Acquia DAM (Widen)

Great customer service, early communication around big and small changes, the best DAM tool we use!

Comments: Reliability of asset storage, access anywhere, share multiple assets in many different outputs with ease.

Pros:

It's the one place for all content to live and get shared out across multiple platforms. Support for project management (through Workflow) and creative implementation (through Adobe CC Connector) enhances our productivity and helps us get our jobs done faster.

Cons:

The software seems sluggish and lags when you want it to go fast. File processing and scrolling through assets is where I've noticed this the most. The uploading process also needs to be cleaned up and more inviting to users.

Widen Collective Is Your Digital Asset Filing Cabinet

Comments: IT's hard to to quantify the value this project brought to our organization-but it was incredible. We have reduced the amount of time spent looking for images, we have given access directly to our agency (reducing the number of emails back and forth requesting assets) and since partnering with Widen we've improved the quality of our assets. I would absolutely recommend Widen to any organization looking for a solution to a similar problem.

Pros:

As someone who loves to have everything neatly organized and labeled, I really appreciated the ability to easily organize, categorize and tag all of my organization's digital assets. It's a daunting task-hundreds or thousands of images and video files, all had to be housed in a cloud in a manner that was intuitive and retrievable. Yet, Widen Collective helped me make that happen.

Cons:

As with any software, there is a learning curve. But, Widen offers comprehensive training and excellent customer support. Don't let this hold you back!

Widen Collective

Comments: The Digital Asset System was put in place to provide easy access to assets owned by Trek Bicycle Corporation for those internally and externally. These assets can be ordered and downloaded at any time of day or night. It's an invaluable tool for our dealers, distributors, and international offices.
'
The Media Template is an online ad, and media builder. It allows Trek to control brand consistency, while it allows our users to build media in minutes using pre-approved images and text without the need of expensive software programs. We use this portion of the site to provide promotional items and in store signage to our large dealer base. Overall, I think the Widen collective is a great product and I really enjoy working with Widen.

Pros:

Good customer support Robust reporting features Assets can be downloaded in a variety of file formats Various types of file formats are supported Permissions can be setup to protect assets Users can access the site through a standard web browser Media can be built in minutes without needing expensive software programs Assets/media can be ordered and downloaded at any time of day or night Software updates made throughout the year

Cons:

Pages can be slow to load at times Reporting tools can be confusing Custom enhancements to the site can be expensive Some education is needed for new users of the site The site is not setup for printing on demand Home page can be confusing if your site includes the DAM and the media builder

Before, I was lost. Now I have found...my assets. Great tool/ great people

Comments: Gee, it makes work easier. We have dealers and marketing teams around the world. This makes distributing those assets not a pain in the ass. Also, WAY less questions than before we implemented about 'where is is this asset?' It rules.

Pros:

The customer experience team and help desk teams are great and make you feel like a real person instead of a cog in the giant machine of software life. The portals. The PORTALS! Portals rule. They really do. Best way to organize brand stuff.

Cons:

I'm waiting for workflow to become even more robust for it to become a Workfront killer. Which I hope that it does.

My Widen DAM Review

Comments: Using Widen’s DAM to organize our assets has greatly reduced our marketing teams time spent hunting for images.

Pros:

My favorite things about Widen’s DAM software include an easy to navigate interface, very intuitive searching capabilities, customizable metadata fields for great detail to be attributed to assets, the ability to download files in multiple files types (fairly quick conversion depending on size of original file), the ability to customize your login screen and home screen (keeping everything on-brand is important!), and their customer support team is amazing.

Cons:

I feel that the asset sharing options could be expanded upon. Currently, you can type an email in and send a set of assets. I would like to see additional options implemented because it feels fairly limited currently.

Hundreds of very helpful features; enhanced well over the years with great advancement in marketing

Pros:

Widen Collective is being used greatly by many individuals in similar roles in our company due to its many features that allow each of us to achieve our tasks with ease. I use this product for the sake of its archiving purposes, project and workflow management accessibility. The possibility to manage minor tasks, access controls and track employee milestones are important jobs I have to do which is made easy by Widen Collective.

