Item: Acquia DAM (Widen)
Rating: 9
Author: Katja Amyx

Overall Satisfaction with Acquia DAM (Widen)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We currently use Acquia DAM (Widen) primarily to house creative assets used to build print and digital designs that appear on our website, digital marketing, e-mail, and print. Our new collective replaces an outdated DAM. Acquia DAM (Widen) has the structure, features, and usability that make it a pleasure for both DAM admins and users. We are building a reputation within the company that will help us attract other business units to store and distribute their assets through our collective. Our goal is to have one unified location where all digital assets are stored. Benefits: Reduce time spent by users searching for assets Reduce production of duplicative assets Support consistent representation of the brand Enforce asset expiration dates

Pros and Cons

Pros

Implementation support
Flexible and robust metadata and governance structure
Easy and attractive portals
Multiple ways to access customer support
Useful out of the box integrations

Cons

Embed codes are not very scaleable
Certain types of integrations between DAM and other systems are challenging

Return on Investment

Streamlined workflows
Faster sharing of assets with outside vendors
Faster campaign launches

We plan to add more business units, including multiple brands, to our Widen collective. This will save the organization a significant amount of money over time, as a single DAM will replace several separate DAMs. It will also give DAM functionality to some business units that currently are using much less functional options.

We also plan to integrate with our PIM once it is online, which will make the assets stored in the DAM more easily available to both people and automated processes throughout our system.

Support Rating

Implementation support was fantastic. We were paired with an implementation consultant who met with us weekly, guided us through the many steps, answered questions and helped with problem solving. The only time I have ever looked forward to an 8:30 am meeting! DAM maintenance support is also excellent. If I can't figure out how to get something to work within the DAM or if something strange happens, I can either chat with support immediately or start a ticket through Acquia DAM (Widen) Connect. If the first level of support can't help, I usually hear back from the second tier within hours. They are very responsive. As I've mentioned elsewhere in my review, support in getting some of our integrations set up has been a bit lackluster (speaking of integrations not covered by the standard ones offered by Acquia DAM (Widen)). I feel that Acquia DAM (Widen) should step up to the plate for the things we are asking, because the integrations that we want (building e-mails, for example) are obvious functions that a modern enterprise DAM should perform. Fortunately, we do have engineering support in our company, but it's still be frustrating with Acquia DAM (Widen).

Key Insights

Do you think Acquia DAM (Widen) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Acquia DAM (Widen)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Acquia DAM (Widen) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Acquia DAM (Widen) go as expected?

Would you buy Acquia DAM (Widen) again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Acquia DAM (Widen) is excellent when you want a metadata-driven DAM (not folder-based). It offers a variety of ways to distribute assets (individual links, collections, portals) to both internal and external users. The dashboard (home page) is very customizable with dashboard messages that are governed by the same permissions settings that govern assets. This makes it easy to create custom dashboards for multiple groups of users (departments, business units, companies) such that each group only sees their own dashboard. The system is easy to update, so development can happen in phases for everything from adding a new product to the Products field to adding a new company to the DAM. The one area that we have had trouble with is integrating with Block SDK. We are able to use assets that are already at the correct size when uploaded to the DAM, but we haven't figured out a way to use the image cropping feature offered by Acquia DAM (Widen).

Comments

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Acquia DAM (Widen) is a good choice