A Look at Jahia xCM's Brilliant Blend of Content & Digital Asset Management

If you're planning to build a website with the intention to share or showcase digital media, then selecting a CMS with a solid digital asset management (DAM) system is absolutely vital.

This applies to both individuals looking to extend their personal web presence, as well as enterprising organizations seeking a professional website solution.

Being able to manage, modify and present documents, images and other digital assets in a fashion which befits your company or persona will ultimately decide how much of an impact your content has on the end user. Not to mention the ease-of-use administrators will enjoy with a powerful DAM system in place.

Jahia xCM is a capable content management system with a feature extensive digital asset management system built in, which will sound like a highly lucrative combination for almost any serious website builder looking for a suitable platform for their site – or sites.

The Essentials of Digital Asset Management

A digital asset management system essentially helps to store, manage, modify and present digital files such as PDF documents, images, videos and so forth. They work extremely well in enterprise environments, where workflows need to be streamlined.

Being able to manage digital assets on a large or professional scale within most website building CMS, can often prove difficult, if not unfulfilling. This is largely because, as most content management systems attempt to focus on aesthetic design options and flexible content publishing features, digital asset management often takes a back seat. They do exist of course, but usually in very basic forms, with limited customization features.

So, for organizations seeking to manage, publish and present a vast array of digital assets across numerous web initiatives, using just any CMS can cause issues. Ideally for such organizations, a balance would be struck between flexible content publication, and powerful digital asset management.

As it so happens, that ideal solution may just exist within Jahia xCM's competent CMS.

Striking the Balance with Jahia xCM

Jahia xCM does a pretty impressive job when it comes to the balancing act between quality content publishing, easy website creation and highly detailed digital asset management.

Due to the extensive and customizable features offered by Jahia xCM's embedded DAM features, it would not be unfair to compare the platform to a dedicated digital asset management system.

For example, media assets can be given pre-defined and user-defined rules and metadata, subjected to workflows, reviews and of course be easily published. In fact, Jahia xCM goes a step further with publishing and presenting digital assets, by providing drag-and-drop functionality to insert assets into pages, as well as configurable modules to create new rules, such as document thumbnails.

Additionally, there is enhanced control over images and how they are to be displayed within your Jahia xCM website. Images themselves can be cropped, resized and rotated, whilst thumbnails are automatically generated in relation to user-configurable rules.

Jahia xCM's digital asset management system further impresses by allowing you to automatically convert documents to PDFs, auto-publish assets, and make use of tagging. Documents and files can also be uploaded to the server en masse, or within .zip files, which can then be uncompressed on the server itself.

On top of all these features, Jahia xCM also offers widgets which allow for digital assets to be displayed on your website in a number of ways, including sliders, galleries, fancy boxes, and so on.

Additionally, not only does Jahia xCM silently index all documents and digital assets, but it also silently manages the links integrity, if an asset is moved or renamed.

Many of Jahia xCM's DAM features mentioned above are demonstrated by this introductory video on document rules, all of which would prove handy for both enterprise automated needs, and for the needs of an individual editor or publisher.

So, if you're looking for a solid combination between content and asset management, look no further than Jahia xCM.

For more information, you can also find Jahia xCM on our CMS Directory.

NB: In addition to properly blending Content and Digital Asset Management with Jahia xCM, Jahia also provides a rich collaboration and sharing tool for Digital Assets dedicated to Marketing teams in a perfectly integrated package, called Jahia Wise – But I'll get to that in another article, so stay put!