HOW TO | databasics DAM solutions and services

HOW TO select your Canto package

by Antra Silova | May 3, 2019 | Canto SaaS, Digital Asset Management, HOW TO

Now that you have selected Canto as your DAM solution, how to pick the right configuration package for your needs. Are you worried about your storage needs – is 1TB enough? And how about the number of Users (administrators and contributors) – do you have many outside parties that contribute content?

Let’s start with storage.

The amount of storage

How much cloud storage do you really need? We see very few customers go past the 1TB. A great way to get an idea of how much storage you really need is to look at how much you’re currently using. It is also a good time to start cleaning up and re-organising your files and folders. Canto has inbuilt de-duplication which is really handy at helping you clean things up. Here are a few other things to consider when choosing the storage amount.

Type of data

Some types of files require much more space than others. Video files are the largest. Audio files rarely surpass 20GB. Images can vary in size and quality. Document files don’t take much space at all.

Number of user licenses

The next big question in choosing the configuration is: how many user licenses do we need.

There are 3 types of users – Administrators, Contributors and Consumers.

There are 2 types of licenses – Users or Consumers.

Both Admin and Contributors (any combination) are grouped as user licenses, they distribute content to Consumers.

Administrators control your Canto account; they are business users (not IT). Contributors can upload content, add metadata, organise your library.

Do you have external agencies, photographers or other independent parties that contribute content to your library? If so – and they don’t need to have access to your Canto account – all they need is an Upload Link to upload the content to, and the Admin can then approve the content to be added to the Main Library. It is a much more controlled process, and it saves you money for getting additional user licenses.

I hope this article has been helpful in clarifying some things on the different package configurations of Canto SaaS DAM. There are custom configurations available, if necessary. Make sure you talk to databasics about your needs, we are happy to help.

HOW TO create a Style Guide

by Antra Silova | Feb 27, 2019 | Canto SaaS, HOW TO

The key to a strong brand and increased brand awareness is consistency. Big companies invest a lot of money in building a brand that is instantly recognizable – think about Apple – their strict style guides make it very hard to imitate thus providing instant brand recognition and loyalty.

Creating a brand style guide is now easier and more straight forward since the introduction of Canto Style Guide feature, introduced in December 2018 Canto update, that is included with your purchase. That could translate to savings of more than $2,000 a year in agency fees, you get it for free!

What do you need to create your organisation’s brand Style Guide?

You will start with the colours of your logo, specific typography you want to use in your communication and other visual standards, like imagery, and a message copy that you would like to convey.

Let’s take a look at what you can do in Canto.

You can access the Style Guide feature in your settings. Go to New Style Guide. Next fill in the information fields about your style guide, such as Name and Description.

You can set the access of style guide to be Public or Private. If you would like to allow parties outside of your Canto instance to access the style guide, you can then set it as Public.

Next you need to add content to your style guide that you would like to showcase as example of your brand style. It could be albums or folders that are specifically created for display in the style guide.

Make sure to select Auto Sync to automatically include any new content to your style guide.

Now you’re ready to build your style guide in Style Setup.

To start, Canto provides 4 different building blocks to be included in the guide – colour, typography, imagery, and copy. More can be added if necessary.

Let’s start with colour. Add any colours you associate with your brand. You can give your colours a specific name. In the text field on the left you can add any instructions for the users of the style guide.

Next, a big part of your brand identity is font. Decide if you’d like to stick to one font or use several, provide detailed instructions in the text box.

Let’s move on to imagery. Use it to display your logos and any other images/ photography that showcase your brand and style. Here you can create several sections of imagery – for logos or different products, for example. Or to be used in different communications, such as advertising or social media.

Add any folders or albums you would like to include in your style guide, these can be then accessed by the style guide users to make sure they have the right brand imagery.

The description of the albums you see under the images, can be edited in the main library in the description field for the album.

Finally, in the Copy section include any message or text you would like to always appear consistent in your marketing communication.

