word documents. If there are image assets in the batch then the thumbnail will not be applied to these (but any other attribute changes will be applied).

If Advanced Viewing is enabled then you can optionally choose to mark all the assets in the bulk as being available for advanced viewing by groups of users that have also been marked as advanced viewing. Advanced viewing enables groups of users to see unnapproved assets (only if the assets would be visible to the user if approved). 

If batch releases are enabled assets can be added / moved to a batch release using bulk update. The user is presented with the option of replacing an asset's batch release. If the user selects to do this the for each asset in the bulk update one of two things happens...

• If the asset is already in a batch release then it is moved to the selected one and an asynchronous dependency check is kicked off for the asset
• If the asset isn't in a batch release then it is added to the selected one and the checks are run. 

 

Click ‘Start Update' and you will be taken to a progress screen, which will then let you know when the update is complete.

 

Running a Bulk Find and Replace

 Once you have selected your assets, you can choose to Run a Find and Replace:

 

Metadata Import

A metadata import allows you to upload attribute information directly into Asset Bank, either to assets already in the system or to newly created assets. This may be useful for a number of purposes, such as migrating assets from another system, migrating data from one Asset Bank to another, restoring backups or offline metadata editing.

Often (for example, when migrating assets between systems) the metadata import process is proceeded by a 'bulk upload', which is used to first add the asset files. Once the bulk upload is complete (and assuming the metadata import file is correctly formed - see below) a metadata import can be run to add metadata to the newly imported asset files. This 2-stage process has the advantage that the metadata can, if necessary, be imported multiple times without the need to re-upload the asset files.

See also: Step by step guide to Metadata Import  

To perform a metadata import, a plain-text tab-delimited file is uploaded to Asset Bank via the page: Update Items > Metadata Import > Start new metadata import. This page allows you to select the file for upload, and also provides the following options for the import:

• Add any missing assets automatically. Selecting this will result in new asset records being created for each record found in the metadata file that does not match up with an existing record. Mostly this can be left unchecked, but when assets are being imported into Asset Bank for which there are no corresponding files (metadata-only assets) this option may be necessary.
• Add any missing categories automatically. Similarly, selecting this option will result in any imported Categories (descriptive or permissive) for which there is no match being added during the import process. This is likely to be required when migrating assets between systems if the Category information is to be preserved.
• Remove assets from existing categories and access levels, if new ones are specified. If this option is selected, any Categories found in the metadata file for matching assets will replace (rather than append to) any Categories currently assigned to those assets. This may be required, for example, if the assets were originally assigned a temporary category during a preceeding bulk upload.
• Skip check (import the data immediately). Normally, when you submit a metadata import the first step in the process is for the system to check the file you have uploaded and report any errors or mis-matches before you import the data. If this option is selected there will be no such check and the data will be imported without confirmation. Only choose this option if you are sure there are no problems with the file.

Data File Format

The data file must conform to the following formatting rules:

• It must be a plain-text file (without Excel proprietary formatting).
• All fields (columns) should be separated by a tab character.
• Each record should start on a new line.
• The first line should contain a string defining the format of the Id column, for example the string:  filenameFormat:none
• The second line of the file should contain the column headers that identify the fields of the record being updated. There are several standard headers for standard attributes, and you can also add headers that match your custom metadata fields. A description of how this is done can be found in the next section.
• An "Id" column must be present in the imported data file to identify the record in the system. This will typically be the full 'original filename' of the asset, or the id of the asset (e.g. if reimporting a data file exported from Asset Bank). If it does contain either of these then make sure the first line of the file contains the string filenameFormat:none
• Where either the Categories or AccessLevels columns are present, data should be included as follows: separate categories should be delimited using a semi-colon (;). If the category is not at the root level, the name of its parent(s) should be included in front of its name, separated by a forward-slash (/). For example, if you have a subcategory of "Animals" called "Cats", the field value to specify this category should be "Animals/Cats". To also include this record in a "Photo" category the complete field value would be "Animals/Cats;Photo"
• Where a date is provided, it should be in the format that matches application setting import-date-format (by default, "DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM")
  

When a metadata file has been generated by the metadata export process, the first line will contain a cell with a value such as "filenameFormat:none". This tells Asset Bank how to interpret the import file when trying to match up the rows with existing assets.