Cons:

Widen Collective is a broad software with multiple available features, with this is the difficulty to maneuver around this program at a first glance. It may take a few tutoring sessions and practice to be able to perform tasks with this software, especially if you are not that inclined with technology.

Highly positive experience, with ease of use and great customer service!

Comments: We learned more about DAM management and learned to love it!

Pros:

It's so easy and intuitive to use. The metadata search boxes on the side help narrow and refine the search. And the customer service can't be beat!

Cons:

I don't like how the collections can't be edited between users. We have had to figure out a workaround to be able to share and edit the same collections.

Widen Collective is the best DAM tool we have used.

Pros:

The user interface is so simply we can add new users quickly and easily and they can find assets with a minimal amount of training.

Cons:

Some of the role permissions arent explained ver well. There were a few settings we needed to have turned on in order for users to be able to use the system effectively.

Widen helped us to organize the thousands of assets we used to house all over our network folders.

Comments: Company-wide self service, insight analytics, and quicker webpage loads.

Pros:

The tag and search functionality. We no longer have the chief marketing officer instant-messaging our team to find awards, accolades, images, and illustrations. Other departments can self-serve as their needs dictate, and we can track usage of key assets with Insights.

Cons:

The Insites analytics are not intuitive to use. I would like deep practice, usability, and best practice webinars and or forums to better understand the power this feature.

Fantastic, Love it!!

Pros:

Customer Support, website functionality, ease of uploading new assets and then finding them later, user control, sharing capabilities including the file type selection. Love the zoom feature!

Cons:

Honestly, it's not with Widen itself. My biggest complaint is with my own team because I keep having to reset people's passwords for the site because they forget them. Luckily, it's really easy to do in the Admin functions!

Widen Collective is the best Digital Asset Management system I have ever worked with.

Comments: My team has to manage over 15 different categories of assets. Most of those categories are individual brands within our company. Some are segments of the brands. All of that to say that we have sliced up our asset offering in many ways to best serve our customers. By being able to segment those brands, we are able to get the right asset served up quickly in a variety of formats to fit most every need. In addition to that, we can make it so only certain assets can be served to certain customers. All through the use of Widen's "role" and "asset group" functions. We have well over 1000 end-users that we can easily manage.

Pros:

I've used quite a few DAM solutions in the past and Widen is by far the best one I have worked with. The thing that I like the best is the ability to manage the metadata just as easy as it is to manage the assets themselves. On top of that, the ability to assign permissions to access and administer assets by role has proven to be very valuable. We have assets that are only applicable to certain customers, so I can easily manage that through the admin tool. The time that we spent managing assets went from a full-time person's job before implementing Widen to only an hour or so a week once it is up and running. My team has to manage over 15 different categories of assets. Most of those categories are individual brands within our company. Some are segments of the brands. All of that to say that we have sliced up our asset offering in many ways to best serve our customers. By being able to segment those brands, we are able to get the right asset served up quickly in a variety of formats to fit most every need. In addition to that, we can make it so only certain assets can be served to certain customers. All through the use of Widen's "role" and "asset group" functions. We have well over 1000 end-users that we can easily manage.

Cons:

The only thing I have an issue with is my inability to customize the home page. From what I can tell, you have to be pretty savvy at HTML to do it right. But, I can say that there are some basic things that you can customize that will make your page on brand by adding logos and customizing the colors of fonts, buttons, etc.

The only Digital Asset Manager you'll need

Comments: I've had a great experience with Widen. I can easily upload assets of all types. Tagging them, filling out the metadata, and putting longform descriptions in each asset makes it really easy for people to find what they are looking for. It also helps me keep track on similar image types, or batches of uploads.

Pros:

We use Widen as an asset manager, giving our teams easy access to photos, videos, and illustrative elements. As the administrator, I can create different user accounts, letting some people have more access than others if they need it. I can also provide third-party contractors access to our resources too.

Cons:

The admin side can be a little bit tricky to navigate, and it would be nice as the administrator to be able to change my view settings to spoof different levels of access, so I can quickly see what kinds of access my users have and make changes or alterations without needing to create multiple accounts for myself.

