Choosing the right digital asset management (DAM) software is crucial for your business, as not all platforms provide the features and capabilities that meet your team’s specific needs. In this blog, we’ll compare two popular DAM solutions: Adobe Experience Manager and OpenAsset. By the end of this blog, you’ll be able to make an informed decision that aligns with your business requirements.
What Is OpenAsset?
OpenAsset is a specialized digital asset management (DAM) solution built for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries. It simplifies the handling of digital assets like photos, graphics, and documents, which are vital for creating winning proposals in these fields. OpenAsset provides an organized platform that enables teams to store, search, and share their visual assets efficiently.
What sets OpenAsset apart is its project-focused organization and robust tagging system, designed specifically for AEC workflows. The platform integrates seamlessly with tools commonly used in these industries, such as CRM and project management systems, ensuring that assets are easily accessible and aligned with ongoing projects.
Additionally, OpenAsset leverages AI-powered tools for advanced image recognition and similarity searches, making it easier to discover and utilize relevant assets quickly. Its intuitive interface and cloud-based infrastructure make it scalable and user-friendly, catering to firms of all sizes.
What Is Adobe Experience Manager?
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) is a software solution that’s equal part content management system (CMS) (Adobe Experience Manager Sites) and digital asset management (DAM) system (Adobe Experience Manager Assets).
AEM Assets serves as a centralized repository for storing and organizing digital files such as images, videos, and documents. This system enables seamless discovery, management, and activation of millions of assets, empowering users to scale and deliver personalized experiences.
Ultimately, AEM helps businesses create, manage, and deliver personalized digital experiences across websites, apps, and other channels. It combines tools for content management, digital asset organization, and customer engagement into a single solution, streamlining workflows and enhancing brand consistency.
Adobe Experience Manager vs. OpenAsset: Top Industries
Choosing the right Digital Asset Management (DAM) system depends heavily on the specific needs, workflows, and compliance requirements of your industry. Every industry has unique demands that shape the features and capabilities required in an effective DAM solution.
Here’s how Adobe Experience Manager and OpenAsset compare when it comes to the top industries they serve:
OpenAsset
OpenAsset is built with architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals in mind, excelling in managing visual assets like photos and proposal graphics critical to these fields.
Therefore, the system’s features are tailored to meet the specific needs of AEC firms, including project-based asset organization, integration with AEC-focused software, and tools to effectively manage and showcase project portfolios and resumes.
Adobe Experience Manager
Adobe Experience Manager caters to a broader range of industries with a focus on digital marketing and technology-driven content solutions. Most widely used by Information Technology and Services, Marketing and Advertising, and Computer Software professionals. It also serves Financial Services and Consumer Goods.
Adobe Experience Manager vs. OpenAsset: Capabilities
When evaluating Adobe Experience Manager and OpenAsset, it’s important to consider how each platform addresses the unique requirements of your business and industry. A reliable DAM system should streamline asset search, boost productivity, promote collaboration, and enable your team to focus on revenue-generating activities.
AEM and OpenAsset both provide important DAM features, however, OpenAsset is designed to meet the specific digital asset management needs of architecture, engineering, and construction firms.
While AEM is made up of equal parts Adobe Experience Manager Sites and Adobe Experience Manager Assets, we’ll be focusing on AEM as a whole, looking at how specific shared features compare to OpenAsset’s robust features.
Here’s a closer look at some of the key features and how they stack up:
Search
In a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, search functionality is crucial for streamlining workflows and maximizing productivity. With countless assets stored in a database, an effective search tool allows users to quickly locate the exact files they need without wasting time.
Whether it’s finding the perfect image for a proposal or retrieving project-specific visuals, robust search capabilities ensure efficiency, organization, and seamless collaboration.
Here’s how Adobe Bridge and OpenAsset approach the search functionality in their platforms:
Adobe Experience Manager
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) offers search capabilities designed to enhance asset discovery and management.
Users can refine search results using various filters such as file type, size, modification date, and publication status. AEM supports the configuration of custom search facets, allowing organizations to tailor the search experience to their specific needs.
AEM’s OmniSearch allows users to perform full-text searches across asset metadata, filenames, and even text within documents like PDFs and Word files. This comprehensive search approach ensures that users can locate assets efficiently.
