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

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.

Widen Collective - a True Leader in the Field!

Our challenge was that duplicate files were everywhere. Our employees had no idea what assets were current or expired - so image and logo requests were constantly directed to the Creative Department cutting into valuable time for designing. By purchasing a DAM system, we were able to centralize our assets, and provide users, controlled access to the most current files which, in turn, maximized productivity and efficiencies. In addition – our global offices are now connected with the most up-to-date materials they need, in any time zone, which has improved the current process. You will find that the customer service is amazing. Widen's team will help guide you through all of your challenges to ensure you build a successful DAM. In addition, once your system is built – Widen continues to build a relationship with you - providing full support even after the on-boarding process is complete. They are dependable, accountable and extremely customer focused.

Pros

The DAM interface is quick and easy to use, the reporting capabilities are robust, and the security allows a lot of flexibility. In addition - we love the Portals - which allows us to provide assets to our non users.

Cons

Knowing that a DAM is customized to your company’s needs, I'm not going to lie – implementing a DAM system can be grueling and a lot of work. But that’s the beauty of a DAM – as your company grows, your DAM can also grow and be customized to reflect changes and future needs.

We love WIDEN

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.

Great DAM solution!

One of the best things about Widen is their customer support. Every team member I've interacted with has been incredibly knowledgable and genuinely wants to help me. For example, I had a vision for our Dashboard page, and I wasn't sure how to achieve it myself because it involved a fair amount of coding. One of the customer support staff worked (very patiently) with me to literally build my vision. I even hand drew a picture and emailed it to him so he could see what I wanted. Thank you Tyson Purcell! So whether it's through the vast information on the Support Page, the direct chat, or emailing or talking with very responsive Widen staff, I have found a solution to just about all of the problems I have encountered. It's not just admin who love Widen, our users have told us how easy it is to use to search and share assets.

Pros

I love that it is cloud-based and you can access it from any computer, phone or tablet. It's super easy to create collections and share media with internal and external clients.

Cons

Some of the features need updating in my opinion. I have asked several times for certain changes that I'm sure I'm not the only one to encounter.

Widen is an advanced, user friendly media asset

What I like best about Widen is that it is multifunctional. Not only is it a secure way to archive images, documents and videos, but it also allows you to share these files amoungst coworkers and clients with ease. Multiple people can be uploading, sharing and viewing files with no problem. It takes the weight off of one person having to manage the content and allows anyone to distribute items without a hassle.

Pros

The biggest business problem that it has solved for my company is it allows multiple people to do what once was a one person task. It saves time when being able to have multiple people have access to the same files and being able to send, upload and manage it all. Being able to easily send outside organizations images and documents has saved us so much time and has left very little room for error when sending. With Widen's recent website advancement's, it's given me an opportunity to create a creative brief for projects I'm working on. All within 1 website. It's great.

Cons

This doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes I will be uploading files and Widen will time out or freeze during my upload and I'll have to start the process all over. This could be a problem with my internet connection as well.

Widen has changed the way I work

Overall I would definitely recommend Widen to any company that has a large amount of photo files that they need to store and easily be able to send to others, either internally or externally.

Pros

Widen is a fairly easy and efficient way to store, archive, and distribute photographic files. In the year that I have been using Widen, it has changed the way I work. Now when I receive a request for a specific photo, I don't have to resize it and make sure it is the appropriate size to fit into an email. I just choose the file I want, send it to the recipient and they download it directly from the site instead of through e-mail. This is especially helpful to those who are always battling an in-box size limit! It has also made it easier to work off-site. Say I am out of the office on assignment or home sick. If I see a request come in, I can log onto Widen from anywhere and send the requests files out at any time! The search features also work great for us. Users throughout the university can now directly search for whatever type of photo they are looking for instead of requesting it through our department by phone or email.

Cons

Though I love Widen there have been a few minor issues we have encountered. The first is that it is a little hard to understand at the beginning. The back end of the program seems complicated to a new user. However, we have now figured everything out and so this really is no longer an issue for us. The other issue I sometimes run into is that the processing can be a bit slow. There are times when I upload my files and then cannot see the previews of my files for quite some time. This can be a problem when I am trying to identify people in the photograph to add their names to the keywords. The only way around this currently is to be patient and go work on something else for a while.

Great DAM solution with plenty of features

Our company uses Widen as our Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution. Our employees and reps can easily find the media content they want using a very nice search feature and it allows them to download the content in various formats and sizes. The application is very intuitive, fast, and easy to use. Widen offers flexible integration which easily allows our applications and websites to pull media from the Widen DAM so all our companies digital media needs can come from a single repository which makes maintaining data an easy process. I've used Widen's technical support in the past for questions with integration and learning more about what their solution offers and the support team has always very helpful, knowledgeable, and quick to respond.

Pros

I like the ability and flexibility Widen offers to integrate the digital media content with our applications and websites. It also offers nice tools and functionality to add, maintain, organize, and secure content.

Widen is a company that delivers a great product with great customer service

We store digital assets on the system for company wide collaboration, we also started using the Media Collective as a web host for external forward facing websites. Widen makes it easy for us to accomplish these tasks as painlessly as possible.

Pros

The Media Collective software is easy to use and is easy to configure. If you need some help there is an extensive online help library full of things which can help you, but if you need to talk to someone directly you can web chat, email or call. The help associates are always very friendly and will work with you to understand and fix the issues that you're having.

Cons

I guess I don't like the fact that it's not free? I had to put something in this space. If it was free it would definitely be better however that's probably not a sustainable scenario for Widen.

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

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 is intuitive, easy-to-use and makes organizing digital assets a breeze!

Pros

Beauty and brains - the dashboard is legit! You can personalize it to your needs, it's visually appealing without the clutter. The activity feed and the spotlight collection is useful for me and the other admins. Love the idea of the brand portals and can't wait until we can implement and launch it.

Cons

As an admin, I'd like to see asset thumbnails in the uploads and downloads tab instead of filenames. Also, the asset versions isn't as easy to use. If we have 3 versions of an asset, I'd love it if when you click on the asset, you can tile the assets to determine which one to download. Currently, you have a "switch version" button that gets lost in the details. Lastly, the batch edit tool sometimes doesn't apply to all assets in the batch.

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.