No two creative teams are the same, so it’s not efficient to force them to use the same collaboration and digital asset management tools. Given that the review and approval process varies by team and content type, a versatile platform capable of meeting a team’s needs without sacrificing visibility and structure is essential.
With MediaSilo’s customized and flexible asset-based commenting feature, teams can implement the processes that work best for their specific needs while providing different options required by other teams.
MediaSilo’s Flexible Digital Asset Management
No matter the file type—including documents, images, and videos—or stage of development, MediaSilo makes it easy for teams to collaborate on content, wherever and whenever your reviewers choose to do their work.
With the digital asset already in your MediaSilo workspace, the process can get started with a click of the “Review Mode” button. You are then presented with a history of past comments, and users have the ability to add their own feedback.
Collaborate directly on an asset.
Whether it is one large piece of content or a broad portfolio MediaSilo makes it easy to collaborate with a larger group.
As comments and feedback are made, team members can review, respond, and track the history of an edit. Using MediaSilo means all comments are consolidated in one place, making communication seamless and transparent and allowing constructive dialogue to flow all in one forum.
Find a resolution to a comment or want to make a specific suggestion? Mark the comment as resolved or make an edit. These comments can then be hidden to help streamline the review process.
View our full video tutorial library here!
Once the feedback period closes, everyone will be on the same page, and your team will spend less time tracking down edits and more time reviewing and approving the next steps.
Provide specific asset feedback.
MediaSilo even allows team members to comment on a specific section or portion of an asset.
Just select the area of the asset with the built-in toolbar and record the comment. As team members review the feedback, the relevant area of the media will be highlighted along with the comment.
Collaborate with review links.
Need to reach beyond your team for feedback and input? MediaSilo makes that easy too.
You can quickly generate and send a private review link to a target audience, easily bringing them into the loop while still maintaining the peace of mind that comes with knowing that your content is for certain eyes only.
To get started, select the files you want to share, enter the email addresses of your collaborators, and hit “Share.” If you want the feedback to stay within that group, select “Limit comments to this link” before sharing.
After the review period, access to the asset can be quickly turned off, but the comments or annotations will remain directly tied to the file itself, allowing the entire team to review feedback together.
Take the Next Step
With a constantly evolving design and digital asset management workflow, you need a platform that is able to evolve and flex with your team.
With features like Review Mode, your team is free to work in whatever way is best for them all while staying on the same page.
Ready to learn more about the MediaSilo platform and other innovative ways to enhance how your team manages digital content? Set up a time to chat with one of our experts.
You can now leave comments on an asset directly from your Shift project. Simply go to the asset and click the “Review Mode” button to access your commenting and annotation tools. Your feedback will be visible to all collaborators with access to the asset. This mode also displays the comments made in review links, providing you with one centralized place to view all your feedback.
If your workflow requires a private review session, where comments are only visible to the people with a link, you can still create a Review Link and turn on the toggle “Limit comments to this link.”
Whether you need Review Link commenting or in-project commenting, our newest tools let you choose the best way to gather feedback on your content.
We’ve updated our video player to improve your viewing experience. The arrow button next to the timecode now opens a menu, so you can choose your preferred timecode format. You can also click “Show duration” to display the video’s duration alongside the timecode.
Additional features are now accessible by clicking the gear icon next to the volume button. For example, select “QC Mask” to apply an aspect-ratio overlay to the video, or select “Keyboard Shortcuts” for a list of time-saving shortcuts.
The comment bar below the video player also includes a checkbox, so you can choose to leave a timecode-specific comment or a general comment. All comments appear in the right-side drawer, which you can open and close by clicking the speech-bubbles icon. This section now includes search and filtering options to easily find and display the comments you’re looking for. Once a comment has been addressed, click the blank circle on the right to mark the comment as “resolved.” You can still access resolved comments by selecting “Show resolved” from the filters menu.
Insights is the new hub for analytics on all your links, viewers, and assets. See how your content is performing by clicking the Insights icon in the navigation bar.
