Asset management

Media / assets > Assets

Store, manage and distribute digital assets

Overview

iCentric has an integrated, fully featured digital asset management system, designed to make the storage, management and distribution of digital assets, as comprehensive as possible.

The types of asset permitted and any associated data fields are configurable in asset configurations

Assets, like content pages in iCentric, are versioned, with an audit trail of all edits and changes. In addition, they can have alternate language variants. Permissions can be set for each asset and categories from the central category manager can also be assigned.

Folders, with unlimited sub folders can be created and assets can be uploaded directly to folders, or they can be copied by dragging and dropping into multiple folders.

Assets can be linked or grouped, e.g. where the same asset is available in different formats.

Textual content of assets, i.e. word documents, PDFs, are added to the index and are fully searchable see iCentric search

Within the asset library it is possible to;

View assets
Search assets
Create folder structures
Upload assets
Set permissions for assets
Assign categories to assets
Edit assets
Create multi-lingual assets
Link assets to make an asset group
Track where assets are in use on websites
Download assets
Delete assets
Unpublishing assets
View asset statistics

Viewing assets

Media / assets > Assets

The default view for assets is a tabular list view of the main asset root folder. Clicking on other folders will refresh the table to view that folder's contents.

The table contains global controls to Create folder, upload a file (to the currently selected folder), to delete the currently selected folder and to switch view (toggles between list and thumbnail). There is also a search field, which searches date shown in the columns of the currently selected folder. For a full asset search, including text content, use the global search

By selecting the 'Switch view' icon at the top right of the asset table, the view will be switched to a tiled grid of thumbnails.

In list view, the table contains these columns;

Created - date asset was uploaded c/w date range filter
Created by - name of user who uploaded asset c/w filter and sort controls.
Filename - file name and extension of the asset
Categories - Count of categories assigned to the asset
In use - Count of times the asset has been used on pages (all versions included) and slideshows. Contains hyperlink to a list of all places in use
Linked - Count of other assets linked to current asset
Bulk Download - link to add asset to batch for bulk download
Add linked document - link to add further assets in linked group
Edit - edit actual file (upload new) or associated data fields (will create new version)
Download - downloads currently selected asset
Permissions - assign view, edit, publish and delete to user roles
Delete - deletes image from currently selected folder.

Search assets

For each folder, it's table of assets contains a search field at the head of the table. The search is carried out on the currently selected folder, on the data in the columns of the table i.e. filename, uploaded by, upload date. To carry out a global asset search which includes associated data and / or textual contents of an asset, use iCentric's global search

Create folder structures

There are two folder directories within the asset library; Asset root folder and Customer uploads folder. The Customer uploads folder is used by the Formbuilder, with a new subfolder automatically created for each form where a file uploader associated. Subsequent uploads of files to those forms, use the auto generated folders to store the files.

The Asset root folder is where ALL assets are stored. Sub folders can be created by users and assets can be added to them, although in each instance, it is a reference to an asset which actually resides in the root folder, not the physical asset. This allows assets to virtually exist in many folders simultaneously, without actual duplication of the asset.

To create a folder, first select which folder it is to be a sub-folder of. Then select create folder. Add a name for the new folder and save.

Upload assets

Select the folder that the asset is to be uploaded to and select Upload file. Use the file browser to select the required file. According to the file type selected, the appropriate data fields will display. Where any of these fields are mandatory, they will need to be populated, prior to the asset being uploaded to the library.

Assets can also be uploaded directly from the page editor

Set permissions for assets

Permissions can be set for each asset to view, edit, publish and delete. For the selected asset, click the permissions icon. For each role, set the required permissions.

Assign categories to assets

Media / assets > Assets > Your folder > Your asset > Edit > Current version > Edit > categories

Multi- select categories to be assigned to an asset. Selected categories are displayed on the right of the page.

Edit assets

Media / assets > Assets > Your folder > Your asset > Edit > Current version > Edit

From the edit screen, the existing file can be replaced, by using the 'Choose File' button to upload another file. The file properties (associated data fields) can be edited from this screen and any assigned categories can also be edited.

Create multi-lingual assets

Media / assets > Assets > Your folder > Your asset > Language select

When in the version table of any asset, the language selector in the global header can be used to switch languages. Where a translation of the selected asset is not available, a first version for that language will be created. The description 'Cloned first version for culture' is automatically generated. The contents of the asset (i.e. file and associated data fields) are cloned from the default language version.

Link assets to make an asset group

Media / assets > Assets > Your folder > Your asset > Add linked

Add a name for the linked group and select a file to upload and link. The file must be of the same category as the initial file being linked to, i.e. an image or document file.

Track where assets are in use on websites

Media / assets > Assets > Your folder > Your asset > In use

Selecting the In use link will open a table of where the asset is in use. Where it has been applied directly to a page, a link to the edit view of that page is provided. Where an asset is used in a slideshow, only the name of the slideshow is provided. Any slideshow can be edited from any page in edit mode.

As assets cannot be deleted if they are in use on any webpage, it would be necessary in the first instance to remove an asset from any pages prior to deleting it. Replacing an asset file in the asset library will cause all instances of where the asset is in use to be updated.

Download assets

Media / assets > Assets > Your folder > Your asset > Download or Bulk download

Assets can be downloaded individually, or in a batch; To download multiple assets, select the Bulk download link for each asset. At the top of the asset table, a count of selected assets for download is displayed. The selection can be cleared by clicking the delete icon to the left of the count. Otherwise, clicking the download link to the right of the count, will run a process of combining all selected assets into a ZIP folder, and opening the download dialogue box.

Assets can be downloaded individually from the asset table. This will download the latest, published version, in the current language.

Alternatively, using the language selector and clicking the edit link to view the version table for each asset, will display download links for specific language and edit versions of an asset.

Asset management

Overview

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