There are two ways to move your assets to us: 

Option 1: We’ll make sure all of your assets are migrated safely, swiftly and that all your metadata remains intact (recommended). 

Option 2: You manage data migration yourself via FTPS or the Asset Bank uploader.

Option 1: Amazon S3 bucket (recommended)

We’ll create a dedicated AWS S3 bucket and give you the access details. You can then upload your files using AWS Command Line, or via a third-party transfer client of your choice (Cyberduck or WinSCP are commonly used applications). 

You can upload files individually or entire folders of files; it’s up to you. If you do bring over a folder structure, we can recreate it in Asset Bank during the import.

Please note: Do not ZIP or otherwise compress your assets; we will not be able to extract your files.

How to prepare for your data migration

• Collate all the assets you wish to move into Asset Bank.
• Audit them: remove temp files, database files, and/or zero-byte files. 
• Replace any files and folder names that have unusual and/or foreign characters (ú, ê, ä, etc.)
• Remove duplicates (we can help with this later on, if needed!)
• Do not ZIP files – we won't be able to extract compressed files; they will be imported in the same format.
• When all this is done, transfer all of your assets into the AWS S3 bucket in one go.

How to prepare your attribute metadata for migration into Asset Bank

We will map your existing metadata and import it into Asset Bank, but we’ll need you to prepare it first.

Prepare your metadata in an export file, ideally a tab-delimited UTF-8 encoded format. Allow one row per asset, and separate columns for each metadata attribute (e.g., Title; Photographer; Folder). 

Also include a column for a unique identifier (‘Asset ID’ in the form below) to map metadata export with assets in Asset Bank. This unique identifier must also be included in the asset filename (i.e., River.1.jpg), and/or embedded within the file and/or as a unique folder key in S3 bucket.

Example layout of a metadata export file that Asset Bank can read

Clarify the type of attribute that should be recreated in Asset Bank (keyword, dropdown, text field etc.) via an email to your consultant. 

How long will asset & metadata migrations take?

Most asset migrations from the S3 bucket to Asset Bank are completed within five working days, but timeframes will depend on the number of assets, the overall size of them, and the consistency and quality of your export data. Your consultant will be able to give you more accurate timeline estimate.

Option 2: You manage your asset & metadata migration via FTPS upload

Asset Bank supports FTPS upload, meaning you can transfer assets in your own time, while retaining your folder structures. 

Using an FTP client (i.e., FileZilla) you can transfer assets to your upload directory on the Asset Bank Server and then continue the ingest in Asset Bank using the bulk-import uploader and add metadata at the same time (if required). 

Please note, Asset Bank has two out-of-hours restarts each week, which will pause your ingests into Asset Bank. The ingest will need to be manually resumed after each restart.

Click here for more info on how to upload via FTP. This article describes the steps in detail.