We love WIDEN

Comments: We've been using WIDEN's DAM for about three years now to organize and distribute marketing deliverables to other internal departments like sales, development, etc. It makes it so easy to have a single, definitive location to find marketing-related assets. People don't have to wonder where to look to see if they have the latest version of an asset. And we don't have to worry about people accessing things they shouldn't. It also cuts down a lot on the requests we get day to day, because folks know where to go to find things themselves. And the support team at WIDEN is awesome and super friendly and helpful whenever we do have to reach out to them (which isn't that often because their product is great!).

Pros:

It makes keeping things organized (which is a complicated job) super easy.

Cons:

It works really, really well, but as with any asset management tool, there is ongoing maintenance and auditing that has to take place. That can get tedious at times, but we realize that it has to be done to keep things current, delete outdated/redundant assets, or just to check things that might have been uploaded with incorrect metadata, for instance.

Impressive DAM with great customer support

Comments: Implementation with Widen was so smooth and the Widen team was knowledgeable and helpful. They broke down the implementation process into manageable steps and answered all questions we had in a timely manner. Our users find it so much more user-friendly than our old DAM!

Pros:

We love portals! We may be even using them more than intended - we find that portals are the most user-friendly way to surface the right assets to our users!

Cons:

We do have some features that we'd like improved or added, but Widen is all about customer feedback, so I feel heard when I make new feature requests.

Wix Goods and Bads

Comments: My overall experience with Widen Collective is that it is very much a good website, and I will continue to use it and show my friends and family about it. It is very helpful when you are first starting off your business

Pros:

Wixs simplified proofreader makes it very simple to make an expert site without having to know a codel with many layouts and with very great instructions on how to do so. It is very beginner friendly and help with a lot of small business websites to get started.

Cons:

A con is that you cannot change templates once your website is live which i believe you should be able to. Also, it has storage limit on all plans.

Finally! A system that is low-maintenance and works.

Comments: We've been on Widen for about two years so far and it has been great! Back before we were with Widen, we could make due with what we had...barely. Our team sat down with all the stake holders who would be using it on a regular basis and mapped out our needs, wants, etc., and then started doing some research. We went through three or four DAM system and had representatives from these companies explain what their systems could do, but they always seemed lacking, especially with the price tag they were quoting. Some of them we did like, but there would have to be equipment that was brought in to hold the assets and such, which would be ok, but then we would have to maintain the equipment. And then if there is an equipment issue we would likely have to wait for a representative to come fix it and hope it works. Just too much hassle for something we basically wanted to put assets on and keep them there for distribution. Then enter Widen. From the first demonstration of what their system can do, and the abilities we would have with setting permissions and distributing all the image, audio, and video assets, we were giving each other high-fives. Literally, we had the phone on mute and were high-fiving each other over and over again! The on-phone rep from Widen had no idea. We LOVED that we could upload assets onto Widen's cloud and our trainers all over the world could easily search, preview, and download any files we allowed them to. And there is zero maintenance on our end, other than uploading the assets, setting permissions, and making sure the proper metadata is typed in. And any time we have had an issue, Widen has been great about making sure a representative is there to help walk us through it. So, now we're into Widen about two years and I almost forget it's there sometimes. Whenever there was a video request, we had to manually get a video out to a trainer or someone, which takes time that we don't seem to have. Now, they can just log onto Widen, search for an asset, and download it. Seriously, get a Widen representative on the phone see what they can do for you.

Widen Collective - very satisfied

Pros:

Product is very easy to use, If i have to send documentation to customer i have just to click on "share" and send the link, avoiding send big attachments by mail. Also search engine is very good!

Cons:

At the moment Widen is not integrated with Salesforce, i don't know if is a decision of my Company or if is not possible the integration

Must Have Marketing Tool

Comments: We are able to quickly and easily share digital assets with customers, coworkers, etc. all in one spot. We no longer have to search through a messy drive to find product images, marketing materials and more.

Pros:

Widen staff was there to help us every step of the way and the overall functionality of our site is top notch because of it. My team is able to quickly find marketing materials with just a few clicks, saving us time and money.

Cons:

There really isn't a single thing that I truly dislike about the site, but it would be ideal to be able to view brochures and catalogs as e-catalogs on Widen.

Widen is fast and efficient. It's responsive with search and downloading assets.

