Workbench is a tool for both uploading new assets into the system and updating existing assets. The power of workbench is that it allows you to quickly and easily select assets and edit their metadata either individually or in bulk. 

Once enabled, a Workbench link appears in the navigation bar, and the ability to edit existing assets in Workbench appears under the UPDATE button, when in the search or browse results pages.

Enabling Workbench

By default, workbench is disabled. If your site is hosted with us please get in touch with the support team to enable it. Customers who host Asset Bank on their own servers can enable it by changing the workbench-enabled= application setting in the ApplicationSettings.properties file.  

It is important to note that due to performance reasons a workbench session only lasts for as long as you are logged in. If you log out or your session times out then any active workbench session will be lost. Also, due to the fact that workbench assets are stored in memory, the max-total-workbench-assets= and max-concurrent-workbench-users= settings restrict the number of workbench users and assets per workbench that are allowed in the system.

Configuring Workbench

Please see the knowledge base article: How do I configure Workbench?

Uploading new assets

If you have permission to upload files into Asset Bank then you will see an 'Add files..' button on Workbench that allows you to browse for files on your local computer to add to the workbench session. If your browser supports it (Chrome, Firefox) then you can also drag and drop files into the workbench to start an upload. If you have Asset Types enabled then a list displaying suitable upload asset types will be displayed next to the 'Add files...' button. When uploading via the button or via drag and drop the assets will be setup as the type selected in the list box.

While files are being uploaded you can immediately start to populate their metadata by selecting them and clicking the 'Edit' button. You can either edit each asset individually or select a few of them and edit in bulk.

Once you have added all the necessary metadata to your assets then you can submit them into Asset Bank by selecting assets and clicking the 'Save and submit' button.

Adding existing assets to the workbench

There are a number of routes for getting existing assets into workbench for updating:

• Search results. Carry out a search in Asset Bank then if you have edit permissions the results page will show an 'Edit in workbench' link in the 'More actions' dropdown.
• Lightbox. Add some assets you want to edit to your lightbox, then if you have edit permissions you will be able to select the assets and select the 'Edit in workbench' link from the 'More actions' dropdown.
• Unsubmitted. If you have the unsubmitted asset functionality enabled then you can select assets in your My Uploads > Unsubmitted assets area and add them to the workbench using the 'Edit in workbench' button on the page.

Editing assets metadata in Workbench

Once assets are in the workbench (either newly uploaded or existing assets that have been added) the user has the ability to edit the assets metadata either individually or in bulk. The attributes that are available to edit on the workbench are defined by the Admin > Attributes > Display Attributes > Workbench display attribute group. Assets are edited in memory while they are in the workbench (i.e. changes can't be seen on the rest of Asset Bank). Once a user is happy with the changes they've made to their selected assets they can 'Save and submit' the assets so that their changes are committed and appear on the rest of Asset Bank (or go off for approval if that is the permission level the user has). 

• Individual edits: Click the 'Edit this asset' link on an asset's panel and a single edit popup will appear showing the workbench attributes (if types are enabled the attributes will be restricted to those that are suitable for the asset type in question).
• Bulk edits: Select multiple assets on the workbench and click the 'Edit' button at the top of the page to bring up the bulk editing popup (if you only have a single asset selected the single edit will appear). The bulk edit popup works in the same way as metadata editing page of Asset Bank's Bulk Upload functionality. Attribute values can be skipped, replaced, appended or prepended.   

Unsubmitted assets

If your Asset Bank has the unsubmitted assets functionality enabled then a new checkbox will appear on the workbench that enables a user when saving to decide whether to send any currently unsubmitted assets in their workbench (i.e. newly uploaded assets or assets that are currently in the users My Uploads > Unsubmitted area) over to the live Asset Bank for other users to view.

Removing assets from the workbench

To remove assets from the workbench simply select them (using the checkboxes at the top of the asset panels or the 'All', 'None', 'Invert' links) and click the 'Discard' button. Newly uploaded assets will be discarded completely. Existing assets will have any changes that were made in the current workbench session lost. 

Limitations 

1. If you have the duplicates check when uploading enabled this isn't performed when uploading via workbench.
2. Workbench isn't currently supported for multi lingual Asset Banks
3. Only certain attribute types are supported by the workbench, they are:
   1. Text field (long and short)
   2. Text area (long and short)
   3. Dropdown
   4. Checklist
   5. Optionlist
   6. Keyword picker
   7. Date time
   8. Date picker
4. Users who have permission to manually send assets for approval (i.e. they are allowed to edit the asset without approval but can optionally choose to send it for approval) won't be able to do so through the workbench. The workbench will always submit an asset to live if the user's permission allows.
5. Automatic rotation of images based on embedded EXIF metadata is not supported.
6. Compressed archives (such as .zip files) can be uploaded as single assets, but there is no option to un-archive the contents as individual assets.