When migrating a large set of assets into your Asset Bank from an existing folder structure it can sometimes be useful to replicate the existing folder structure within Asset Bank, even if you later choose to move these files into a new hierarchy.

This guide will walk you through the process of uploading your folder structure and ingesting it into Asset Bank, including placing the Assets in the correct sub-folder location.

1. Enable Folder Mapping (self-hosted only)

Within Asset Bank there is a settings file that controls how Asset Bank will interpret folders and sub-folders during the upload process.
In the ApplicationSettings.properties file, change the bulk-upload-match-dir-names-to-cats setting to true. The application will need to be restarted in order for this change to be confirmed.

2.  Enable FTP Upload (self-hosted only)

In order to enable users to upload a folder structure, they will need access to add files directly to the 'bulk-upload' folder within the Asset Bank webapp, which is typically within a Tomcat folder. Depending on your server configuration, you may be able to provide access to your users using a network share, otherwise you will need to set up FTP access (or similar) so your users can connect directly to this area on the server.
In the ApplicationSettings.properties file, change the bulk-upload-use-ftp-or-unc setting to true. This will enable the 'upload files using FTP' option to the Asset Bank application.
If you are NOT using FTP, then you will want to set start-import-show-ftp-help to false (to disable the 'FTP help' link).
If you ARE using FTP, then you will want to populate the settings referenced within this section, such as ftp-username and ftp-password so that your users have the FTP access credentials easily accessible.

3. Connect to the server and upload your folder structure

Using the credentials provided by the Asset Bank support team (or your IT team for self-hosted applications) you now need to connect and upload your folder structure into the 'bulk-upload' area.

An example folder that you can upload to is below:

.../tomcat/webapps/asset-bank/bulk-upload/admin/upload/(yourfolders)

The bold sub-folders will change depending on the user completing the upload:

• admin -> The username of the account that will be uploading the files
• upload -> You will need to manually create this sub-folder. This is a single folder that will serve as a container for all of the folders you are uploading (you will select this as the "import assets from a directory" option during step 4 below)
• (yourfolders) -> This is where you place the folder structure that you are uploading, including the assets and sub-folders, for example: .../bulk-upload/chris/upload/Events/2020/Brighton

In the example image below, 'Events' will be a top-level folder within your Asset Bank; both '2020' and 'Brighton' will be sub-folders in this hierarchy. If there were any images within the "upload" folder itself then they would be placed in the folder you choose during the upload process, but this selection would not affect the folder structure import of 'Events'.

4. Log into Asset Bank and start the ingest process

Once you have logged into your Asset Bank click on: Upload > Upload files with FTP > Start new upload > Next

On the next screen, choose the 'upload' folder from the dropdown list at the top of the page as shown in the image below:

Enter any metadata if appropriate on this page, then scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Start Import".

Your assets will now be ingested and the folder structure within 'upload' will be converted to Asset Bank folders and sub-folders, with the assets also being uploaded into the correct location.

If you have any questions or would like assistance with this, please get in touch with the support team.