The left side of the Insights page provides a summary of your activity, including the number of visits to your links, the number of unique visitors, and the date of last activity. Click “All Activity” to display a map with your viewers’ locations, or select “Graph” to track viewer engagement over a period of time. Use the search bar along the top of the page if you are looking for analytics on a particular link, viewer, or asset.
You can select any item on the left side of the page to display more information in the right column. This section contains details on your viewers’ activity, including the specific assets they viewed or downloaded and the video percentage watched.
To learn more about the ways Insights tracks activity, please visit our support article.
You can share content with a group of people without entering their email addresses every time. In addition to distribution lists, you can now enter a user tag to add multiple tagged users to a share. When you create a new share, start typing a user tag in the recipients field. Then, select a user tag to add all the tagged users at once.
User tags can also be used to easily filter or search for groups of users throughout the application. You can tag existing users on the Administration page by selecting “Add tags” from the Actions menu, or during the “Add Users” process for new users. User tags are listed along the left side of the Administration page.
The Administration page now offers more ways to create, manage, and share distribution lists with other users.
To add people to a distribution list, click the checkbox next to their names. Then, click the Actions menu on the right, and select “Add users to a Distribution List.” You can select an existing distribution list, or click “Create New” to add them to a new list.
When you create or edit a distribution list, you can now share the list with specific workspace users or make the list accessible to your entire workspace. You can still create a private list that is only accessible to you by selecting “Just me” from the sharing options.
To edit a distribution list, click the More menu on the Administration page, and select “Manage Distribution Lists.” This opens a window where you can review and make changes to your lists, such as adding or removing members and choosing a different sharing option.
In addition to emails and names, you can now enter user tags to add multiple tagged users to a distribution list. For example, if five different users are tagged with “marketing,” start typing “marketing” to add all five of these users at the same time.
Adding new users to distribution lists
When you add new users to your workspace, you can now easily include them on existing distribution lists.
Start by clicking the blue “Add Users” button on the Administration page. Then, enter the users’ email addresses and choose their project assignments. Next, you can select a distribution list to add these new users to the list. For example, add new employees to an “All Employees” distribution list as they join your team.
The last few years have presented businesses with unique challenges, leading many companies to embrace more flexibility in deciding when and where their teams work.
To make these new arrangements effective, digital platforms have become critical in ensuring businesses maintain productivity without sacrificing security.
This is especially true when it comes to keeping your content safe, no matter where it is in the post-production workflow.
Helping organizations solve problems like these is at the core of MediaSilo’s products and services. We want to provide ways to keep your valuable content safe and secure, no matter your location or industry.
So, whether you’re unfamiliar with the MediaSilo platform, or a user who has been with us for years, here are some of MediaSilo’s top security features to keep your post-production workflow on track and safe.
1. Customize user access with Project-level and workspace permissions
Sometimes your production team needs the input of freelancers, contractors, vendors, or other internal employees. MediaSilo’s multi-level user access and role-based permissions can help keep collaboration moving and limit risk.
With our simple-to-use MediaSilo Admin Panel interface, you can assign Types to each user, controlling their ability to access projects or create their own. You can then dig deeper into other permissions with customizable Roles to fit your needs. For example, you can create rules to specify which groups of users can edit, upload, download, or share content on a per-project basis, giving your team the control they need to do their jobs while keeping your workspace secure.
2. Gate externally-shared content with private links
If your team needs to send content externally, MediaSilo provides an easy and secure way to do so with our Private Link feature.
Private Links require recipients to first verify themselves as users associated with your MediaSilo workspace before they can access your content. MediaSilo’s Private Link feature works with any share in MediaSilo—whether it’s a Review Link, Presentation, or Spotlight—and generates a simple, secure URL to send to recipients.
In addition to Private Links, your team can also choose to:
- Provide Public Links with the “Allow Download” setting enabled
- Distribute Public Links, but with set expiration dates
- Use the “Public Link with the Password” sharing option
3. Protect against content theft and misuse with SafeStream
For an extra layer of protection on your content, you can leverage MediaSilo’s built-in SafeStream functionality, offering on-demand watermarking technology.
