Digital Assets Manager Administration Guide

Overview

The Digital Assets Library is where digital files are stored for use throughout ACM. A digital asset is any file that you will want to either insert to display on a page, such as images, flash files or video; or insert as a link on a page, such as PDF, Word or Excel files.

The Digital Assets Manager is a system tool available to website administrators that allows for the organization of all digital files.  By definition, those with access to the Digital Assets Manager have rights to the entire library structure for their Site Group.  Content Providers without access to the Digital Assets Manager are still able to upload new digital assets, and utilize/modify existing digital assets.

Digital Asset Folders

Create | Locate | Modify | Delete

By default, each site has a 'Documents' and an 'Images' folder to house digital assets, but you may want to add folders, or change the folder structure to duplicate the structure of your website.

Create Digital Asset Folder

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Click Manage Folders.
3. Click Add Folder.
4. Enter the Name of the new folder.
5. Provide a Description of the folder that others will see when viewing folders. This tells people what types of Digital Assets are in the folder.
6. Select the Parent Folder for the new folder. This will determine the folder's location in the folder hierarchy.
7. Click Save. Repeat for all folders you wish to create.

Locate Digital Asset Folder

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Click Manage Folders.
3. Using the Parent Folder dropdown, expand the folder view until the folder is located.

Modify Digital Asset Folder

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Click Manage Folders.
3. Select the Parent Folder of the folder you want to modify.
4. Click the Folder Name to view the folder details.
5. Modify the Name or Description fields, or select a new parent folder.
6. Click Save.

Delete Digital Asset Folder

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Click Manage Folders.
3. Select the Parent Folder of the folder you want to delete.
4. Check the Delete box to the right of the Folder you want to delete. Click Save.
   OR
   Click the Folder Name to view the folder details. Click Delete.
   Click OK in the Confirmation Dialog box.

Add Digital Assets

Add a Single Digital Asset | Add Multiple Digital Assets

Digital assets include: images, PDF's, text files, PowerPoint presentations, audio and video, etc. 

Digital assets can also be uploaded to the Asset Library while using the Content Editor. See Managing Your Digital Assets for more information.

It is good practice to correctly size all of you assets before making them available for use. If you are going to be creating Digital Asset Galleries this is especially important so that your photos and images are consistently sized.

Add a Single Digital Asset

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Click Add Asset.
3. Check the Active box to make the asset available for use.
4. Enter the Name of the digital asset. The name is used to create the file name of the asset.
5. Enter the URL Title of the digital asset.
   This is the title that acts as a file name for the asset.  Use only alphanumeric characters in the URL Title field (no spaces, capitals or special characters).
6. Enter the Description of the asset. This field allows a maximum of 1000 characters.
7. Enter an Alt Tag. Alt Tags are displayed in browsers when an image or link is moused over.
   Note: Alt Tags are required as this is an attribute of the img tag and is meant to be an alternative for non-visual browsers when they come across images. This means, that the text is meant to be used when the image is not visible on the page. Instead, what is displayed (or read) is the alternative text.
8. In the Assign to Folder field, select the Digital Asset folder you want to put the asset into.
9. In the Upload field, click Browse and select the file to add to the library.
10. Click Save.

Add Multiple Digital Assets

Multiple digital assets are uploaded using a .zip file. This feature is only available within the Digital Asset Manager and is not available from within the HTML editor. You must select a single, pre-existing digital asset folder that the new digital assets will be created in. If you do not select a digital asset folder, the default location for all newly-uploaded digital assets will be in the root folder.

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Click Add Multiple Asset.
3. Check the Active box to make the assets available for use.
4. From the Assign to Folder dropdown, select the location for the new assets.
5. In the Upload field, click Browse and select a .zip file to upload.
6. Click Save to proceed with the file upload, or click Cancel to exit from uploading the selected .zip file and return to the Digital Asset Manager.
7. The zipped assets are opened and listed with their default names, created from their original file name. Both the name and alt tag will be created this way as digital assets require an alt tag to be saved. Digital assets uploaded using this method will have no default description.
   
   Note: If a digital asset being uploaded has the same name as an existing digital asset already in the selected folder, the new asset will not be uploaded. After the file is processed, summary information is displayed, identifying the names of all successfully created digital assets, as well as identifying those digital assets which were not created and the reason why.
8.  At this point you have three options:
   • Choose to upload additional zip files
   • Cancel out of the multiple upload area and return to the Digital Assets Manager.
   • Edit the properties of the assets you’ve just uploaded.
9. Click the <<Edit Digital Assets Properties>> link to edit the Name and Alt Tags; and add a description to the images contained in the zip file.
10. Click Save to retain your edits, or Cancel to return to the Multiple Asset upload area.

Locate Digital Assets

There are a number of ways you can locate Digital Assets.

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Enter a partial or full digital asset name; select a folder using the Choose a Folder dropdown. Click Search. All digital assets matching the search term will be displayed.
   OR
   Enter the digital asset ID; select a folder using the Choose a Folder dropdown. Click Search. The digital asset matching the ID will be returned
   OR
   Browse digital assets by selecting a folder using the Choose a Folder dropdown. All digital assets within the selected folder will be displayed.
3. Check the Show Thumbnails checkbox to see a small version of the image displayed in the search results.
4. Search results can be sorted by Name, Description, Folder or Status by clicking on the column headers.
5. Click the Name of the asset to work with.