• If the value of the filename format is 'none' the import process will look for assets with an Id that matches data in the Id column in the metadata file, OR which have a 'original filename' that matches this value.
• If the value contains filename token characters 'i', 'f' and/or 't' the import process will try to match against assets whose filenames (during the bulk upload process) match a combination of the Id, Filename and Title (aka Name, as configured in Admin > Attributes > Display Attributes).
  

So for example, if the first line contains "filenameFormat:it" and the Name attribute is set as Title, the import process will look for existing assets whose filename matches the data in the Id column followed by the data in the Title column. It will assume that these parts of the filename are delimited by a '.' character (although this delimiter can be changed using setting exported-asset-filename-field-delimiter). If a match is found, the existing asset will be updated with the metadata from the import file.

Data Column Headers

Each column in the data file requires a header, entered on the first or second line of the file. These headers will either be one of the standard headers, or a custom one matching an attribute under your control. The standard headers (relating to the standard attributes) are listed below:

• AccessLevels
• DescriptiveCategories
• AddedByUser
• LastModifiedByUser
• DateAdded
• DateModified
• Id
• Filename
• Author
• Approved
• ExpiryDate
• IsPreviewRestricted (Assumed "false" if anything other than "true")
  

The following are some additional columns can be present, depending on the relevant functionality being enabled:

• RelatedAssets (this will be a comma-separated list of assets, identified by a name whose format matches the filenameFormat as above, or the Id column in the file if this is not present)
• ChildAssets (as above)
• ParentAssets (as above)
• AgreementType (if agreements are enabled via setting agreements-enabled=true)
• Agreements (as above)
• IsSensitive (if asset sensitivity is turned on via setting show-sensitivity-fields=true. Assumed "false" if anything other than "true")
• SensitivityNotes (as above)
• Price (for eCommerce versions of Asset Bank)
• EntityId (this is the Id of the Asset Type for the asset, if Asset Types are enabled by setting asset-entities-enabled to true)
  

In order to populate a custom attribute from the data file, the column header for the attribute must start with "att:" followed by the attribute name. For example, to populate an attribute "Title", a column header for the data must be called "att:Title". Note that the attribute name should match the name in the application exactly, including any spaces and capitalisation.

NOTE: the attributes 'Id' and 'Filename' cannot be updated.  

Translated Attribute Data

When Asset Bank is set up to be multi-lingual, it is possible to provide translations for any text-based attribute values by providing additional columns with a sub-prefix of "lang_" plus the (typically 2-letter) code for the language. For example, in order to provide a translation for a Title attribute in french (code: fr) you would need to add a column with header "att:lang_fr:Title". You would have needed to set up French as a language first, but the language can be suspended whilst the import takes place.

Importing Relationships Using Attribute Values

You can use the standard columns of RelatedAssets, ChildAssets and ParentAssets to import relationships between assets using the Id or filename of the assets in question. However, it is also possible to use arbitrary attribute values to relate assets imported from the metadata file. You can do this by using the header prefixes "parent:", "child:" or "peer:", followed by the name of an attribute that is relevant in the related asset. The target attribute should in general uniquely identify the assets to link to - this technique allows the import to be independent of system generated ids or filenames.

Note: this technique will only work if the target assets are already present in the system when the import line is trying to refer to them.

Examples:

a) parent:JOB_NUMBER = 51

The system will attempt to find an asset with attribute JOB_NUMBER=51, and set that to be the parent of the imported asset.

b) child:OLD_ID = 6666,6689

The system will look for assets which have 6666 or 6689 as value for the OLD_ID attribute, and relate them to the imported asset using the child relationship.

c) peer:BATCH_SEQ = 24,25,26

The system will look for existing assets with BATCH_SEQ values in the set {24,25,26}, and will relate them to the imported asset using the peer relationship.