Moreover, AEM’s contextual search feature interprets natural language queries, automatically applying relevant filters to deliver precise results. For instance, a query like “I need images for surfing that are approved and expire next month” will set filters for the asset type, approval status, and expiration date accordingly.
Lastly, AEM allows users to save frequently used search criteria for quick access in the future. Additionally, users can create smart collections based on specific search parameters, enabling dynamic grouping of assets that meet certain conditions.
OpenAsset
OpenAsset is built to make all your digital content effortlessly searchable and accessible across your team and organization. With OpenAsset, finding your most valuable digital assets is simple and efficient.
With project-based search, OpenAsset allows users to search for assets by associating them with specific projects or properties. This project-centric approach enables teams to quickly access all relevant assets linked to particular projects, streamlining workflows and boosting productivity.
Moreover, the robust platform supports the application of keywords and asset metadata at both the project and file levels.
Assets are automatically tagged with project-specific information based on their assigned projects, and additional file-specific identifiers, such as building elements or materials used, can be applied. However, OpenAsset’s AI Visual Search and Image Similarity tools are increasingly eliminating the need for manual tagging, streamlining the process even further.
This detailed tagging system facilitates the efficient retrieval of assets based on various criteria.
OpenAsset also provides advanced filtering options, allowing users to refine search results based on criteria such as file type, rank, or aspect ratio. Additionally, users can save frequently used search criteria for quick access in the future, enhancing efficiency in asset retrieval.
These features combined streamline workflows and enhance productivity within OpenAsset.
Customization and Scalability
In a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, customization and scalability are essential for addressing the unique needs of your organization and adapting to those needs as they grow.
Customization ensures the platform aligns seamlessly with your workflows, allowing tailored features and integrations that improve efficiency. Scalability guarantees the system can handle increasing volumes of assets and users without compromising performance, making it a future-proof solution for your business.
Here’s how Adobe Experience Manager and OpenAsset approach customization and scalability in their platforms:
Adobe Experience Manager
Because of its audience, AEM is designed to offer extensive customization and scalability to meet diverse enterprise needs.
For example, AEM’s modular design allows developers to create and integrate custom components, templates, and workflows, enabling tailored solutions that align with specific business requirements.
Through integration with Adobe Target, AEM enables the delivery of personalized experiences across various channels, allowing for dynamic content adaptation based on user behavior and preferences.
Moreover, AEM can be deployed on-premises or within Adobe’s cloud infrastructure, offering scalability tailored to organizational needs. The choice of deployment affects installation choices, scalability, performance, and disaster recovery.
AEM’s architecture also supports performance tuning and optimization, allowing for adjustments to meet varying operational demands. This includes the ability to monitor and enhance system performance to handle increased traffic and content growth.
OpenAsset
Due to OpenAsset’s focus on the unique needs of AEC firms, the platform provides a customizable and scalable solution that aligns with industry-specific workflows and requirements.
With OpenAsset’s search capabilities, users can create custom metadata fields to store relevant information alongside their files, ensuring that the system aligns with specific organizational requirements.
OpenAsset also features an Employee Module. This feature allows for the storage of employee data, including headshots, project associations, and more. This automates the creation of employee resume documents with dynamic role selection with each export, ensuring each resume is tailored to the client’s specific project focus while saving you valuable time.
When it comes to scalability, OpenAsset’s cloud-based platform ensures scalability, allowing firms to easily adjust storage needs without significant upfront investment in physical infrastructure. The system is designed to handle large volumes of digital assets efficiently, ensuring consistent performance as the asset library grows.
Moreover, OpenAsset offers enhanced data security and disaster recovery capabilities, including automatic backups and secure data transmission, to safeguard against data loss.
It’s worth noting that OpenAsset is committed to maintaining SOC 2 Type 2 compliance to maintain high standards in security, processes, and system integrity. OpenAsset’s security strategy includes continuous compliance monitoring, real-time control assessments, and transparency through OpenAsset’s Trust Center.
Integrations
Integrations are a vital component of any Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, enabling seamless connectivity between your DAM and other tools and platforms your organization relies on.
A well-integrated DAM enhances workflows by synchronizing data, automating processes, and ensuring that digital assets are easily accessible across multiple systems. This streamlines operations reduces redundancy, and boosts overall efficiency.
