Great product. Great service.

Pros

Merlin allows us to easily share photo assets with our network of Habitat affiliates in the U.S., and with our national organization offices in more than 70 countries. My favorite tool is the ability to share email previews of contact sheets containing links to directly download images. That gives us the ability to share collections of photos directly with our clients, without having to upload files to Dropbox. That’s a huge time saver for our team. I also can’t say enough about their amazing customer service. They quickly respond to our questions, and the available training helps us get the most out of the service.

Cons

The more I learn about Merlin, the less I see that I would consider a negative. You can credit the customer service team for helping us through anything we don't understand.

MerlinOne Review

Customer Support is prompt. It has been overall good.

Pros

Efforts have been made to compete with the other products out there. Thats apparent. Please continue in this direction. The BIGGEST feedback I got from our users who got a look at Libris.... was how easy it seemed compared to the Merlin interfaces.

Cons

Somewhat slow - I know this has been looked into, and also dependent on our internet speed, but we have a very fast connection ... the lags that happen just don't look good to those, who are already not huge fans of Merlin, you may be showing photography assets to etc.

Take quite a bit of training to get comfortable. Missing some key functionality.

Pros

Once you figure it out, the system is very easy to use and retrieve content. Search features are great.

Cons

Does not generate permalinks to content/collections; they expire after 24 hours and thus cannot embed content collections on website.

A highly customizable system with many great capabilities for use in digital asset management

Pros

I like the many options available to the user when it comes to customizing the system. I work in the education space and some of the items that we like to tag when saving our digital assets can be very intimately related to our field i.e. students on campus, students in different buildings throughout the school, students wearing branded school gear or just the spaces around the campus to show the school. It's nice that we could build a taxonomy that is specific to us, this makes searching our files easier.

Cons

I least like the fact that it can be a bit cumbersome to navigate; sometimes I am uploading hundreds of photos and find that some of the files didn't upload properly - however I have received very good customer service support on this issue which I appreciate.

Great communication and service from Merlin staff.

Able to customize metadata fields, including their values and the way the field functions.

Pros

It is continuously improving, and I believe the staff and their interest in my feedback and recommendations. They really do try to create a product that fits their users' needs. I like that a lot of the features and tools are customizable, and can be enabled or disabled granularly based on user or user group.

Cons

It takes a long time to download videos from the software. Managing the multiple user groups can be overwhelming since there are so many that come with the software as a default.

Perfect for nonprofit that shares, tracks, and stores hundreds of thousands of photos, videos, etc.

We were one of the first nonprofits that MerlinOne took on, allowing us to get a huge amount of digital content off our file server and into a robust DAMS system that could help us track and share assets across three continents.

Pros

If you can do a Google search, you can search Merlin with little additional training. The interface is very user-friendly, and we have trained multiple staffers with varying levels of computer skills.

Cons

Metadata fields are very structured and somewhat limiting. Would like to tailor them more to our needs without incurring back-end programming expenses.

Great and trouble-free archiving system

MerlinOne is our archive of published stories, and photographs as well as PDFs of our pages - which are fully searchable.

Pros

Simple setup for files and metadata, and our librarian can dump content to Merlin in a single system. It's easy to set up and easy to make configuration changes, and the FTP hot folder is trouble free.

Cons

No Windows mobile native apps. It would be nice if this was added to the company roadmap. I can't think of a better asset management system and would urge anyone considering purchasing one to absolutely give MerlineOne a try.

A DAM you can make your own

Pros

I've been impressed by the amount of customizations you can make in Merlin. Their customer service department has been very helpful when it comes to constricting creative solutions to project management problems and usually responds promptly.

Cons

Be prepared to work extensively with their customer support. In my previous DAMs I had much more direct control over field rules, creating new fields, complex user group customization, etc. Merlin customer support has to do all of that for you. While they do usually respond promptly and are helpful, I would much rather do it all myself to avoid errors in communication and delays.

We have used MerlinOne's esheets software for many years, and it provides all we need.

A simple way for customers to look at and review their tearsheets. We have saved money by no longer printing extra copies of ads and mailing them to the customer. The tearsheets are available more quickly than they would have been with mail.

Pros

This is a very easy system to use. The documentation is complete and helpful. The support is wonderful and always provides quick, accurate responses.

Cons

Some of the date features are frustrating. Primarily how the calendar is displayed as Monday through Sunday, which takes some time getting used to.

Game-changing DAM solution.

Centralize all digital assets help increase both efficiency and effectiveness.

Pros

We got MerlinONE up and running in a matter of days. No lengthy implementation and a major productivity increase.

Cons

Hard to say, any issues we had were quickly ironed out. One very minor thing I would love to see would be more printer template options for printing archived articles. That is a very small thing though, overall MerlinONE was our go-to software when we were up against a tight deadline.

Powerful software for managing large collections of photos with ease.