A small example import file (spaces represent tab characters) follows. This will set an attribute called IMAGEBASE_ID on three existing assets, then relate them all together as peers:

Description filenameFormat:none
Id att:IMAGEBASE_ID peer:IMAGEBASE_ID
27 101
28 102
29 103 101,102

Updating approval status

Asset approval statuses can be updated using the metadata import. Include the column att:Approved in your data file with the value set as follows depending on the approval level:

• For 'full approval' specify "TRUE" in the column to approve the asset for all workflows it is involved in
• For 'submit for approval' specify "FALSE" in the data column, which will submit the asset in question for approval for any workflow it is involved in
• For 'partial approval' specify the names of the access levels that the asset should be approved for as a semi-colon separated list (i.e. "Universal;Marketing" etc.). All approval statuses for access levels/workflows that aren't specified will be left unchanged.

Importing Agreement Data

If agreements are  enabled (agreement-enabled=true in the application settings) it is possible to import an asset's agreement data using the metadata import. This process is designed to work in tandem with the metadata export, but can be done manually if required using the following rules.

There should be a column named AgreementType, which contains one of the following values:

• '1' for 'unrestricted', i.e. needing no agreement
• '2' for 'agreement applies', in which case the Agreements column should also be populated as below.
• '3' for 'restricted', i.e. cannot be used irrespective of any agreement
  

Each asset that has an agreement should have a value of '2' in the AgreementType column. It should also have an xml document contained a the column named Agreements. An example of the xml document is given below, showing a situation where an asset has a current and previous agreement (first and second in the xml respectively). This example should be self-explanatory when related to Asset Bank's agreements functionality, although please get in touch if further details are required.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<agreements>
    <agreement title="Current agreement" activated="18/02/2010 08:12:12" availableToAll="false" sharedWithOU="false">
        <body>
            <![CDATA[<p>This is the agreemnt body text</p>]]>
        </body>
    </agreement>
    <agreement title="Previous agreement" expiry="17/02/2010 00:00:00" activated="16/02/2010 13:11:17" availableToAll="false" sharedWithOU="false">
        <body>
            <![CDATA[<p>This is the previous agreement text</p>]]>
        </body>
    </agreement>
</agreements>

Spatial Area Attributes

If you have any custom attributes of type 'Spatial Area', then the values in the relevant att: column(s) are required to be in a certain format, with the following rules:

• Leave empty for an empty Spatial Area value.
• Otherwise a comma-delimited string with 4 parts in the following order: 'West bound,South bound,East bound,North bound' - there must be exactly three commas.
• Any part may be empty, otherwise a valid signed decimal degrees number.
• West and East bounds should be longitudes between -180 and 180. South and North bounds should be latitudes between -90 and 90.
• A point may be represented by populating just the West and South bounds, or making East=West and North=South.

 Examples

• Bounded area: '-10.0,0.0,10.0,90.0'
• Equatorial Band: ',-10,,10'
• Points: '10,10,,', '-10.5,0,-10.5,0'. 

 Creating a Tab Delimited File using Excel

You can generate a tab-delimited text file from Excel by choosing "Save as..." and then selecting "Text (Tab delimited)" for the field "Save as type".

When you have generated the text file from Excel you should check it using a text editor. Use "search and replace" to replace any characters that Excel may have added to the data - for example, it often adds " (quote) characters around fields. Also check that the format of date columns is as you intended (i.e. matching the import-date-format setting).

Also see: Step by step guide to Metadata Import   

Add empty related assets

You can use this page to add 1 or more empty assets to the system and set them as related assets of your selected source asset.

The list on the page shows the type of assets that the source asset can be related to.

Select the number of each type of asset you would like to create and optionally enter a name value for each of the types (the name value will be used to populate the name attribute for all instances of the asset type that are created).

Once you have selected the assets you want to create, click the save button and you will be redirected to a page that refreshes with the status of your asset creation.

Once complete you can redirect back to the source asset to see the list of empty related assets at the bottom of the view asset page. 