Edit Digital Assets

Create a New Version

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Locate the asset to edit.
3. Download the asset file.
   • In the asset viewer window, click Download.
   • Click Save and select a folder location to save the asset to. You can change the name of the file if you wish. The system will still track the versions of the asset record in the ACM.
4. Edit the asset file.
5. Re-upload the edited file.
   • Beside the Re-Upload field, click Browse.
   • Locate the asset file you wish to re-upload.
     Note: You will not see the updated file in the asset view window until you save the record and view the asset details again.
6. Click Save.

Edit Properties

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Locate the asset to edit.
3. Change the Status (Active or not), Name, Description, Alt Tag, or assign to new folder.
   Note: Updating the name and alt tag of the asset will not update the name and alt tag values on the pages where an asset is currently published.
4. Click Save.

Edit Digital Asset Images

1. Browse or search for a Digital Asset Image file. The file can be any gif or jpg file.
2. Open the image asset for editing by selecting the asset name.
3. Under the preview image of the asset, select the Edit link to open the image editor.

Image Zoom | Resize | Crop | Flip/Rotate | Save or Save As

Image Zoom

The zoom function is located at the bottom right of the Image Editor. The zoom does not affect the output of the image but only how it is displayed in the Image Editor. Zoom in or out by selecting the desired zoom value.

Below the zoom feature, the dimensions and size of the image are displayed. This information is static and will only update if changes to the image are saved, the image is closed and re-opened.

Resize Image

1. Select the Resize tab on the right side of the editor.
2. Select the by Pixel or by Percentage radio button.
3. Enter a new value (in pixels or percentage of original) for the Width of the image.
4. Enter a new value (in pixels or percentage of original) for the Height of the image.
5. If the Maintain Aspect Ratio checkbox is selected, the width or height values will automatically update if one or the other is changed. This will make certain that the image is not skewed when one of the dimension parameters is changed.
6. Click Resize to resize the image.
7. Click Undo Changes if you wish to reverse your changes.

Crop Image

1. Select the Crop tab on the right side of the editor.
2. You can select the area of the screen you wish to crop by clicking and dragging your mouse. The area inside of the red box will be preserved once the crop action takes place.
3. You can manually define the dimensions and position of the crop box using the following text fields.
   • Offset X – this is the number of pixels that the top left corner of the crop box should be away from the left side of the image.
   • Offset Y – this is the number of pixels that the top left corner of the crop box should be away from the top of the image.
   • Width – this is the width of the crop box in pixels.
   • Height – this is the height of the crop box in pixels.
4. Click Crop to crop the image.
5. Click Undo Changes if you wish to reverse your changes.

Flip/Rotate Image

1. Select the Flip/Rotate tab on the right side of the editor.
2. To rotate the image, select one of the 3 options of 90^o, 180^o, or 270^o and click the Flip/Rotate button. The image will rotate clockwise.
3. To flip the image, select Horizontal or Vertical and click the Flip/Rotate button.
4. Click Undo Changes if you wish to reverse your changes.

Save or Save As

You have the two options for saving your changes to the image. Clicking the Save button will overwrite the original image with your changes. Clicking the Save As button will allow you to create a brand new image asset without affecting the original asset. In both cases, the image is saved as a jpg file.

Delete Digital Assets

You must remove digital assets from the pages they are used on before you can delete them. If you are not sure what pages they are used on, see Digital Asset Usage Information in the next section.

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Locate the asset to delete.
3. Check the Usage tab of the asset record to make sure the asset is not in use on any published or workflow pages. If it is, you must remove it from those pages before deleting.
4. Click Delete.
5. Click OK to confirm the asset deletion.

Delete Digital Asset Versions

Each time a new version of a digital asset is uploaded, the previous version is retained within the history of the digital asset. Since digital assets can be large, having multiple versions that are no longer on the site can use a significant amount of server space. You can delete any previous versions of a digital asset if you know they will not be restored and used again.

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Locate the asset you want to delete versions of.
3. Click the History tab of the asset record to view the version list of the asset.
4. In the Delete column, check the box of all the versions you want to remove.
5. Click the Delete Selected Versions button.
6. Click OK to confirm the permanent deletion of the digital asset versions.
   OR
   Click Cancel to close the confirmation and return to the Digital Asset Detail window.

Digital Asset Usage Information

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Locate the asset whose usage report you want to view.
3. Click the Usage tab of the asset record. The tab displays site, page and location information for the asset.
4. To see a complete overview of the asset information, click Asset Report beside the Active checkbox near the top of the asset record.

Restore a Digital Asset

Restore an earlier version of a Digital Asset.

1. Open the Digital Assets Manager.
2. Locate the digital asset you want to restore.
3. Click the History tab; all of the versions of the asset are displayed.
4. Locate the version you wish to restore and click on the Version link. The page is refreshed and the version you selected is displayed in the asset view window. The version links now display the word "Current". You can click on the word Current if you wish to see how the current version differs.
5. Click Restore Asset to restore the selected version.
6. Click Save. The restored version is added to the History with a new version number, with the date and time of the restoration.

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Last reviewed4/21/2011 10:23:16 AM