Marg Extensis Portfolio

Ease of use. Simplified look and feel. The solution has the basic core functionality that makes it great for managing large numbers of image assets, especially in a photography heavy environment. The newest features have enhanced the product to compete with other vendors in the space.

The modular approach is great for companies looking to phase their approach to implementing a DAM. Some of the features would be better served as core to the product versus add-ons.

This product is growing and becoming a bigger player in an area flooded with great vendors.

Managing and trafficking large numbers of image assets to a fast paced production team. The mobile tools help to get approvals instantly. Creative approval used to take days and with instant access decisions and changes can be made quickly and streamlined to the appropriate teams in a timely manner.

Ease of use, interface is clean and clear and customizeable

Archaic processes, slow, discontinued support for small user options, no video player option but QT which is insecure on PC

Do you wish for long term support or are you a small business? Look at the history of the company and review the experiences of users. Unless you are a large client and require customer service Extensis Portfolio is not likely the best choice. If on the other hand you wish to engage them as a consulting partner they are quite good.

Search and Distribution of documents

It holds all the photos and design files we need. It helps make them accessible to the whole team as we take on new projects and pick up on older projects. The interface to access the folders it straightforwards and it's not too difficult to find and open the folders you've set up.

The search functionality is very difficult and frustrating. It's really important in a large database of files to be able to find what you need. There's multiple ways to search - a generic search and a more advanced search. The generic search doesn't seem to work at all. I literally have thought I was missing files, only to discover them using the same search but in the advanced tab (even without setting any fancy settings. I also really dislike how the application will attempt to autoload a library of images as soon as you login. I often don't need access to the main library but I still need to wait for it to load before I can use the navigation to find and open my folders I'm looking for.

The program has all the features you need. However it struggles to use them effectively and can be clunky and difficult to use. The main issue for me is the search functionality.

It does it's basic job well - holding and storing all the photos we need on a server that can be accessed by my team.

We particularly appreciate the ease of searching and previewing (primarily used for image searches and ease of adding image files to layouts. Prior to creating this database of our royalty-free image assets, we realized we couldn't easily keep track of the images we already owned and found our designers would search online rather than explore our own assets and even repurchase images we had already invested in. We needed to make it as easy to search for RF images we already own as it is to search the entire world-wide web. We also like the feature to embed metadata out into the actual cataloged file. With the advent of other search mechanisms (Adobe Bridge, Spotlight, etc., this gives us optional ways to search.

When adding metadata, especially keywords, various simple punctuation (such as quotation marks often used in keyword txt files can cause the database to error out.

Consider all options

Full disclosure, we are not using Portfolio Server for all DAM. We are using Portfolio only for cataloging our royalty-free image library to make it as easy to search for RF images we already own as it is to search the entire world-wide web. It works well for this specific purpose. We were initially frustrated that database keywords are not automatically embedded in the actual image files but we have since used Portfolio's embed-properties function to do that. This has facilitated searching also with Bridge and Spotlight when necessary or convenient.

Metadata-based searching within catalogs and simplicity of the user interface are top of the list. The multiple catalog databases provides control over content, permitting allowed users the ability to view, download or contribute. Previewing and downloading are extremely easy.

With simplicity comes gaps. Within our workflow, we need more than just photo management but need the ability to apply asset-level securities. Our goal is to have a DAM that's the base for numerous business processes, whether they come with the DAM or integrate to other applications - and right now Portfolio is limited to extending or building out those processes.

Collaboration and approvals workflow and work order management are the big ones on my list. DAM needs to be central to initiating these processes.