After style sections are completed you can create a custom branding for your style guide landing page, by changing colours, font or logo.

Lastly, you can add any users or groups you would like to have access to style guide. They will now be able to access it in the left-side menu under the main library. This is what a final style guide could look like and be further shared with others.

HOW TO Migrate Metadata From Cumulus to Canto

by Antra Silova | Apr 18, 2018 | HOW TO

Written by Jack Huang

This article will guide you through the process of migrating metadata from Cumulus to Canto. There are three parts to the process:

Exporting metadata from Cumulus
Formatting the metadata file from Cumulus
Importing metadata to Canto

Exporting metadata from Cumulus

To export the metadata from Cumulus you will need to use Cumulus Desktop Client.

Once you open the Catalog in Cumulus Desktop Client, select the file you want to export out metadata. In this example, we will select all asset records to be exported.

Once the assets records are selected, click on File -> Export -> Selected Records… as indicated in Screenshot 1 below.

Screenshot 1: Export menu

After ‘Selected Records…’ is clicked, an export window will pop up. Select ‘Cumulus 5-7 format (UTF-8)’ and choose the location you like to export.

Screenshot 2: Export Window

Click ‘Start’, once the export is completed, it will create a [filename].cre format file. Then user will need to change the file to ***.txt format.

Figure 3: Changing file format

You have now completed the export process.

Formatting the metadata file

The purpose of this process is to ensure the metadata file is readable for Canto.

Open an empty Excel document, Select Data -> From Text/CSV.

Figure 1: Open file in Excel

After the file is opened, Excel will show a preview window like below.

Figure 2: preview window

Make sure you select File Origin as ‘65001: Unicode (UTF-8)’.

Figure 3: File Origin

Then Click on Edit, you will see all data are list within a single Column.

Figure 4: Initial data

Select ‘Split Column by Delimiter’ Option.

Figure 5: Select Split

Select Tab as delimiter.

Figure 6: Select Tab

The data has now been divided into multiple columns.

Figure 7: Multiple Columns

Next step is to clean up rows 1-7 except row 4 by clicking ‘Remove Rows’.

Figure 8: Click Remove Rows

You need to remove the top three rows by selecting ‘Remove Top Rows’, then enter 3 in the appearing input box.

Figure 9: Selecting remove Top Rows

Once this is completed, you will see all the metadata field name appear in the row 1.

Figure 10: Removed top 3 rows

Next step: remove rows 2-4 by selecting ‘Remove Alternate Rows’.

Figure 11: Remove Alternate Rows option

In the appearing window below, enter 2 for ‘First row to remove’, enter 3 for number of rows to remove. Enter Number of rows to keep is depending on how much rows you have minus 3.

Figure 12: Remove Alternate Rows window

As shown in below (Figure 13) is displayed on the screen, row 1 is the metadata field name came from Cumulus, each remaining row represent one asset records in the Cumulus Catalog with the metadata in each column.

Figure 13: Cleaned data table

Go through each column, delete any column that you don’t like to import to Canto. Make sure column ‘Asset name’ is in the first column of the table, as this going to be the file name that Canto is looking at when these are imported.

Figure 14: Asset Name column is the first column

After selecting the columns that you like to import to Canto, Click on ‘Close & Load’ button.

Figure 15: Close & Load button

The following table will open in Excel mode, delete the first row which has “ColumnXXX”. Your metadata field will now become first row, then save this file as “.csv” format (comma delimiter) file.

Figure 16: Deleting first row of current table

Figure 17: New Metadata field row

You are now ready to import this metadata to Canto using Canto Metadata Importer.

Importing metadata to Canto

To import Cumulus metadata to Canto, you are required to get these two items ready:

TEXT type Custom Fields created in Canto
Metadata importer is enabled

These functions are only accessible to Canto admin users.

If you are logging in as Canto admin user, you can access Canto settings by hover your mouse cursor in the avatar icon, in the appearing menu, click on Settings.

