How to Protect Digital Assets in Organizations: Advanced Authorization Management in a DAM System

In today’s digital age, securing an organization’s crucial digital assets should be one of the CIO’s top priorities.

However, many organizations still store their digital assets (photos, videos, presentations, marketing materials, logos, documents, etc.) in various drives without access control and backups. It’s not surprising that in such environments, valuable digital content often gets lost due to outdated methods of information sharing.

A Digital Asset Management (DAM) system consolidates all digital assets into a single, secure location. Nevertheless, not all employees require access to every piece of digital content. Moreover, certain digital assets may be owned by specific customers or subject to copyright restrictions, necessitating stringent security measures.

The robust authorization mechanism within the MasterDAM system enables system administrators to create distinct user groups with varying authorization levels. These levels determine the actions users within each group can perform on the digital assets available to them.

This mechanism yields two immediate benefits:

  1. The CIO can rest assured that only authorized users can access and manage digital content as part of their duties.
  2. By avoiding legal issues, such as copyright infringement, and preventing the loss of valuable digital content.

Typically, there are three primary types of users in a DAM system:

  1. System administrators: Responsible for continuously managing permissions to ensure that various users can access and manage relevant digital assets at all times.
  2. Managers: Users with elevated privileges, including:
  • Social media managers responsible for publishing digital content across various channels.
  • Marketing managers tasked with maintaining brand consistency and identity.
  • Graphic designers creating templates and digital assets.
  • Creative managers overseeing digital media through agencies.

Depending on their roles, permission levels may vary; while some groups can delete or edit asset versions, others might only modify metadata entries.

  1. Standard users: These constitute the largest group in the DAM system, which simplifies their  tasks by enabling quick asset discovery and distribution to clients or stakeholders. Examples include:
  • Web developers seeking images for design work.
  • Graphic designers accessing images for daily tasks.
  • Sales teams requiring product information (brochures, specifications, etc.).
  • Customer support staff requiring support materials.

Through DAM’s authorization mechanism, administrators can restrict capabilities and usage types for these users’ digital assets.

 It’s crucial to differentiate between internal and external user management within the organization.

Internal users encompass a diverse array of roles, including marketing, communications, media relations, sales, product management, support, service, and R&D teams.

Key points for effective authorization management in MasterDAM for internal users include:

  1. Define permissions based on each user’s role within the organization. Tailor permissions according to roles like marketing or creative teams, ensuring precise management of extensive digital assets.
  2. Limit the number of system administrators to minimize potential damage, whether intentional or accidental.
  3. Establish a hierarchy of permissions to allow certain user groups to find, download, and share digital assets, while higher-level groups can edit or delete assets as needed.

     

    External users, such as content editors, event managers, distributors, suppliers, partners, and investors, also require access to an organization’s digital content.

Considerations for proper authorization management in MasterDAM for external users include:

  1. Identify various external stakeholders needing rapid access to organizational digital content. Grant permissions tailored to their specific requirements.
  2. Establish a branded portal to provide external users access only to necessary assets, safeguarding sensitive materials from unauthorized access.
  3. Exercise caution when granting external users access, employing secure methods like single sign-on (SSO) for logging in securely and accessing relevant digital content for limited durations.
  4. Implement expiration dates for rights management within MasterDAM, ensuring consistent brand experiences by controlling file access and usage rights.
  5. Leverage statistical analysis capabilities in MasterDAM to evaluate user performance, analyzing search, download, and share activities to optimize digital content utilization strategies based on user behaviors and preferences.

By implementing these strategies, organizations can effectively manage and safeguard their digital assets using the advanced authorization capabilities of MasterDAM.

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