Here’s how Adobe Experience Manager and OpenAsset approach integrations in their platforms:
Adobe Experience Manager
AEM offers extensive integration capabilities, enabling seamless connectivity with various Adobe Experience Cloud products and third-party services.
Integrations with Adobe Experience Cloud include:
- Adobe Analytics: For comprehensive tracking and analysis of user interactions across digital properties.
- Adobe Target: Facilitates the delivery of personalized experiences by enabling A/B testing and targeted content.
- Adobe Commerce (Magento): Enables the creation of immersive, content-rich shopping experiences.
- Adobe Workfront: Helps teams and organizations plan, track, and manage their work efficiently.
- Adobe Acrobat Sign: This integration streamlines document workflows by incorporating electronic signature capabilities.
AEM also provides APIs that facilitate seamless integration with third-party applications and services, enhancing functionality and ensuring compatibility within existing ecosystems. This can include:
- Salesforce
- Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter
- E-commerce Platforms
These integrations empower organizations to deliver cohesive and personalized customer experiences by leveraging data and functionalities across multiple platforms.
OpenAsset
OpenAsset, tailored specifically for the AEC industry, provides specialized integrations with tools and software commonly utilized in these sectors, enabling seamless data synchronization and workflow alignment.
This includes integrations with widely used CRM and ERP systems commonly utilized by AEC firms, as well as compatibility with Adobe products. For example, through our InDesign integration, you can drag and drop, allowing quick and seamless uploading into InDesign files.
This streamlined approach removes the necessity to separately search for and download assets, therefore saving time and promoting consistency.
OpenAsset integrations
- Procore: enables the seamless upload of images from Procore into your OpenAsset DAM, where images can be tagged with searchable keywords and shared across your organization
- AEC 360: Enables users to push data from your aec360 project repository into OpenAsset, view OpenAsset images in aec360, and easily incorporate your images on documents generated from aec360.
- Deltek: Allows users to access digital assets and their accompanying data at any time and from any workflow.
- Affinity: The integration features drag-and-drop functionality to easily add images to Affinity documents and automatically saves and preserves all image links.
- Microsoft Word and PowerPoint: Enables direct access to assets for seamless incorporation into documents and presentations.
- Okta: Provides secure single sign-on (SSO) for streamlined access and enhanced security.
- Salesforce: Links digital assets to CRM records, improving marketing and sales efficiency.
- Unanet by Cosential: empowers AEC firms to maintain impeccable data consistency across teams, ensuring that their marketing and business development endeavors remain both cohesive and on-brand.
- Templafy: increases the use of company-approved digital assets by providing an easy path to compliance.
- InDesign: Utilize intuitive drag-and-drop functionality to incorporate images into InDesign documents, ensuring a seamless workflow devoid of broken links.
- WordPress: enables AEC companies to publish projects, employee profiles, and marketing-ready images directly from OpenAsset to their public-facing website.
These integrations streamline workflows by simplifying the management of digital assets and various aspects of project coordination.
Can’t find the integration you need? Don’t worry! OpenAsset provides REST API access, giving organizations the flexibility to develop custom integrations with the essential tools they depend on for their operations.
Collaboration and Sharing
In a DAM system, collaboration and sharing capabilities are essential for streamlining teamwork and ensuring efficient workflows. These features allow teams to easily access, share, and work together on assets, reducing duplication of effort and improving project outcomes.
A well-designed DAM fosters seamless collaboration across departments and with external stakeholders, enhancing productivity and consistency.
Here’s how Adobe Experience Manager and OpenAsset approach collaboration and sharing on their platforms:
Adobe Experience Manager
Adobe Experience Manager’s suite of collaboration and sharing capabilities makes it easier for teams to work together efficiently, whether they’re in the office or working remotely.
AEM’s web-based review workflow enables multiple authors and reviewers to collaborate simultaneously in real-time. This feature supports efficient content creation and approval processes, saving valuable time and effort by eliminating delays often caused by manual feedback loops.
With asset sharing, users can share files, folders, and collections with team members or external stakeholders via link sharing. This functionality allows recipients to access shared assets without needing an AEM account, ensuring secure and efficient distribution while maintaining accessibility.
To further support team collaboration, AEM includes check-in and check-out features that prevent conflicts when multiple users are working on the same asset. This system ensures that changes are managed systematically, avoiding accidental overwrites and preserving the integrity of the content.
