In today’s digital-centric world, managing assets efficiently is important for businesses across various industries. With so many Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems available, choosing the right one can be challenging.
In this blog, we’ll dive deep into a side-by-side comparison of two top DAM systems: OpenAsset and MediaValet. Both platforms have attracted significant attention for their robust capabilities and innovative features. We’ll explore these capabilities and futures to help you make an informed decision for your organization’s needs.
What is OpenAsset?
OpenAsset is a DAM solution primarily tailored to the architecture, engineering, construction, and real estate industries. The platform is designed to help firms search, store, share, and deliver the most up-to-date digital assets seamlessly while saving time.
Key features of OpenAsset include its project-based structure, AI-powered search capabilities, marketing collateral creation, asset categorization, asset-sharing functionalities, workflow management tools, and an employee module to make it easier to find and retrieve assets.
What is MediaValet?
Similarly to OpenAsset, MediaValet is a cloud-based DAM solution that helps organizations manage, organize, and share their digital assets such as images, videos, documents, and other media files.
MediaValet offers advanced search, metadata tagging, version control, and workflow automation to improve efficiency and productivity. It’s designed to be flexible, catering to businesses of all sizes and across various industries.
MediaValet vs. OpenAsset: Top Industries
When picking a DAM system, the industry it serves is important because each industry has unique requirements, workflows, and compliance standards. For example, a DAM tailored for the media industry might prioritize fast video streaming and editing integrations, while one made for the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) sector would emphasize integrations with CRM and document creation tools.
OpenAsset top industries include:
- Architecture
- Engineering
- Construction
- Real Estate
MediaValet’s supported industries include:
- Agencies
- Healthcare
- Retail
- Nonprofit/ Small Businesses
Choosing a DAM that understands and caters to the specific nuances of an industry ensures better adoption and company-wide usage, efficiency, and adherence.
MediaValet vs. OpenAsset: Capabilities
The creative workflow in your organization depends significantly on your DAM system. A competent DAM must systematically arrange your assets, boost productivity, encourage teamwork, and enable your team to focus on activities that drive revenue.
Here is a comparison of OpenAsset and MediaValet to see how they measure up regarding crucial DAM functionalities.
User Interface and Experience
OpenAsset’s user interface is designed with AEC professionals in mind, making it intuitive for project-based tasks and professionals familiar with AEC workflows.
MediaValet offers a general user interface suitable for a broader audience, focusing on ease of use and simplicity for users from various industries.
Moreover, both DAM systems use AI to improve user experience and search quality, however, only OpenAsset leverages AI to find AEC-specific terms and create descriptions/ build resumes.
Source: G2 Comparison
Cloud Infrastructure
OpenAsset provides a cloud-based DAM system. With a cloud-centric approach, users can access and control their assets from any device with an internet connection, and the security is overseen by a major public cloud provider. Organizations leveraging cloud storage gain the advantage of extensive security investments and advancements.
MediaValet prides itself on its cloud-first approach and uses Microsoft Azure’s cloud infrastructure for its DAM system.
Like many other cloud infrastructures, Azure provides advanced security features, ensuring assets are protected from potential threats. This includes data encryption, threat intelligence, and multi-layered security provided across physical data centers, infrastructure, and operations.
Integration Capabilities
Given its focus on the AEC sectors, OpenAsset often provides integrations tailored to tools and software commonly used in these fields. OpenAsset offers integrations with popular CRM and ERP systems, especially those widely adopted in AEC firms like Deltek.
Moreover, considering the project-centric nature of the AEC industry, OpenAsset provides compatibility with project management software, allowing for a smoother workflow between managing assets and overseeing project timelines and deliverables.
Many DAM systems, including OpenAsset, also offer API access, which allows organizations to create custom integrations with other tools they use.
Source: G2 Comparison
OpenAsset provides users with a comprehensive suite of useful tools, including project-based ERP & CRM, construction project management, and document creation platforms.
OpenAsset integrations Include:
- Procore
- AEC 360
- Deltek Vision
- Deltek Vantagepoint
- Affinity
- Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and Excel
- Okta
- Salesforce
- Unanet/ Cosential CRM
- Templafy
- InDesign
On the other hand, MediaValet provides a wide range of integrations suitable for various industries and might have a broader integration spectrum due to its more general industry focus.
