DAM: From a ‘Nice-to-have’ to ‘Must-have’ Tool at LMN Architects

At the time we purchased it, our previous solution was widely used in the A/E industry. However, after several years it became clear that the winds were shifting as firms began moving to OpenAsset. Furthermore, regardless of which platform they were coming from, everyone I talked with was very happy with their decision to move to OpenAsset.

Demonstrating that OpenAsset would provide an intuitive and repeatable way to improve the consistency of asset selection was a contributing factor in selling OpenAsset as the right DAM solution.

SharePoint development is not trivial. We’re not developers; it’s not our core competency. To think that we could develop a DAM in SharePoint, either internally and or with consultants, in a cost effective way, and then support it, was naive. And a custom built solution is never going to be as robust or feature rich as a purpose-built tool.

While we’re not a huge organization, OpenAsset has scaled successfully. I wouldn’t say that about other DAM products we’ve researched which often seemed targeted at either very large or very small firms. Whether you’re a 50, 500, or 5,000 person company, OpenAsset is a viable solution.

We rely on the Access Level function to quickly surface partner/marketing approved assets when users search within OpenAsset.

Our workflow is more efficient. OpenAsset automatically sizes image files to our custom sizes when uploading to the system, so there is no lag when downloading or linking assets to documents. With seamless access to the exact file size we need, we create cleaner and leaner InDesign and PowerPoint documents. The web based interface is robust, easy to learn and accessible by the entire firm. The ‘Drag and Drop’ function by itself is almost worth the price of admission!

OpenAsset has proven to be a superior product. It works as advertised, the support team is great, and they have the client base to prove it.

Besides the ability to integrate with all of our systems, there are a lot of benefits to using OpenAsset over other available solutions. Even for firms who aren’t using SharePoint, Synthesis, or Deltek Vision, OpenAsset is a very strong product.

Our previous DAM never got traction beyond marketing and the image librarian. On the other hand OpenAsset has been deployed office wide. Not everybody has the same level of need, but it’s a tool that everybody can and wants to use.

We love OpenAsset because it has a procedure that we can follow.

The assets we store in OpenAsset represent a significant investment for LMN. It was important for us to leverage a digital asset management system to maximize the value of this investment. OpenAsset interfaces with our other business systems and allowed us to automate many of the more time consuming aspects of DAM and also provided a solution that enabled us to quickly share assets both internally and externally.

Adam Hunter

ASSOCIATE – DIGITAL ASSET MANAGER

Tim Rice

IT DIRECTOR