Figure 1: Accessing Canto settings

Go to ‘Configuration Options’, then select ‘Custom Fields’. Copy the metadata field name from the csv file that was created in previous process “Formatting Metadata file” into “Field Name” input box, type in any description to this metadata field, select ‘TEXT’ field type, click on ‘Add’ once finished. In this example, it is using “Asset Identifier” which is the second column from the csv file.

Figure 2: Adding Custom Fields

Go to ‘Links & Connections’, then select ‘Metadata Import’. Click ‘Select’ to browse the csv file then click on upload.

Figure 3: Upload csv

Figure 4: Import csv

When all files are processed, go back to Canto home page by clicking the logo, select the files that were just imported for metadata. The metadata has been assigned to the image.

Figure 5: Result

You have completed the metadata import process.

HOW TO Migrate Data to Canto (nee Flight)

by Antra Silova | Nov 20, 2017 | Flight by Canto, HOW TO

There are a few things to think about when trying to migrate data from one digital asset management system to another. You want to ensure that metadata associated with digital assets is preserved. Depending on a file format or a previous storage system, some assets have metadata embedded, some have an attached file or have metadata stored separately.

DataBasics is often asked to help with data migration. To determine basic requirements for data migration there are a few things we need to know.

What we need to know

What is the total size of file/s to be uploaded?

Is there any additional metadata that needs to be exported/ imported?

How is the metadata currently used?

What migration options are there?

There are currently 3 options to migrate assets into Flight:

Advanced Uploader – allows bulk upload of assets from a customer’s existing file system.

Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings.

Note: Advanced Uploader will not work with Chrome as it doesn’t support Java. It works on IE in Windows, Safari in Mac, Mozilla Firefox.

Canto Express (Uploader application on MacOS) – works like Advanced Uploader but has been designed from the ground up to work with MacOS and provides an intuitive way to upload assets.

Note: The application can be downloaded from App Store when searching for “Canto Express”. Due to the nature of Canto, folder structures will be recreated as albums. Each subsequent folder will be created as an album stored within the original folder.

Cloud Storage Integration – Canto has integration with: Google Drive, Box and Dropbox. Customers using these services will find the process of transferring data to Canto simple and intuitive.

Please note: Your data may be presented differently. But all search capabilities should be maintained.

Importing additional metadata

Existing embedded metadata will be extracted as part of the upload process. If any additional metadata is required, the metadata will need to be saved to a csv file and each field will need to be created as a custom field in Canto settings, once this is completed, import the csv to Canto using Metadata Importer found in the Settings. This metadata will then be applied to the corresponding images.

For any additional questions please contact databasics at info@databasics.com.au or call 1300 886 238.

Using Direct URLs Of Images and Videos

by Antra Silova | Apr 24, 2017 | Digital Asset Management, Flight by Canto, HOW TO

*Please note: as of May 22, Flight is now Canto. All references to Flight in this article refer to Canto.

In our opinion, one of the most exciting new features of Flight (released with Flight LHR update) is the direct URLs of images and videos that you can find in the details view of an image or video.

Direct URLs are useful for fast sharing and accessing of images and videos around the world.

With direct URL you can:

Preview any file (including RAW, .avi, .CR2, .psd) immediately in your browser, without having to look for a specific file converter. The file gets automatically converted to a web viewable/ playable format.

You would use this most frequently when working with media content stored in Flight that you want to use in your website. The Flight direct URL interface provides a simple three step process to integrate with any CMS you might be using to build your website. So simple and straight forward that it will only take minutes getting used to this and you won’t know how you did without it. Please note: all images and the video in this blog post were inserted using direct URL. Did I say how fast and easy that was?

If your website is more like a retail catalogue with lots of images of products for example then with some simple scripting an export file can be produced from Flight with a product identifier and the direct URL ready to go. You could import this into your eCommerce system to automatically generate pages of content.

With the Preview image URL, you can resize the image right in your browser by changing the pixel number at the end of the URL. No need to have two or more files taking up the storage space. No need to Save As saving you arduous process of preparing all the imagery for your website.

