When managing a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, many administrators quickly find that the management part is the hardest to get right. In addition to standard asset governance processes, such as approval, expiration and archiving, digital assets present special challenges. Assets in a DAM can be very complex – these are typically large high-resolution images and pro-quality video, with numerous metadata tags, generated previews, color profiles and complex renditions. Ingesting, retrieving and making bulk changes are uniquely time-consuming tasks, with errors being especially costly.
It’s not surprising that some level of workflow support is standard for any mainstream DAM. Workflows are bread and butter for asset ingestion into – and retrieval from – a DAM (think approvals, metadata tagging), something organizations will want to automate as much as possible. And throw in the various one-off workflows for specific needs, be it onboarding of a new product line or a quick-fix workflow to address tagging errors.
Introduced in OpenText™ Media Management (OTMM) 16.5, the Activity Modeler is an integrated workflow engine that allows permissioned users to quickly build and publish their own processes. This makes automation of complex and repetitive tasks readily accessible, leading to a better-managed system with greater organizational consistency.
Upload
Often a workflow is helpful at ingest time to manage an approval process for new content, and to help automate and enforce a consistent approach to tagging assets with metadata. These can range in complexity from a simple email notification that new assets have been uploaded, to complex multi-approval workflows with sophisticated metadata validation requirements.
Activity Modeler includes the ability to declare an activity as the default import action. This allows you to ensure that your workflow will be run whenever assets are ingested into OTMM, whether through a single user upload or bulk ingestion through the Asset Importer.
Export
Similarly, building a workflow to route assets for approval at export time is a simple process. In some cases, a simple form might be all you need, to report why the user required access. In other cases, a more comprehensive approval process might be required. Again, just marking the activity as the default export activity in Activity Modeler will ensure it is invoked when users export assets.
Extending Activity Modeler
Out of the box, the Activity Modeler includes a set of operations from which a large number of workflow use cases can be addressed. But when you run into something that can’t be handled, it’s pretty easy to extend Activity Modeler with a custom Activity or Evaluation step.
Learn more
A recent Harvard Business Review article identified data and process as two key factors for successful digital transformations. OpenText Professional Services has the knowledge and expertise to help you manage and get the most out of your DAM. To find out more, please contact us.
Author: David Roy, Principal Architect – Professional Services
