Securing your assets | QBank DAM

Some of the most important considerations when implementing a Digital Asset Management system are the security aspects.

Some of the issues that need to be addressed are:

• How do we make sure only valid users can access the DAM?
• What assets should a user or group have access to?
• Which functionality of the system needs to be limited to certain users or groups?
• How do we securely distribute assets to third parties?
• How do we ensure that user activity can be audited properly?

QBank was built from ground up with security in mind - by implementing single sign-on only users with active accounts are granted access, and administration can be centrally managed by the IT department. In addition, accounts can be given an expiry date, making sure users who need temporary access are automatically locked out after a given period of time.

The security model allows for a very granular configuration of “who sees what”, both in terms of assets, folders, categories, as well as system functionality. A user can be part of one or many groups, which combined with roles ultimately defines what functionality a user has access to. One group of users may be able to upload assets while another group tags the uploaded assets with correct metadata and approves them. The combinations are endless, and can be tailored to fit any organisation’s specific needs.

If your organisation needs to expose a subset of assets to parties outside your company (as well as within) the recommended route is to deliver them using a dedicated frontend, physically separated from your QBank DAM installation. Frontends will only contain materials that has been published for that channel. There are other benefits of using frontends, but let’s save that for a later blog post.

Need to send assets securely? The QBank DAM moodboard concept allows you to easily group assets (given that you have access to them in the first place of course), select a recipient, add a PIN code and set an expiry date. This way links to your assets are not floating around longer than needed - access to the moodboard will automatically be removed when the expiry date comes.

Last, but not least, the ability to perform audits on activity is a crucial one. With QBank DAM, everything that happens on the system is logged in detail, and with proper access, an administrator can at anytime audit “who did what?” by referencing the activity logs - both on the asset and user level.

Most companies spend a substantial amount of effort, time and money producing sales and marketing material. Not being in control of who can access it, and when can obviously have very negative consequences. Intentionally leaking product shots can be a smart move as part of a carefully planned marketing effort, but having it happen because of lax security is a whole different story.

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