The Timeline and Inbox features provide users with visibility into the progress of tasks and assets. By tracking status updates and facilitating communication among team members, these tools keep everyone aligned and informed throughout the content lifecycle.
AEM also supports the creation of collections, which are sets of assets grouped from various locations. These collections can be shared with users who are granted specific privileges, such as viewing or editing. This functionality ensures organized and controlled sharing of assets across teams, enhancing collaboration while maintaining security.
OpenAsset
OpenAsset also offers a variety of collaboration and sharing features designed to enhance teamwork and optimize workflows, specifically for AEC firms. These capabilities cater specifically to the needs of professionals in architecture, engineering, and construction, enabling more efficient and secure asset management.
One standout feature is the ability to create albums for asset grouping. This allows users to organize files from different projects into easily shareable collections. These albums can be shared with individuals or groups within the organization, making it simple to organize and access assets for specific teams or purposes.
For external asset sharing, OpenAsset provides advanced, secure sharing options through tools like Portals. These features allow clients or partners to access selected files without exposing the entire platform. This ensures that only the intended recipients have access to the necessary assets, maintaining control over sensitive content while facilitating collaboration with external stakeholders.
OpenAsset also includes robust user permissions and group management capabilities. Administrators can define access levels and feature availability for different user groups, ensuring that team members have the appropriate permissions. This functionality promotes efficient collaboration while maintaining strict control over asset management.
As a cloud-based system, OpenAsset enables users to access and collaborate on assets from any location. This flexibility supports remote work, making it easier for teams to stay connected and productive regardless of where they are.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Automating processes like tagging, image recognition, and content discovery with AI helps users quickly find and organize assets, reducing manual effort and ensuring accuracy. These advanced features also enhance search functionality and enable more effective asset utilization, empowering teams to focus on strategic tasks instead of repetitive ones.
Here’s how Adobe Experience Manager and OpenAsset integrate AI in DAM:
Adobe Experience Manager
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) integrates advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities to enhance content creation, personalization, and asset management. Within AEM, if your asset library doesn’t have what you need, you can use Adobe Firefly generative AI to create new assets tailored to your specific queries.
Leveraging generative AI, users can redesign an existing asset and quickly produce diverse content variations based on prompts.
Users can modify elements such as colors, objects, and backgrounds, accelerating content development and supporting large-scale personalization efforts. This enables the rapid generation of personalized pages and extensive A/B testing to identify high-performing content.
In AEM Assets, AI-powered features like smart tagging and cropping automate asset management tasks. Powered by Adobe Sensei, Smart Tags analyzes and assigns relevant keywords to images upon upload, improving search accuracy and reducing manual metadata efforts. Smart Crop intelligently adjusts images to focus on key elements, optimizing visuals for various formats and devices.
Additionally, AEM’s visual similarity search uses AI to analyze the characteristics of an image and retrieve similar assets, simplifying the discovery of related content and improving efficiency.
OpenAsset
OpenAsset incorporates advanced AI features to enhance DAM for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) firms. These AI-driven capabilities streamline workflows and reduce manual effort, saving valuable time. AI in AEC enables AEC professionals to focus on strategic initiatives and achieve greater productivity.
One standout feature is AI Visual Search, allowing users to find images based on their visual content rather than relying solely on manual keywords. By analyzing visual elements, users can search for specific features like “curving staircase” or “people on site,” enhancing asset discovery.
AI Visual Search goes beyond traditional asset management by layering its functionality over automatically applied Project Keywords. This unique combination merges your company’s specific project terminology with the insights from AI Visual Search, creating an unparalleled, highly personalized search experience. The result is a powerful tool that not only understands your assets visually but also aligns them with your company’s unique workflows and language.
Additionally, the AI-powered image similarity tool enables users to find alternative images with similar characteristics, ensuring flexibility and efficiency when specific assets are unavailable.
By analyzing thousands of data points within images, the AI identifies objects, scenes, and styles, allowing users to find similar images without manual tagging. This feature is particularly useful for finding assets that might not be easily found through traditional keyword searches.
OpenAsset also includes AI facial recognition, which identifies and tags individuals in images and links them to employee profiles. This capability simplifies the management of personnel-related visuals, making it easier to locate images of specific team members.