This technology can create instant visual and forensic watermarking that can be burned into any video file.
SafeStream offers two different types of watermarks:
- A visible watermark provides a unique, traceable visual deterrent that will make viewers rethink sharing valuable, confidential content.
- The watermark can be customized to include the viewer’s full name, email address, or even custom text like “Property of MediaSilo.”
- A forensic (invisible) watermark is a set of unique, invisible characters digitally embedded into a video to identify its origin.
- Forensic watermarks can be used on their own or with visual watermarks, providing a secure, uninterrupted experience to viewers.
To mandate this high level of security, SafeStream watermarking can be enforced on a Project or Admin level. or even embedded in a template for use across your organization.
4. Log in securely with Multi-Factor Authentication
Another cybersecurity best practice available in the MediaSilo platform is the ability to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) to increase the security of your post-production workflow. Combining the use of a username, password, and another method of verifying your identity adds an extra layer of security to your account or workspace. MFA is a great option for workspaces that aren’t protected with single sign-on (SSO), and it is extremely easy to implement within your MediaSilo environment.
In fact, users can set up MFA on their own using a simple two-step process in their User Profiles. Your organization can also choose to require all users to enable it before they continue to use their accounts. This second option is a feature that MediaSilo Administrators can enable at a project or organization-wide level.
5. Track and control content activity
When working with sensitive content, you need a way to confirm the access controls in your MediaSilo workspace are functioning as expected. The MediaSilo Insights dashboard can help with this.
Use MediaSilo’s real-time reporting features to access a comprehensive list of all the links you or any member of your team have ever created, as well as granular activity data related to each link. You can also use this feature to change the status or expiration date of each public or private link.
You can choose to track the number of views and downloads on each of your shared files. Or, you can identify who is viewing your content, when they accessed it, and where they are located with a geolocation map. You can even go to the next level and track the origin of a leak down to the culprit’s IP address.
Future-Proof Your Post-Production Workflow
If the last couple of years have proved anything, it’s the need to have processes and tools that help your team stay productive, no matter when and where they work.
No matter your industry, MediaSilo provides a powerful way to keep your team communicating, collaborating, and creating, just as easily and safely as before.
If you are ready to learn more about how MediaSilo can enhance your post-production workflow with additional security and productivity features, our team can help you get started.
Get started with a free 14-day trial of MediaSilo today.
As a workspace administrator, you now have the ability to edit your workspace name. First, click the gear icon in the navigation bar to access the Administration section. Then, go to the Branding tab, and change your workspace name under “Edit Workspace Name.” Once you click “Save,” your updated workspace name will appear in the workspace switcher in the bottom left.
In addition, you can now edit the email address associated with an existing user on your Shift account. Under the Users tab in Administration, click the three-dots menu in any row, and select “Edit User.” In the “User Info” window, you can edit a user’s email address to reflect any changes to the user’s name or email domain. The user’s access to projects will remain unaffected.
When you are the creative director of a rapidly growing retail startup with a worldwide presence, relying on Slack or, even worse, email as your primary asset management tool is a recipe for chaos.
But, this was the reality that Benoit Habfast, the creative director of the French sneaker brand CAVAL, was experiencing when the company began a highly successful Indiegogo campaign to raise capital in 2019.
At any given time, Habfast was managing dozens of campaigns and a variety of products, including CAVAL’s innovative, handcrafted line of “mismatched sneakers.” CAVAL’s meteoric success has meant an increased need for marketing campaigns, online storefronts, and social media presence, with massive amounts of photo content being created for all of these different outlets.
Scalable asset management is essential to successful growth.
High demand for photos across all departments at CAVAL has created thousands of assets that need to be organized and managed on a daily basis. An image library of this size can easily get disorganized, making it difficult to ensure everyone on the team can quickly find the assets they need for a project.