With the Original File you can preview, place, and share the image in its original size without having to download the file.

Use it to share or embed your video files (any file type) without having to save them first. Just use the direct URL. Place the video URL directly in your html page. An example of an .avi file being embedded into WP blog post below.

Facing an issue of finding approved content, with Flight’s inbuilt approval process you are assured that the content you are sharing is suitable for your purposes. All a Flight admin needs to do is set up a portal for approved content for all consumers to have free and easy access to.

Summary

By storing your content in Flight you will be able to keep your assets in one central location and be able to use them in various marketing channels. Your team will benefit from being easily able to locate content and quickly use it as needed. Your ITs will love you as you’re no longer storing masses of content on file servers with much of the content duplicates that no one knows how they got there. Your management will be able to take new business opportunities provided by faster usage of content in a more controlled environment.

HOW TO Order and Process Assets in Cumulus with DARS (DataBasics Asset Request Solution)

by Antra Silova | Apr 5, 2017 | Canto Cumulus, Digital Asset Management, HOW TO

The new DataBasics Asset Request Solution (DARS) provides a facility for external users to order selected assets from Cumulus through Portals and enable Cumulus administrators to process the submitted requests in Cumulus Web Client or Desktop Client. DARS is currently running on DataBasics demo site and we encourage customers with existing EOSP solution to try it. Below you will find step-by-step instructions on how to order assets from Cumulus, process asset requests in Web Client, process requests in Desktop Client, and receiving assets from Cumulus.

Ordering assets from Cumulus

1. Connect to portals cumulus.databasics.com.au/portals
2. Add the assets you want to order into the basket.
3. Click the ‘Request Assets’ button.

4. Complete the request form – recipient address (this will be usually preconfigured with Cumulus Content Manager address), name, phone number, address & reason for request and send the request.

Processing asset requests in Cumulus

1. Open submitted request email and copy the Search String.

2. Log into Web Client https://cumulus.databasics.com.au/cwc
3. Open the catalog, paste the search string into the quick search box and click the magnifying glass.

4. Select all, or relevant, assets.

5. From the Tools Menu select one of the following options:

6. Once you have completed the approval process you can use a download collection to send the relevant assets to the requestor (Tool menu > Share > Create a collection and send a link to selected recipients).

Edit the collection name, recipient email address, subject, body text, embargo and recipient permissions.

Web Client Note
• If portals support’s multiple catalogs the request may include assets from different catalogs. In this scenario, you will need to open one catalog at a time and repeat the quick search process. Alternatively use Desktop Client to open all relevant catalogs in one window.
• Assets which are related to Master Assets do not show in Web Client search, only in the Master Asset Relations Tab. If portals is configured to publish related assets, use Desktop Client to process the asset requests.

Processing requests in Desktop Client

1. Copy the search string from the asset request email.
2. Open the relevant catalog/s, paste the search string into the quick search box and click the magnifying glass.

3. Select all, or relevant, assets.

4. Select one of the following options:
• From the Workflow menu select the relevant approval workflow.
• From the File menu select, Save Collection As, and save for later approval processing.
• If you have already decided to approve the assets go to step 5.
5. Once you have completed the approval process you can use a download collection to send the relevant assets to the requestor (File menu > Send Collection Link).

Edit collection name, recipient, subject, body text, embargo and recipient permissions.

Desktop Client Note
• If portals support multiple catalogs and the request includes assets from different catalogs you can open all the catalogs available to portals in one window and quick search will find all requested assets.

Receiving assets from Cumulus

1. The requestor will receive a download invitation email.

2. When they click on the link or the View button it will connect them to the download collection with the preconfigured download options.

Watch demo here.

If you already have active accounts in the DataBasics Cumulus demo environment you can log-in and evaluate this new feature.
If you don’t, please nominate users for testing (name and email address) and we will provide access. Email us at: support@databasics.com.au