For content creation, OpenAsset’s AI-powered Content Assist helps leverage existing project and employee data to accelerate the development of project descriptions and employee bios for RFP resumes. This feature supports marketing and proposal efforts by generating high-quality content quickly and efficiently.
Adobe Experience Manager: Best DAM for Diverse Enterprise Content Management
Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) stands out as the preferred DAM system for enterprise-level organizations across industries like retail, media, financial services, and healthcare, with diverse content needs and where content personalization and omnichannel marketing are critical.
Its seamless integration with the Adobe Experience Cloud and tools like Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target make it a powerful choice for enterprises seeking to deliver tailored digital experiences at scale.
Unlike OpenAsset, which is specialized for AEC workflows, AEM is designed to support diverse content needs with robust features for content creation, asset management, and delivery across multiple channels. This makes it ideal for enterprises managing large-scale digital marketing campaigns or maintaining expansive content libraries.
AEM’s AI-powered tools, such as smart tagging and content asset generation with Adobe Firefly, further enhance efficiency for non-AEC businesses by automating processes like asset organization and personalized content creation. These capabilities are particularly valuable for enterprises that rely on data-driven insights and high levels of content customization to engage their audiences.
However, AEM’s complexity and enterprise focus may make it less suited for small teams or organizations with highly specialized workflows like those in AEC. Its generalized asset management features lack the project-centric organization and integrations that OpenAsset provides for AEC firms.
For enterprises seeking a DAM that prioritizes content personalization and omnichannel delivery, AEM remains the go-to choice. Its advanced capabilities empower organizations to deliver tailored experiences to their audiences.
OpenAsset: Best DAM for AEC Firms
While AEM excels in delivering enterprise-level content management across a broad range of sectors, OpenAsset stands out as the top DAM for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) firms due to its specialized features and industry-focused design.
OpenAsset’s project-based organization allows firms to efficiently manage and categorize assets by projects, properties, or individuals—an essential function for industries where project workflows are central. In contrast, AEM lacks this project-centric framework, making it less suitable for AEC firms.
OpenAsset further excels with its tailored integrations for AEC tools like Deltek and Unanet, streamlining workflows by connecting asset management with project planning. While AEM integrates seamlessly with Adobe’s ecosystem and other general tools, it lacks compatibility with AEC-specific platforms, limiting its utility for firms in this sector.
One of OpenAsset’s standout features is its Portals, which enable firms to securely and centrally share digital assets with internal teams, clients, and partners. This ensures that only approved and up-to-date assets are shared, maintaining compliance and brand consistency. AEM, while offering robust sharing tools, does not provide an equivalent feature specifically designed for the collaboration needs of AEC firms.
OpenAsset’s AI-powered tools, such as image recognition, similarity search, and facial recognition, enhance workflows by automating tagging and enabling more accurate asset discovery. This level of AI integration empowers AEC firms to save time and improve asset utilization. AEM, although AI-enabled, focuses more broadly on content personalization and lacks the specialized applications that AEC firms need.
Additionally, OpenAsset’s Employee Module simplifies creating custom resumes for proposals and RFPs by allowing users to quickly update relevant project experience, saving valuable time. AEM lacks this specialized functionality, further reinforcing OpenAsset’s edge in meeting the unique demands of AEC professionals.
Choosing the Right DAM: Adobe Experience Manager vs. OpenAsset
The choice between Adobe Experience Manager and OpenAsset largely depends on the specific needs of your industry and workflow. While Adobe Experience Manager is a robust DAM for enterprises with broad content management needs, it lacks the industry-specific focus required by AEC professionals.
OpenAsset, with its project-based structure, tailored integrations, AI-powered features, and tools like Portals and the Employee Module, offers a superior solution for firms in architecture, engineering, and construction.
For AEC firms, choosing OpenAsset allows them to streamline their workflows, improve collaboration, and efficiently manage their digital assets to meet the unique demands of their industry. OpenAsset’s capabilities directly support AEC businesses in crafting compelling proposals, giving them a competitive edge in winning more projects.
However, when considering different DAM solutions, it’s helpful to refer to our extensive DAM software buyer’s guide. This guide is tailored to help you make an informed decision by pinpointing the key features your organization requires in a digital asset management system.
Moreover, for a more comprehensive understanding, we provide in-depth comparisons of various platforms such as Bynder, Brandfolder, Air, and Adobe Bridge, so you can evaluate all your options.
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