Pros

I enjoy the diversity of file supported file types and that they are all viewable in the software. It's great for being able to share large quantities high quality photos. The multiple ways you can upload files to the system is great as well. Being able to search by any of the Metadata fields is incredibly useful (date taken, location, creator, subject info). The customer support service is fantastic, they can help with everything you could possibly need. They genuinely want their customers to get the fullest use out of this system.

Cons

I wish it had more of a file structure like a hard drive with individual folders instead of being one large mass of photos. If photos are uploaded with incorrect metadata they are very challenging to find. It's not the easiest software to use at first and takes a while to learn. If you aren't accustomed to using metadata in your photos, the initial workload will be huge as this system functions best when using metadata. Thankfully Merlin has amazing customer support that are truly concerned with making sure you learn how to use the system to its fullest potential.

We use Merlin to manage our large photo gallery for our organization.

Ability to catalog our photos. Ability to upload and download photos. Ability to tag photos.

Pros

Most liked: 1) Ability to meet our needs for managing our photos in an efficient manner 2) Ability to search for relevant content 3) Support we received from vendor

Cons

Least liked: 1) Could have had more training and refresher training for our staff. Initial training was good but we needed more examples of how to use in our environment 3)

MerlinOne has allowed us to get a handle on our photo library and video assets

Pros

The software makes it so easy to go in and search for the assets we're looking for. We're able to bucket our photos into different areas based on the needs of the company, which makes finding what we're after even more effective.

Cons

We often have big sets of content to load in batches. Would like to be able to batch load more from the site itself vs. using an FTP for those.

Powerful DAM solution

MerlinOne has provided us with a powerful, easy to use digital asset management system in a hosted solution. I deal with a lot of vendors, and MerlinOne's technical support is second to none. They carefully listen to their customers needs and try to improve their product accordingly.

Pros

Excellent technical support. Very responsive to customer needs with development. Hosted solution allows us to focus our resources elsewhere.

MerlinOne—great overall

Pros

It's very easy to use and its search engine is terrific.

Cons

The new interface is a little hard to navigate and sometimes there are glitches in the functions.

Hassle-free content management

Pros

The searchability functions allow me to easily call up assets based a variety of variables. Sending photographs over FTP has been seamless.

Cons

The interface is a bit clunky. The edit tool for photograph captions seems like it could be better optimized.

I've had past history in using merlin one and in my new position, I wanted something I was familiar.

Pros

The best part of Merlin one system is the ability to have all of our assets in one place. Our organization is trilled with the results.

Cons

The admin aspect is a bit difficult to understand but the customer support is great whenever there is an issue.

MerlinOne has been a pleasure to use. It allows me to search and quickly go through images quickly.

Pros

The collections and projects areas are great for organizing images. I love how quickly i can go through all may searches.

Cons

The auto update is necessary. But if i have it on takes me back to the top my search if im scrolling down.

very reliable and customer care is excellent

Pros

Its very fast and the layout if decent. The video voice is improving and does a really decent job.

Cons

There are really no cons, other than the software can be too complex sometimes, but overally, its fairly easy.

Solid feature list, great support and reasonable pricing

MerlinOne has been great to work with. They've had exceptional support, regularly following up to see if we have any questions and addressing any issues we had. They been responsive to problems and have even provided on-site support in helping get us setup.

Pros

It has plenty of options when it comes to searching, and the search tools are robust. Fairly customizable for both administrators and the users. Has plenty of features for the price. Buying concurrent licenses instead of licenses for every user is a huge plus.

Cons

It's not without some quirks and bugs. We've experience some issues loading files into the system, and have gotten bugs when trying to manage keywords. Nothing that breaks the system, but does give users some annoyance.

The digital asset management system is one of the best for storing and organizing photos and pdfs.

Having our archive in one central place easy for the entire newsroom to access.

Pros

I love the ease of use and the ability to change image metadata on the fly. The ability to search wire and staff images in one place is also an added bonus.

Cons

My least favorite aspect about the software is the download times. There are times when downloads take an incredible amount of time to download. Zip files often break and I have to call customer support to fix it.

MerlinOne provides great access and excellent customer support

MerlinOne's hosted solution provides great access to our editors and reporters in the field. Our staff can access data on their laptops, tablets and other mobile devices. They can fact check, data mine and build their stories from any location. Our sales, marketing and Newspapers in Education staff also benefit from the mobile access to Merlin. The projects function allows our staff to quickly create timelines, photo galleries and compile data from 25 years of our digital archives. We work on collaboration with local libraries, museums, historical societies and other institutions. Merlin allows us to quickly compile data and share large amounts of information with these organizations and our readers. As the Ask the Times coordinator, Merlin is one of the most valuable and reliable tools in responding to our reader's questions. The customer support at MerlinOne is excellent. They are helpful, friendly and respond quickly to any issues. They are proactive and contact us regularly to check on our satisfaction with their product.

so far so good.

Pros

easy to search for photos as long as keywords were inserted properly. downloading a file is pretty fast.

Cons

a couple of glitches with being able to download lots of photos at once, customer service was quick to respond though

MerlinOne is a great product that simplify search and finding things

Pros

This software is able to adapt to our workflow and provide flexibility. Support is super awesome and help at each time.

