OpenAsset User Group Meeting 2009

22nd July 2009

This years event was held at the RIBA headquarters in central London. The event is the forum for clients to give their feedback on new features in OpenAsset. It is also a great chance for us to get to know our clients better, and for clients to meet more members of the Axomic team.

In the first session Axomic's lead business consultant, Jamie Malin, led a presentation which focused on getting more out of the latest release, OpenAsset 4.0. Released in February 2009 most clients had been upgraded so the user group was a great opportunity to showcase some tips and tricks on getting more from OpenAsset.

• Homepage Widgets
• My Projects and Browsing Projects
• Video / Movie File Support
• Image location displayed on a map
• Additional search options
• Watermarking
• Copyright Policies

Jamie then held a short workshop on how to use the Template feature in OpenAsset.

Following a welcome break for teas and coffees the group reassembled for the second session where the focus was on new features for OpenAsset 5.0. Some development had already taken place so Daniel Emmerson and Craig Macdonald from Axomic's business development team showed the beta version of the following features:

Support playing videos in browser

The current version of OpenAsset allows you to store video files, but not to play them. The latest version will convert video files to different sizes and formats so they can be viewed in the browser. This will save a huge amount of time converting video files to smaller formats and allow users to quickly view lower res versions of large files from within OpenAsset.

Charting

Our clients had been asking for tools to improve the reporting and auditing features in OpenAsset. Charting will allow administrators to view usage stats on criteria such as the number of images uploaded, or how often the AssetBar has been used and so on. These can then be used to measure the impact of initiatives such as training, newsletters, and the use of homepage widgets.

Web download

The new web download feature will improve the workflow of sharing images with external partners such as journalists and graphic designers. From within an OpenAsset album it will be possible to create a web download link which is automatically emailed to someone outside your organisation. When they receive the web download link they can click on the link and download a zip file. This will save time sharing images and remove the need to email or physically send large collections of images.

After feedback was given on the new features already in development the hall was opened to the now traditional OpenFloor session. At the user group clients have always been given a feature request form, and the ability to suggest new ideas for OpenAsset. This years OpenFloor was no exception with many new ideas emerging from a wide ranging discussion. These included:

• Browse projects by sector widget
• Download request for high res images
• Improved album management tools
• Popular search term tool
• New features for the uploader
• Larger images in a browser slide show
• Restricted permission for editing original image in OpenAsset

Following the event drinks were presented in the Jarvis Auditorium foyer. It was great to be able to chat with people and see so many of our clients enjoying a glass of wine or two on Axomic. The event was a great success with the drinks flowing afterwards. We'd like to thank everyone for their contributions and we look forward to seeing you again at next years user group.

Contact us to find out more about how you can benefit from OpenAsset: