Asset categories are a way to organize and find assets within Acquia DAM. Think of asset categories like big buckets of assets divided into smaller buckets depending on how you want to browse. Use them for browsing when you're not sure what you need.

Asset categories allow anyone with permission to search for assets unique to their business environment. If you are a DAM admin, you can create and assign assets into categories; arrange, manage, and delete asset categories; organize child asset categories; and determine how the asset category search structure displays.

You will see parent and child asset categories in the DAM. Parent categories are the top-level categories, while child categories are like sub-categories. Parent categories display before child categories. If there are no assets in a parent or child category, the category will not display. 

Parent and child categories display in the Categories menu on the dashboard and in the left navigation in search results.

Asset categories are a way to organize and find assets within Acquia DAM. Think of asset categories like big buckets of assets divided into smaller buckets depending on how you want to browse. Use them for browsing when you're not sure what you need.

Asset categories allow anyone with permission to search for assets unique to their business environment. If you are a DAM admin, you can create and assign assets into categories; arrange, manage, and delete asset categories; organize child asset categories; and determine how the asset category search structure displays.

You will see parent and child asset categories in the DAM. Parent categories are the top-level categories, while child categories are like sub-categories. Parent categories display before child categories. If there are no assets in a parent or child category, the category will not display. 

Parent and child categories display in the Categories menu on the dashboard and in the left navigation in search results.

Best practices for asset categories

While you can create up to 500 asset categories across all levels, we recommend using only a few parent categories and one or two child categories as a best practice. Fewer categories are easier to use and help with site speed. Anything beyond two levels of depth should be reviewed as possible metadata fields.

Here are some more best practices to consider when making decisions about the asset categories in your site:

• You just need enough parent categories to provide a starting point for your users to search. Use controlled vocabulary fields in combination with asset categories to allow users to start with a category search and then refine the results with custom metadata filters.
• Assign assets to parent categories that correlate to assets’ unique traits, then use metadata for the attributes that can be applied to multiple assets regardless of their category.
• If the majority of your users are coming from an internal network shared drive or other system using a folder structure, consider using the same or similar structure to ease the transition and build adoption.
• Avoid overlapping asset categories and metadata fields. We recommend using controlled vocabulary fields to avoid redundancy.
• Organize asset categories alphabetically or in order of importance.

Create asset categories

To create asset categories:

1. Go to the Admin app.
2. Click Asset categories under Search Settings in the left navigation.
3. Click Create parent category.
4. Enter a category name and, if applicable, a description. When naming a category, avoid using certain characters that can cause errors. 
   Select to list the category before other categories, at the end of the category list, or to display it alphabetically.
5. Click Create.

After you have created parent categories, click the plus (+) sign by the category name to add a child category or the arrow by the parent to view existing child categories. Child categories are created the same way as parent categories.

The maximum number of categories of any level that can be created is 500. For example, you could have 20 parent categories and 480 child categories. 

Parent and child categories can also be created from locations on the site where categories can be edited during upload, from the Selection panel, and on the Asset Details page. As a best practice, communicate your approach to adding categories to fellow DAM admins to keep categories maintainable and scalable as needs change.

Edit asset categories

If you need to make updates to asset category names, descriptions, or where they display, you can edit the category.

1. Go to the Admin app.
2. Click Asset categories under Search Settings in the left navigation.
3. Click the category name to edit the name, description, or display location.
4. Click Update.

Delete asset categories

Click an asset category name, then delete the category to remove the category. Deleting a category does not delete the assets in that category.

Organize categories

If you would like to change the way parent asset categories are organized, reorder them by clicking a category name and dragging and dropping the category into the correct position in the list on the Asset Categories page. Categories can only be reordered within the same level.

Child asset categories can be reorganized by dragging the child category in the list below the parent category, then dropping it into your preferred order. Child categories cannot be moved from one parent category to another.

To display asset categories alphabetically, check Display alphabetically on the Edit Asset Category page or choose to display the category before another category, then click Update when you are done!

Asset categories and metadata

While both asset categories and metadata can be used as search tools, a strong metadata structure is a best practice recommendation to enhance the searching experience.

Often, child categories can be repurposed into searchable metadata fields. Start by reviewing child categories and determine if any can be turned into values for one or more new metadata fields. The DAM Customer Support team is available to help assist in this process.

Another approach to consider is adding new controlled vocabulary fields while keeping the category structure intact. An interview with your users can be helpful in guiding your decisions.

Assets without categories

See a list of asset groups that include assets without categories in the Asset-Related Tasks section of the Admin dashboard. Click the asset group name or View to assign those assets to categories individually from the Asset Details page or in a batch using the Selection panel.

Asset category permissions

Asset categories display for anyone with permission to view at least one asset in the category. There is not a way to allow users to see only certain categories. One user may see 10 assets in a category while another may see 20 assets in the same category because the user's role has permission to view additional asset groups.

Assets can be included in as many categories as you'd like. As long as roles and asset groups are organized appropriately, users will see only the assets they have permission to view.

You can map an upload profile to a specific category and asset group. After assets are uploaded using the mapped upload profile (glossary term, activate to view definition), assets will be automatically assigned to the category and asset group.