Hosted on Azure cloud, MediaValet has integrations with Microsoft’s suite of products like Office 365, benefiting organizations deeply embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Beyond pre-built integrations, MediaValet also offers API options for businesses that want to develop custom connections between the DAM and other systems.
MediaValet integrations Include:
- Wrike
- Steg.AI
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- Salesforce Sales Cloud
- Asana
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- Drupal
- OneDrive
- WordPress
Collaboration and Review
OpenAsset allows users to share collections of assets with both internal and external collaborators. Users can share links to these collections, which can be password-protected or have an expiration date for additional security. Plus, the version control feature helps teams track each version of an asset, ensuring that everyone has access to the most recent and approved version.
Like OpenAsset, MediaValet also provides version control, ensuring teams work with the most recent version of an asset and can track changes over time. Moreover, MediaValet’s built-in workflows support the review and approval process. Assets can move through predefined stages, with notifications sent to stakeholders at each step. This feature ensures that only approved assets get published or used.
Advanced Features
Enabling you to find and access your files with ease and efficiency is where OpenAsset excels. With numerous advanced search features and advanced tagging, you can find an exact image or discover new images in the system in no time.
Additionally, AI at OpenAsset saves you time and resources in managing your images through AI-suggested keywords, image similarity search, AI content assist, and more. These features:
- Reduce the time it takes to manually tag images
- Helps you build and expand taxonomies
- Gives you additional images to select from and use.
- Enables you to leverage Generative AI for project descriptions and employee bios
MediaValet also provides search features so you can find the assets you need when you need them, and offer some AI benefits. The platform uses AI to help with automatically tagging your content with relevant keywords to increase the discoverability of your assets.
MediaValet: Best DAM for HIPAA Compliance
MediaValet offers enterprise companies peace of mind with compliance across various industry standards. For example, healthcare and legal industries require strict compliance with regulations such as HIPAA and GDPR, which specialized DAM systems can better handle, and with MediaValet, you can store patient media while remaining HIPAA-compliant and secure.
These compliance and protection features are particularly helpful to clients in the healthcare industry but may be less important for those clients who do not maintain patient data as part of their role.
OpenAsset: Best DAM for AEC Firms
Both MediaValet and OpenAsset stand out with comparable features and functionalities. However, each has its own set of features and functionalities focused on different industries. While MediaValet is great for meeting healthcare and legal industry compliance requirements, OpenAsset provides several AEC-centric features designed to ensure the security of its users’ digital assets.
MediaValet lacks compatibility with prominent AEC tools like Unanet and Deltek, while OpenAsset offers specialized guidance and multiple AEC-focused integrations. Additionally, OpenAsset can help ensure that only the most up-to-date and approved assets are being used, which is important for brand consistency and compliance.
Another important AEC feature OpenAsset offers is the ability to simplify the process of customizing resumes. Crafting employee resumes for bid proposals often means long hours editing documents to reflect relevant project experience. But with OpenAsset, this task becomes a breeze. A simple checkbox selection enables the inclusion of relevant project experiences, streamlining the resume creation process.
All of the robust features in OpenAsset are curated to save time and increase efficiency when working on AEC projects.
Finding the Right DAM: MediaValet vs. OpenAsset
In this OpenAsset vs. MediaValet comparison, the final decision depends on your industry, organizational requirements, and specific use cases. Your decision should be influenced by your unique needs and long-term business goals.
OpenAsset stands out for its specialized focus on the AEC sector and efficient asset management tailored to project-based workflows. On the other hand, MediaValet offers an extensive media management solution for various industries outside the AEC space.
If you’re looking for features and functionalities that align seamlessly with the unique workflows and demands of AEC projects, OpenAsset is the choice for you. OpenAsset offers intuitive asset management that is directly relevant to the project-based nature of the AEC industry.
And if you’re comparing OpenAsset to other DAMs like Bynder, Brandfolder, Canto, and more, check out our in-depth comparisons.
Ready to see OpenAsset in action? Book a demo with our experts today.
