I do not have permission to download the files I want. Who can I get approval from?
Many DAM systems lack advance governance features like download request and approval workflow. Even if there are such features, they are most likely not designed with multi-department deployment in mind.
Here is an illustration.
For DAM systems that do not have a workflow to handle the download request, users are expected to know who to contact and email their request to the approving personnel. Subsequent approval and download processes are also communicated using emails.
For DAM systems that have this workflow built in, users will first select the assets they want, fill in an e-request form, write the reason of the request and choose the formats they wish to download.
This seems to work well until you think of the next step, i.e., who is to receive and approve these requests.
Many DAM systems will just forward the requests to a single email address. This is fine if the assets are being managed by a single department. But the scenario gets complicated when the DAM system is being used by multiple departments and each of them governs their own assets.
From our past experience of implementing DAM system for multi-department deployment, we know the importance of having a DAM system that can route the requests automatically to the respective department approvers.
Imagine this ideal situation. A user wants to download a batch of images, videos and documents that are managed by different departments. Restricted and unrestricted assets will be picked up by the system. Unrestricted assets can be downloaded by the user directly, while the requests for those restricted assets will automatically be sent to the respective approvers.
The user does not need to approach the respective approvers of each department individually. The system will route the requests automatically based on the ownership of each asset.
Once approved, the user will receive notification emails with the download links.