Digital asset management for local governments isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s becoming essential as government agencies face the same challenges as everyone else: the rapid growth of data, fragmented IT systems, and a public cloud expenses hangover. But the scale and the nature of their challenges are mind-blowing.
Municipalities accumulate so much information that in countries like the UK, their cloud expenses almost tripled between 2017 and 2022.
The variety of data is unparalleled: documents, images, videos, building and infrastructure designs, geospatial information, and much more. In fact, as Esri Canada’s recent study suggests, between 60 % to 80 % of all data held by government organizations has a spatial component.
What’s also different about them is that they are some of the most heavily regulated organizations in the world. And they are under constant scrutiny for the quality of their public service.
In this post, let’s talk about the challenges that local governments face when managing digital assets and how DAM solutions address issues such as fragmented storage, insufficient control, and tight budgets.
Digital asset management (DAM) solutions keep millions of digital files in one secure location rather than scattered across local and remote servers and drives. These systems provide previews for numerous file formats, version control, automatic tagging, and powerful search tools.
Compare that to a common scenario where no two departments in a government agency use the same type of file storage, version management is manual, and both tagging and search tools are limited to what the operating system or the cloud service provides, which is not much. Simply put, generic solutions don’t scale.
Handling these solutions concurrently is hard enough, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
So, how badly can things spiral out of control without a proper DAM solution? Here are some of the most common challenges:
Files are typically stored on a variety of cloud services like Dropbox or Google Drive, on network file servers, and even on personal devices. This makes the information hard or impossible to find.
No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to fit all the important information into a file name. For example, if you need to locate all photos with a government official from a given timeframe, regular search tools won’t help you. What would work best here is a system that recognizes faces, tags them, and provides searching by tags.
Without a DAM, local governments have to develop policies for managing versions: use a specific versioning scheme, manually move files with obsolete versions to archive folders, etc. But when different departments use different storage solutions and share data, they tend to accumulate duplicates, which complicates locating the correct file.
When you buy a digital asset with a time-restricted license, the licensing information is typically saved in the metadata of that asset. However, cloud storage services and local file servers do not display it and will not warn you about the license expiration.
Local governments typically operate under tight budgets. At the same time, their reliance on manual or outdated systems, such as spreadsheets or basic file storage, leads to hidden costs, such as staff time, inefficiency, and higher risk of errors or data loss.
Let’s take a closer look at how DAM solutions help overcome all the challenges we outlined above.
DAMs store all your files in one place, provide powerful tools for adding metadata both automatically and manually, and support searching within that metadata.
DAM solutions provide straightforward versioning that works out of the box. Everybody in the team has access to the same iterations of a document and can’t create a concurrent revision while somebody else is already working on it. This reduces the versioning hell.
You can create fine-grained roles for accessing and managing files. View, but not download? Easy. View, download, create new revisions, but not edit metadata? Easy. Only manage users and relink folders? Easy.
You can set up a file obsolescence policy so that only the latest versions of branding assets are accessible for use at any time. Obsolete files will be preserved but made just hard enough to access to prevent their accidental use.
Manually managed file servers and cloud-based solutions accumulate duplicates, which results in higher storage costs. DAMs are designed to disallow duplicates and have deduplication tools for when you migrate to them.
With centralized storage, role management, and easy-to-use version control, collaboration between departments finally works as expected.
You also benefit from long-term archiving and disaster recovery, as DAM solutions typically have dedicated backup and disaster recovery tools to keep your information safe from data loss. You can also move rarely used files to cheaper storage like HDD drives for long-term archiving.
What’s more, you ensure better citizen transparency and access when needed. With a fast, metadata-based search, you can respond to public records requests more quickly. This reduces the workload for your employees and improves the public service.
The uses of digital assets vary greatly between departments. When you begin planning a transition to a DAM system, you will need a clear understanding of each department’s specific needs. Here is a brief overview to help you get started.
There are at least two dozen DAM solutions available on the market today. Feature-wise, they have a lot of overlap, so you need to look at certain specifics that may or may not work for you. Let’s break down the features you should be looking for.
For government agencies that handle hundreds of thousands of images, videos, and other files, manual tagging is simply not an option. A digital asset management solution should support AI tagging. It’s best when your DAM system, such as Daminion, provides a controlled vocabulary, so that the use of tags is consistent across the entire catalog.
Locating a specific file among hundreds of thousands of other files becomes easy when a DAM system has a way to narrow down your search. With Daminion, you can create fine-grained filters that use all possible metadata fields, such as AI labels and keywords, categories, color labels, creation and import dates, license expiration dates, and more.
The DAM solution should provide a way to create custom roles, each with a specific set of permissions, such as managing users, creating and removing tags, commenting on assets, downloading versions, editing import filters, etc.
A DAM system should provide a simple way to create a new version and go back to any previous revision. It should also keep records on who created what version.
Manually tagging officials on photos takes a lot of time. It’s best when the DAM solution can run facial recognition and automatically add tags with people’s names. Daminion can run facial recognition on-premise, so no data is shared outside the security perimeter.
For your public infrastructure projects, the DAM should support both geospatial metadata in images and common GIS file formats. Daminion reads the existing geopositioning metadata from files and has AI tools for quickly adding it when it’s missing.
File previews in DAMs help you understand if the file you are about to check out is the right one. All DAM systems show previews for images, videos, and office documents. However, very few display previews for project files created in Adobe Creative Cloud, CAD software, or GIS programs. Make sure your DAM of choice supports what your departments need.
The ease of using cloud DAMs is very attractive, but it simply won’t work for local governments. Here are some of the major reasons for that:
This is why government agencies that need to comply with regulations typically opt for on-premise solutions.
💡 Did you know? Daminion is one of the very few products on the market that can be deployed in a private cloud.
If you are interested in a detailed comparison between cloud DAMs and on-prem solutions for asset management, check out our earlier article.
Switching everyone in a municipality to a brand-new centralized system for storing and managing assets will require some convincing and careful planning. We’ve collaborated with government agencies before. Here are some of the things we’ve learned that may help you.
💡 If you’re planning a transition to a DAM solution, read our detailed step-by-step guide for a smooth and effective rollout.
When you are ready to implement a DAM solution, you will need a system that meets the specific requirements of a government agency. Daminion offers a practical solution that balances powerful functionality with budget-friendly deployment options.
Unlike enterprise solutions that push cloud-only models, Daminion recognizes that government teams need on-premises control and cost-effective licensing.
Request a demo today to see how Daminion can transform your digital asset management workflow securely.
