For initial upload of assets to the Acquia DAM (Widen), you have two options:

1. You provide the assets on a hard drive(s) in an organized structure. We recommend using exFAT, NTF, or HFS+ hard drives, rather than a FAT32 drive because it's an older file system with a longer file transfer processing time. Files are run through a script to find duplicates (known as the de-duping process) and to clean up filenames and folders before they're delivered to Amazon Web Services.
2. We provide an Amazon S3 bucket for you to upload assets into with your desired folder structure. Then we'll run the de-duping and clean-up processes as above.

Embedded IPTC, XMP, and Exif metadata for images can be mapped to searchable metadata fields and captured at the time of upload. Header information (format, size, dimensions, date, and for video and audio tracks, frames per second and soundtracks) is also captured. For videos and PDF files, XMP metadata can be imported.

Bulk uploads are quoted as a cost per upload. Bulk uploads of metadata, category, and users may be imported each through unique methods outside the asset bulk upload process and are quoted separately.

Refer to the "How do I prepare files for upload?" and "How do I gather files for upload?" articles for more information.
 

De-duping files for bulk upload¶

Before files are uploaded to the DAM, we’ll scan them to identify any duplicate filenames through what’s known as the de-duping process. Files must have unique filenames. Any files with the same filenames will conflict at the time of upload and must be reviewed and resolved. Conflicts occur as a result of having copies of low- and high-resolution files or if there are several different formats, such as JPG and TIFF formats, of the same file. Historically, image files have the most conflicts.

All files that are not conflicted will be uploaded to the site using the bulk upload process.

If conflicting files are found during the de-duping process, we’ll review the specific properties of the files and try to identify the file that should be retained and uploaded. We review these file properties:

• Filename, including file extension
• File format (DOC, EPS, JPG, TIFF, etc.)
• The date the file was modified
• DPI (resolution) for image files

The highest-quality file will be uploaded to the DAM. If all file properties are the same, the de-duping process looks for the most recent date modified. The conflicting file (i.e., the lower-quality file, the file with the oldest date modified) will be moved to a subfolder for your review.

After the de-duping process is complete, an XLS file, which lists properties of conflicted files, including the original file path, will be generated and sent to you to review. You can indicate if you’d like the conflicted files uploaded to the site where you can resolve them on the Conflicted Uploaded Assets table on the Uploads page.