Pros:

Speed. Since the beginning we've upload thousands of images and added hundreds of users across our company and partners. It has not slowed down with all of the added weight and burden. It's still as snappy and responsive searching for assets in the beginning. Narrowing the search results and downloading images is very quick.

Cons:

Support. The support could be better. There has been times, not in a while, when it goes down, just like any cloud service. But it seems the first line of support are the on-site admins. It's a problem when they are not in the office. There's not an easy way to contact support when needed. There should be a chat feature to let them know when we are experiencing outages and get the issues solved.

a user

Comments: I use all the time to build content for customers.

Pros:

I need access to our images in one location. And I need it at any hour, so I don't have to wait on anyone.

Cons:

sometimes accurate words entered into the search function don't pull the right files. I'm fine if they pull to much, but when images that should be there are missing, it's frustrating.

The experience has been outstanding! Great customer service and an easy platform to use!

Comments: We find the largest benefit for us is elevating our brand presence to our accounts. It really has enhanced how we deliver digital assets around key product launches and other crucial moments for our brand.

Pros:

The aspect I like the most about the Widen platform is the portals feature. The ability to customize content around branding just elevates our brand presence and provides us with exactly what we need to best serve our accounts. An easy to navigate and integrated feature such as portals has served us very well.

Cons:

The difficulty we have faced most is the metadata issue. Because we offer so many products and styles when uploading it can make the process cumbersome and ultimately we don't utilize the metadata as best we should because we simply don't have the time or manpower to manage it efficiently.

Great Media Management

Comments: We now have ONE place everyone in the company can go to for assets to add to presentations, advertisements, blogs, websites, collateral and more. The Marketing team can work more efficiently and employees within the company are embracing the brand more consistently.

Pros:

Customer and technical support are world-class. Widen is always looking to its customers for roadmap enhancements and give honest, helpful feedback to all inquiries.

Cons:

The Adobe CC Connector is still a little buggy and looses connection links to the DAM during updates or if shared with someone without a CC Connector license. I would like enhancements to make it more user friendly.

Best in Class

Pros:

Our organization has been using Widen for a year and it has transformed the way we share information both internally and with our external business partners. The system makes it easy to load and maintain content. Unlike our former proprietary system which was prone to system errors, Widen makes uploading, sharing, and downloading content easy. Widen has truly been one of the most impactful changes to our internal communication over the past year and I am looking forward to continue increasing our use as a company. Thanks for everything Widen!

Cons:

One area for improvement would be increasing the variety of image types that can be downloaded from our image collection.

Widen sits at the pinnacle of the DAM world

Comments: I have been a constant user of the Widen Media Collective for almost 5 years and have no problem saying that it is the best digital asset management system that I have used in almost 20 years of DAM experience. Not only is their product superb, but what really sets them apart from other vendors is the quality of their customer service. When you become a Widen customer, you become part of the Widen family, and they take care of you. I honestly can't say enough about them.

Pros:

Very user-friendly UI, free functionality upgrades, wider range of customizability than other DAM systems.

Cons:

Minor cosmetic issues.

A Valuable Product

Comments: Overall, Widen's digital asset management system is great! It is the perfect combination of OOTB design and customization opportunity such that any company can implement this product to fit their needs while not feeling overwhelmed. In general the product is really easy to use. My interns pick this product up with about 15 minutes of training. Now much of the usability of the system depends upon each company's ability to implement effective taxonomy on their site. In addition, Widen is a great company to work with. They are always looking for the next best feature to implement. And their support is immediate and effective. I love working with Widen as much as I love working with Widen's product. Two thumbs up!

Pros:

Easy to learn and easy to use. A great combination of OOTB design and customization that it can meet many companies' needs without being overwhelming OOTB. The new UI upgrade also came with a boost in performance that is felt in every step of using this product. The analytics tool is also much improved and now offers greater insight into my users' activity within the system.

Cons:

There are certainly a limited number of cons with the system. Perhaps the largest is really rather minor, and that is some of the taxonomy can be confusing. For example, deleting an asset from your cart is actually deleting the asset, not just removing it from the cart. While their taxonomy makes more sense, it conflicts with major sites like amazon.com and therefore offers some confusion.