Habfast and his team struggled to find media management software that solved all of their problems. As a stopgap, they were storing files on their desktops and external hard drives. “They were half on my computer, half on some hard drives, and a bit on Google Drive too,” he said. “We would share by sending through Slack or email, but it was a big pain.”
In order to keep pace with the company’s growth, Habfast needed to centralize the image library so the entire Caval team could easily search and find exactly what they needed. MediaSilo helped CAVAL create an effective asset management strategy. That’s when the brand turned to MediaSilo and its organization workflows. Habfast found MediaSilo’s project and folder-based structure, tagging features, and robust search functionality to be the exact media management solution the brand needed.
Tagging streamlines file organization.
CAVAL’s creative team started by moving all of the existing files off of their desktops and hard drives and uploading their vast library of content into the cloud-based MediaSilo platform. Although organizing the files into projects and folders was a good jumping-off point, Habfast found that using tags was the real key to unlocking the full potential of the system.
As new content was continually added to their MediaSilo account, the team established a system for uploading where tagging assets was an integral and routine part of the process. Using MediaSilo’s bulk-tagging feature, the team easily added relevant tags as new content was uploaded into their projects. After dragging and dropping batches of related content into the system, the team selected all of the new assets and labeled them with relevant tags in one easy step.
Structured tagging eliminates redundancy.
The CAVAL team was looking for a system that would eliminate overlaps while requiring as few tags as possible. Using the MECE Principle to structure image tags and guide his tagging in MediaSilo, Habfast settled on four essential tags that would effectively organize every image in their account.
“E-commerce” and “Creative” are the first tags to be added to every asset, differentiating between images intended for the online storefront and images that will be used for a creative marketing campaign. “Model” and “Packshot” are the second layer of tags, indicating whether the image has a person or model wearing the sneakers or features the sneakers alone.
With this simplified tagging strategy, Habfast’s team built an organizational structure within MediaSilo that breaks down their entire content library into those four target image categories. Supplemental tags for product name, reference number, and special campaigns such as “Valentine’s Day” are added on top of the four primary categories to further distinguish individual images and create a more robust search experience.
Intuitive, tag-driven search makes it easy to find content.
“Now, we don’t ask on email or Slack anymore, ‘Hey can you send me that file.’ We know where to find that file—there’s just one place to find everything.”
With this new, more organized tagging structure, CAVAL’s MediaSilo users can easily and intuitively search for assets in their account. Using MediaSilo’s advanced global search, users can select one or more tags from a picklist; apply additional filters, such as who uploaded the assets and when they were added; and narrow thousands of assets to a select few by searching for a handful of relevant keywords.
MediaSilo’s cloud-based media management software has enabled CAVAL to get images off of a hard drive and into a feature-rich, easy-to-navigate platform. By centralizing its asset workflow, MediaSilo allows the entire CAVAL team to securely share and access the files they need when they need them. As Habfast explained, “Now, we don’t ask on email or Slack anymore, ‘Hey can you send me that file.’ We know where to find that file—there’s just one place to find everything.”
MediaSilo empowered CAVAL to scale its asset management processes so employees are free to focus on their high-level creative projects, new campaigns, and marketing strategies.
If you’re ready to find out how MediaSilo can enable growth and drive organization workflow efficiency for your team, sign up for a free 14-day trial of MediaSilo.
List view is now supported in Spotlight for your media galleries. To add a gallery with list view to your Spotlight template, open the Elements panel by clicking the plus icon along the left-side toolbar. Then, in the Media section, choose the List option or pick from three other media gallery views: Grid, Carousel, or Stack. Click and drag the gallery icon onto the main screen to add it to your Spotlight template.
To customize your gallery, open the properties panel in the right-side drawer. Here, you can adjust the spacing and thumbnail size in your list by changing the width and height. You can also customize the font, background color, and the divider line between each row.
You can also now choose whether or not you’d like to hide or show playlist folders in your media galleries. Use the “Show Folders” checkbox in the properties panel to toggle this option on or off for Grid or List view.
To learn more about Spotlight galleries, please see our Knowledge Base article “Choose a Media Gallery to Display Your Work.”
