Business Workflows
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The previous version of Media Manager introduced automated workflows, which make it easier to set up workflows that happen in the background, without direct involvement of an avarage user.
Version 5.3.0 introduced beta version of Business Workflows. Business Workflows enable setting up and execution of business processes centered around assets, that require interactions between the users. In other words, it formalizes frequent interactions for increased efficiency, orgaization and trackability.
The first use cases requsted by Digizuite customers in Business Workflows are:
Request download workflow
The limited users have the ability to request the ability to download specific assets. The user who the approval task is assigned to receives then an ability to either approve or reject the request after reviewing the information provided by the requesting user.Approval workflow
This workflow is a combination of automated and business workflows. A trigger (for example asset upload) intitiates a business workflow. The task then goes to the assigned user that can either approve or reject the publication of a new asset.
Copyright notification before download
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The administrative user has the ability to set up either a predetermined or custom copyright notification for specific assets that need them. Any user who then tries to download the asset is presented with a copyright dislaimer that needs to be accepted before being able to download the asset.
This new functionality supports the governance of asset rights.
Improved crop tool
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In version 5.3.0 the crop tool received new fuctionality as a result of the customer request, therefore adding more flexibilty to how new crops are created.
The new functionality is also known as “crop and resize in one step”. From now the users have the ability to lock not only the aspect ratio, but also the dimensions of a resulting new crop. They can freely select the area of an image and receive exactly the right dimensions as an output.
New design
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From the version 5.3.0 we introduced the new and improved design of the Media Manager. As this is a larger project, the first changes that the users will experience is the improved home page with accentuated filter menu and improved folder navigation as well as optimized asset view with metadata editor. The changes were introduced as a solution to a variety of feature request received since the launch of Media Manager 5.
Our goal was to achieve:
optimization of the available space
faster navigation
improved experience when using metadata editor (the users can now see the assets while editing metadata and there is less scrolling involved)
higher intuitiveness.
New logo & header (5.3.1)
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New features in Business Workflows
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Improved experience with Business Workflows
Release 5.4.0 brings several changes in the Business Workflows meant to improve the user experience:
The users can now receive notifications when a new task is assigned to them.
Overview for automation and workflows is now separate. Automations and workflows now have their own areas. where users can both preview the available workflows and create new ones. They both can be found under Settings. Thanks to this working with these functionalities is now more intuitive.
The button for deleting stages/transitions was moved to a more discreet place in order to achieve a cleaner look for the stage/transition editor.
It is now easier to access transition editor. Once the user hovers a mouse pointer over a transition, it gets highlighted and a new menu appears. From here the user can open the editor or delete a transition.
Metadata constraints
From version 5.4.0 the workflow administrators have much more flexibility in terms of setting up constraints, while editing transitions in a business workflow. The new field selector is intuitive and only shows the relevant metadata fields based on the selection made for the constraint.
One example of the many possible use cases is the situation in which the value input by the user who requests to download an asset is compared with a specific metadata field. If the user’s value matches the value in that metafield, the request is approved automatically.
Attachments on constraints (file constraints)
The second new type of constraint in transitions is file constraint. The workflow administrators can now set up uploading a file as one of the requirements when requesting asset download. This can be e.g. a consent form in a strictly specified format such as pdf document.
New features and improvements in the task list
It is now easier to work with tasks thanks to three different improvements:
pagination was added to the task list
it is now possible to sort the tasks
on the right side of the screen the users can now access a variety of filters.
Enhanced task details (from version 5.4.1)
As the versatility of workflows grows with each version, we accounted for their increased capabilities by enhancing the design of the task details view. Upon clicking on a task, the user is presented with a module containing several tabs that can be accessed as long as they have information in them:
Summary - who created the task, the date of creation, promoted input constraints as well as a short summary of assets, attachments and comments.
Details - information concerning all input constraints apart from attachments.
Assets - all assets the task concerns in either box view or list view.
Attachments - attached files.
Comments - all comments made for the task.
NOTE!
The Workflows feature is intended for early adopters and is hidden behind a feature flag.
Enhancements in Download Request
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New settings with more flexibility in terms which asset are subject to download request
Media Manager 5.4.0 introduces more flexibility in terms of which assets and media formats need to be requested for download and which of them don’t have such a requirement. Based on the concept of whitelisting and blacklisting, it is now possible to achieve one of following scenarios, all easily changed in the settings:
Most assets in the system should require download request, but there should be some exceptions of assets that should should be freely downloaded. In this case, download request is a default option and the latter category is whitelisted.
Most assets in the system should be freely downloaded by the users, with the exceptions of some assets that can only be downloaded upon request. In this case, free assets download is the default option, but some assets are blacklisted.
Most media formats of an asset should require download request, but some formats can be downloaded freely. An example of this could be allowing free download of only the lowest possible resolution of an image or a video.
Most media formats of an assets can be freely downloaded by the users, but some selected ones are blacklisted in the settings and therefore require download request. An example of this could be allowing the users to download an image or a video in its highest quality only upon request.
Dynamic assignment
There is not more flexibility in terms of who will handle the download requests. This feature is a response to customer demand and it’s especially valuable in the systems, where different assets have different users responsible for them and in power of making decisions related to those assets. In this case, if configured in the settings of Media Manager, the download request will be assigned to the correct content owner.
Status over the download requests
From now on it’s not a requirement for the users to be workflow administrators to see the task list. While workflow administrators can see the list of tasks assigned to them, other users can track the status of their previous download requests on their own task list.
New and improved menu for settings
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The settings menu was completely re-designed in version 5.4. From now all the settings and relevant system information can be found in one place: under the cogwheel in the upper right corner of the top bar. The following areas are included:
General settings: the place where the system administrator can, among others, change the theming and logo, set up the single sign-on or change the way the download approval works.
Automation: the section in which the user can configure and preview automated jobs.
Workflows: the section in which the user can configure and preview workflows.
Logs: the section where the user can access the system logs.
DigiBatch status: the section where the user can preview the details of system jobs.
System monitoring: this menu item gives access to the monitoring dashboard.
UI enhancements
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Improved experience with editing metadata
We addressed the feedback from the users who were in doubt, whether they can leave the metadata editor after saving the changes, especially in case of multi edit, when the saving process can take longer time. This is why from now on, when the user hits Save, a notification will appear in the lower right corner, informing the user that it’s safe to leave and continue with other work in Media Manager.
UI improvements
The users will notice a few smaller improvements in the appearance of some elements of Media Manager. We now have a better looking login modal, a new way of entering the profile settings and a more intuitive way of adding multiple assets to a collection as well as downloading collections.