Data migration (and metadata mapping) can be laborious and time-consuming tasks that can significantly delay your onboarding. We can take the pain away from the process, making sure all of your assets are migrated safely, swiftly and your metadata remains intact. Alternatively, you can manage data migration yourself via FTPS upload.
                                      
1) via Amazon S3 bucket (recommended)

We will set up a prefixed area in an S3 bucket and provide you with access details. You can use AWS Command Line or a third-party transfer client of your choice that can connect to an S3 bucket (Cyberduck or WinSCP are commonly used applications).

Once you transfer your assets to the S3, our team will import them into Asset Bank, retaining your folder structure if required. Duration will depend on the overall size, the number of assets, the consistency and the quality of your data. Most asset migrations from the S3 to Asset Bank are completed within 5 working days. Your existing DAM provider (if applicable) may be able to export assets directly to S3 which will speed up the process.

Once the files are 'live' in your Asset Bank, we can also run them through our auto-tagging solution to generate keywords based on the content of the image. If the assets have embedded metadata (such as IPTC) then we will also use this information to populate different attributes. Alternatively, if you have an export of metadata from a different system, we will convert it and 'map' your metadata with your assets.

Data migration best practice 

• Collate your assets first and transfer them to the S3 bucket in one go - you will have 90 days to complete your transfer(s); ingest from S3 to Asset Bank will be done once all of your assets have been imported.
  
  
• Audit your assets - remove temp files, database files, and/or zero-byte files.
  
  
• Avoid files and folder names with unusual and foreign characters (Û,Ĉ,À etc.)
  
  
• Remove duplicates and only migrate assets you need to keep. We can assist with duplicate removal as part of onboarding consultancy.

Attribute metadata mapping

We will map your existing attribute metadata and import them to Asset Bank.

Requirements: 

• Provide a metadata export file, ideally a tab-delimited UTF-8 encoded format with attribute name headings and metadata values for each asset.
  
  
• Provide a unique identifier (ID) to map metadata export with assets in Asset Bank. This could be an ID in the asset filename (ie. Testimage.1234.jpg), embedded ID and/or unique folder key in S3 bucket.
  
  
  Example layout of a metadata file that Asset Bank can read
  
  
• Clarify the type of attribute that should be recreated (keyword, dropdown, text field etc.).
  
  
• Audit your metadata:
  • Remove duplicates, we won’t be able to map these.
  • Check for foreign characters in the metadata export.
  • Identify missing metadata.
  • Only map the metadata you need.

2) via FTPS upload

Asset Bank supports FTPS upload, allowing you to transfer large volumes of assets in your own time while retaining your folder structures. Using an FTP client (ie. 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). This support article describes the steps in detail.

FTPS upload limitation: Asset Bank has 2 weekly out-of-hours restarts, which will pause your ingests into Asset Bank. The ingest will need to be manually resumed after each restart.