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Let us guess, you've made loads of New Year's resolutions; exercise more, lose weight, dry January, get fit, maybe go vegan?  We've all done it and felt solemn in February when most of these have dropped off our radar or we've found that staying in and watching Luther (rather than go for a jog), eating a burger or having what feels like a well-deserved glass of wine (or 3) far too enticing.

This year why not make a few resolutions that will make a real difference and are more importantly easy to stick to?

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image by Victor Freitas -Pexels

You guessed it, we're talking about New Year's resolutions which will help de-clutter and improve your life at work and we're going to call them - "DAM Good Resolutions".

We know that keeping your DAM in tip-top shape is an ongoing challenge and it's the same for any organisation, and as other projects and holidays take precedence during busy times of the year it can be difficult to keep on top of things.

However, as we've mentioned before, making sure your DAM is well configured is hugely important to ensure you are getting the results you need from your system.

In this article, we're going to run through a few important tasks which you can turn into New Year's resolutions. They're designed to  help you keep your system running smoothly and are easy to sort out.

DAM Good Resolution 1 = Take some time to find yourself... and your assets

Searching for assets is one of the primary ways that users will find what they are looking for in your system. So - when was the last time you looked at what people were searching for? How long ago did you configure the search options available to your users? And just how out of date are the search options you are prominently displaying on your homepage?

Often these areas are configured effectively during your 'go live' and slowly deteriorate over time. A simple cleanse of unused terms or options can help to keep pages looking simple and easy to use.

sylwia bartyzel

Make it easy for your users to find what they are looking for

It's frustrating for your users if they search for an asset and get 0 results - and can sometimes mean they give up and use an old version they have tucked away on their hard drive. Use Asset Bank's search reporting to easily find all search terms which 'failed' (returned 0 results) over the last few months and consider why these failed.

Maybe a new product ID hasn't been added to the system yet, possibly you've changed your internal vocabulary to use different keywords, or maybe you just need to add some synonyms to your keywords.  

DAM Good Resolution 2 = New Year: New Structure

A year is a long time in the working world, both team structures and ways of working can rapidly change and alter the way your users will be looking for files. Consider the folder structure on your homepage: are these really the most intuitive options for your users?

Even if your organisation hasn't changed, you will often discover over time that your initial folder structure has fallen out of favour with the way your users are accessing the system. For example, a product-based company may have initially launched their DAM system with top-level folders based on file type, such as "Images", "Templates", and "Videos". This may have worked initially, but as the system grows this can result in such a huge number of files within each of these broad sections, making it difficult to find what you're looking for.

Talk to your users and identify how they think about your assets, the terms they use and the routes they follow to find what they are looking for. It may be more appropriate to now start with different 'product' folders on the homepage and instead have sub-folders for different file types.

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Well-organised assets go a long way to encouraging people to come back!

DAM Good Resolution 3 = Make friends with GDPR 

GDPR was the hot topic of 2018 - whether we like it or not - and there was a huge amount of work completed to ensure we complied with the new legislation. The real question: are you still following those good principles? Your old consent forms may have expired and hidden related photography from your users, but have you taken the time to audit and delete them from your archive?

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It's easy to forget what's in your archive, so it's a good time to have a thorough clean-out![/caption] Ensuring you are complying with GDPR in terms of using assets is the primary thing that many organisations have focused on during their projects to become compliant. However, ensuring that you are regularly checking your expired and archived assets to ensure you are not retaining data longer than you need it is a separate activity that needs to be considered throughout 2019 and onwards.

So how are you feeling & how did you do?

If you've got a beautiful search system, a wonderfully elegant folder structure, and a well-maintained archive, congratulations! You're off to a great start.

anthony tran

On top of everything? Time to relax...

Of course, as with most New Year's Resolutions, there is always another 'step' you could be working towards, so don't beat yourself up about it if you've not managed all of the above... but maybe it's time you started using some of our latest features? Possibly this is the year you find time to migrate assets from your network drive into the cloud, saving money and getting more value from your existing assets?

It could simply be time for a facelift to our newest layout or to any updated brand guidelines you may have.

Get in touch if we can help, and we'll be back to check on you later in the year!

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