Cons

Older version of the software had problem with performance. The user interface could be more explicit on some of the actions.

Excellent product, great support

We use the MerlinOne archiving system for our 6 daily newspapers. The system itself is is loaded with features and does everything a first class archiving system should do. Our users range from professional librarians and researchers to reporters and clerks, and every user level is addressed by MerlinOne. Support is proactive and outstanding. When we're developing projects and products that require assistance, the MerlinOne team is always helpful. The training they've provided to our archiving departments has been second to none. Any potential issues and concerns are addressed by MerlinOne immediately, and we're always alerted to any fixes or changes BEFORE they happen. Downtime is nonexistent. A daily newspaper is only as good as its ability to maintain accurate and accessible data. We rely heavily on MerlinOne to help us accomplish our goals, and would recommend them to anyone looking to take their asset management to a new level.

An excellent resource for archiving, displaying, & sharing our photos!

PROS: - Collections, which enable us to curate content for our users, ultimately expediting their searches; - Customer Service -- extremely fast and helpful; - Search options -- enables you to focus your search, and produces results quickly, especially if the images are well captioned or tagged; - Linked Objects -- enables us to package content together; - Simple, attractive display with customizable user views - Customizable user groups, enabling one to limit various users' capabilities. - Filters, enabling us to "hide" certain photos from groups of users. CON(S): Quite a few of our users need some help learning how to use Merlin. They want it to be as easy as Google, and it simply takes a little more practice to get it working that smoothly for you. An example of this: Clicking on the "export" arrow to download. For some reason, this is a big roadblock for our users with basic computer skills.

Our key users have mostly departed so we don't have extensive advanced use these days

Pros

Has a great backlog of data and photos as it is an archive

Cons

Need OS update big time but dollars are short unable to move all this to a different system typing more

Excellent Digital Photo Management, Outstanding Customer Support

MerlinOne is an indispensable tool for managing my organization's massive, ever-growing photo collection, and offers incredibly powerful search capabilities. The web interface can be used for internal workflow as well as handle photo requests from our external customers. Their customer service/support team is outstanding and highly responsive. The hosted service is a great option for secure storage with plenty of space. MerlinOne outperforms competitors in its ability to store and manage RAW files. The web client isn't as user friendly as I would like (especially for first time users). But, the MerlinOne support team actively solicits (and with enough demand) incorporates user feedback into future releases. In short, MerlinOne makes my job easier, its offerings continue to expand/improve, and their customer support is unbeatable.

Useful catalog tool

The ability to make captions

Pros

The ability to add specific captions - it helps when we need to tag individuals that require a media release. It's something I can't do in my typical computer drives or cloud spaces.

Cons

It takes me a long time to label batch photos that need different captions and then organize them into collections. I've discussed this with my representative.

Great database to store a large quantity of assets, but often run into slowness & technical glitches

Store large quantity of assets and categorize accordingly

Pros

We are able to store a large quantity of photos in the database and quickly search for assets. We can categorize the assets into "collections" and link photo assets with consent forms.

Cons

We've run into technical glitches with the web upload form and collections tool, and slowness within the platform. The overall management system is not intuitive to use.

Very good. The only problem I have is searching the photo database as the results are limited.

Pros

Honestly, the great customer service. It's been fantastic ( The photo quality is great and the metadata fields have been set up perfectly. It is a great CMS for our photos.

Cons

The search results can be challenging. Especially when looking through our historic archives which hold around 15k photos.

After loading files I was able to fill a customer request from the fist day.

Pros

User friendly and verity of way to search and find images with all the tools available. I have many ways to plan my future work load with this program.

We have been MerlinOne customers since 1996

We are a mid-size newspaper and have used MerlinOne as our photo archive since 1996. In 2008 we moved our entire text archive to MerlinOne and it has been an indispensable tool for our entire newsroom staff. We can easily access years worth of content with simple queries; export, download and email photos, pdfs and text; import photos and share content with other properties in our group. And we can use Trax as an assignment desk. Due to MerlinOne our workflow is quick and efficient.

It's always very efficient and easy to use

Pros

I like how easy it is to navigate and it makes finding what I need a lot easier than how we had the process previously.

Excellent product, excellent customer service! Highly Recommended!

MerlinOne is an excellent product and their customer service is outstanding. We have been using their hosted server for just under eight years and we have a great many users with various levels of permissions. I have found it to be indispensable. MerlinOne tech support was always happy to help us customize the server to our particular needs, and was always extremely responsive when we needed help. I can't recommend it enough!

MerlinOne

We have had tremendous luck with using the MerlinOne software. It's easy to upload, download, view and manage all of our photos and videos. It even keeps all of the photos from the various departments in one software. No more wondering who has what. The staff have all been excellent to work with and are open to any improvements and suggestions that you may have. They are quick to respond with questions.

Great product!

The customer support is outstanding! Very satisfied with the program and its ease of use.