Relationship descriptions

Update video keywords

If video keywords is enabled in the application and you have permission to update a video then you will see an 'Add/Edit video keywords' button on the Video details page. You can access this page by searching for the asset and then clicking 'View details' in the search results.

The Update video keywords page allows you to manage video keywords for the video:

You can add new keywords for each supported language for a given point in time in the video by playing the video and pausing at the time point, the button 'get current' will populate the Start or End point. Add text to at least the English Keywords text field and click the 'Add' button to save.

To edit existing keywords, click the 'edit' link and the 'Add new keywords' form will be populated with the existing values which you can modify and then save by clicking the 'Save' button (Note: the 'Add' button becomes 'Save' once 'edit' is clicked).

To delete existing keywords click the 'delete' link.

 

Using the Document Editor Plug-in

The Document Editor Plug-in provides seamless integration between Asset Bank and the desktop applications used to edit files such as Word, Photoshop and InDesign documents. It speeds up the process by which documents stored in Asset Bank can be downloaded to a user’s local computer, edited in a desktop application and then resubmitted to Asset Bank. You can: 

• From the ‘Asset Details’ page, launch the appropriate desktop application ready to edit the asset’s source file.
• Flag the file as checked out so other Asset Bank users cannot make changes to it at the same time.
• Submit the updated file back into Asset Bank with one click.
• Edit InDesign documents that contain links to separate image files (which are themselves stored as assets in Asset Bank) – solving a common problem that in order to edit an InDesign document a user also needs to have all the images to which it is linked.

The plug-in can be configured by file extension to work for any document type that users may want to edit using a desktop application, for example INDD, PSD, DOC, DOCX.

For details on editing InDesign documents, please click here.

See here for configuration details.

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Copying Assets

When viewing an asset's details page, if you have the rights to edit the asset and the can-create-asset-copies setting is true for your Asset Bank then you will see a copy button.

You can also limit the assets that can be copied, using their file extension, setting the create-asset-copies-for-extensions setting.

Clicking this button will create a copy of the asset being viewed and redirect you to the edit page for the newly created asset.

If the asset being copied has child relationships then prior to being redirected to the edit page you will be taken to a page that enables them to select how to handle the copying of the child relationships. For each relationship you will have the option of discarding the relationship on the copy, creating a link from the copy to the existing child asset from the source or creating a link to a copy of the existing child asset from the source.

Once you have selected how to handle the child relationships you will then be redirected to the edit asset page for the newly copied asset.

Peer relationships are not retained during a copy and have to be re-established post copy if they are needed.

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Approving Assets

The Approve Items page enables a user with 'Approval' permissions to review, approve and reject assets which have been submitted to them for approval by users who have "upload with approval" (UWA) permissions.

NB: An approver may also have a defined list of categories which they are allowed to approve assets for.

When a UWA user uploads an asset it goes into a 'requires approval' state and the users who have permission to approve the uploaded asset are notified by email that there is an asset awaiting approval.

The approver can then visit the Approve Items page and see a list of all the items pending approval along with a thumbnail representation of each item. Next to each item will be a list of actions that the approver can perform for the asset in question (submit to live, reject for re-submission, etc.). 

If the user has the ability to approve assets for more than one workflow then a selector will be displayed at the top of the Approve Items page to enable them to select the workflow that they would like to see un-approved items for.

The user performs an action on an asset by selecting the desired radio button, optionally entering a message to display to the next user before finally clicking the 'Submit' button for the asset in question.

There is also the option of batch updating the assets pending approval for the workflow in question. The user clicks on the link "start a new batch update" to view the items that are awaiting approval: they can update, approve or delete each one in turn.

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Requesting Assets

Submitting Asset Requests

Users with "Requester" permission will be able to see the Requests element in the left hand menu.

Once a request is submitted a notification email will be sent to managers/admins that will approve it.
Note that a Requester can amend the descrition only until a request is approved.

 

The Status field will inform the Requester on the stage the request is in.
When fulfilled, the system will send a notification email to the Requester, and the requested Asset will be available in the Request details.

Managing Asset Requests

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Contact Us

The Contact Us page allows you to send feedback or queries to the system administrator.

 

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