Widen Collective reviews

I don't know how we lived without Widen's DAM solution before!

Opmerkingen: This software completely changed our office workflow. Finding assets used to be very painful, but with all of our assets in one location and users connected to the DAM it makes finding things easy for our office, as well as external clients. By empowering our users to find their own assets it frees up our designer time, for things like DESIGN!

Pluspunten:

Ease of use, ease of empowerment for the user. I LOVE being able to share collections with clients. And I LOVE when someone asks for an asset, I just add them as a user on Widen, and tell them to find it themselves!

Minpunten:

I'm still waiting for drag and drop functionality with Indesign. A small workflow addition that would make things easier!

An Effective and Comprehensive Digital Asset Management Solution: Widen Collective

Opmerkingen: Overall, Widen Collective is a powerful digital asset management solution that offers an effective way to store, organize and share digital assets. The system is very customizable and comes with a range of powerful features, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking for an effective DAM solution.

Pluspunten:

Widen Collective is a great digital asset management solution that provides users with a simple, user-friendly interface for organizing, storing and sharing digital assets. The system is very customizable, allowing users to create the exact setup that best suits their needs. The system also features a range of powerful features and integrations with other platforms, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking for an effective DAM solution.

Minpunten:

While Widen Collective is an effective DAM solution, it can be quite expensive and can be difficult to learn due to its complexity. Additionally, the system does not have a free version available, which can be a hindrance for businesses on a budget.

Widen Collective

Opmerkingen: The Digital Asset System was put in place to provide easy access to assets owned by Trek Bicycle Corporation for those internally and externally. These assets can be ordered and downloaded at any time of day or night. It's an invaluable tool for our dealers, distributors, and international offices.
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The Media Template is an online ad, and media builder. It allows Trek to control brand consistency, while it allows our users to build media in minutes using pre-approved images and text without the need of expensive software programs. We use this portion of the site to provide promotional items and in store signage to our large dealer base. Overall, I think the Widen collective is a great product and I really enjoy working with Widen.

Pluspunten:

Good customer support Robust reporting features Assets can be downloaded in a variety of file formats Various types of file formats are supported Permissions can be setup to protect assets Users can access the site through a standard web browser Media can be built in minutes without needing expensive software programs Assets/media can be ordered and downloaded at any time of day or night Software updates made throughout the year

Minpunten:

Pages can be slow to load at times Reporting tools can be confusing Custom enhancements to the site can be expensive Some education is needed for new users of the site The site is not setup for printing on demand Home page can be confusing if your site includes the DAM and the media builder

Wix Goods and Bads

Opmerkingen: My overall experience with Widen Collective is that it is very much a good website, and I will continue to use it and show my friends and family about it. It is very helpful when you are first starting off your business

Pluspunten:

Wixs simplified proofreader makes it very simple to make an expert site without having to know a codel with many layouts and with very great instructions on how to do so. It is very beginner friendly and help with a lot of small business websites to get started.

Minpunten:

A con is that you cannot change templates once your website is live which i believe you should be able to. Also, it has storage limit on all plans.

Great Digital Asset Management system

Opmerkingen: Customer service is top notch and we love the software for every day use. Simple to train employees to use it.

Pluspunten:

The searchable option and the ability to organize all of our thousands of assets. As well as the ability to download these assets in different file formats.

Minpunten:

If spelling isn’t accurate in the metadata or search bar, it will not be able to find what you are looking for.

Widen Media Collective (DAM) Review

Pluspunten:

Its searchable content. As long as metadata is used, searching for assets is relatively easy.

Minpunten:

Upload process. The Drag/Drop feature was nice! Now I'm forced to go through a wizard. Too time consuming for my liking.

Great hub for storing and sharing content

Opmerkingen: We are using it as a one stop shop for our field team to have access to training, resources, selling collateral, company news and other helpful things. We also love that we can quickly update the versions when needed. The team has been less frustrated now that they have 1 place to go.

Pluspunten:

I love that I can easily store all of my content in the system, then make a website like portal to share and organize my content in a neat way.

Minpunten:

I wish there was a way to add hyperlinks to Asset Collections so that I can link out to other internal websites within my company or to an eCourse within Workday.

The Best Bang for your Buck

Opmerkingen: My overall experience with Widen has been great. The customer support is always responsive to my needs, and the tool has been a game changer for the marketing team. Widen continually improves the end-user experience, instilling confidence that the program will evolve and get even better with time.

Pluspunten:

The marketing team loves the portals, collections, and asset version control.

Minpunten:

The search/filter functionality and the lack of styling on the standard portals.

DAM Great Product and The BEST Tech TEAM!

Opmerkingen: The tech team is THE BEST!!!

Pluspunten:

It is a great tool for finding all of our products in one place, easily!

Minpunten:

honestly, cannot say yet and I have been using it for almost 2years

Widen

Opmerkingen: Overall it has become a great tool for our users and the expansion to house storing certain documenttation in one place is great.

Pluspunten:

Widen is a great receptical to all of our imagery for our products. Downloading images from the portal is easy as well

Minpunten:

Finding documentation seems to be difficult. Not sure if it the actual software or if it is the manner is which our company set it up.

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

Opmerkingen: 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.

Pluspunten:

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.

Minpunten:

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!

Opmerkingen: 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.

Pluspunten:

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.

Minpunten:

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.

Widen has changed the way I work

Opmerkingen: 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.

Pluspunten:

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.

Minpunten:

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.

Widen is an advanced, user friendly media asset

Opmerkingen: 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.

Pluspunten:

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.

Minpunten:

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.

The only Digital Asset Manager you'll need

Opmerkingen: I've had a great experience with Widen. I can easily upload assets of all types. Tagging them, filling out the metadata, and putting longform descriptions in each asset makes it really easy for people to find what they are looking for. It also helps me keep track on similar image types, or batches of uploads.

Pluspunten:

We use Widen as an asset manager, giving our teams easy access to photos, videos, and illustrative elements. As the administrator, I can create different user accounts, letting some people have more access than others if they need it. I can also provide third-party contractors access to our resources too.

Minpunten:

The admin side can be a little bit tricky to navigate, and it would be nice as the administrator to be able to change my view settings to spoof different levels of access, so I can quickly see what kinds of access my users have and make changes or alterations without needing to create multiple accounts for myself.

Widen Collective Review

Opmerkingen: I would definitely recommend Widen to those familiar with DAM as well as those who are just starting out. The Widen team is also a great group to work with from start to finish and are there for you every step of the way, even for a company like ours that have been using Widen's services for over 7 years now.

Pluspunten:

I have been very pleased with using Widen for our DAM tool. Their support team is phenomenal! Anytime I have a question or issue, they respond immediately and are very helpful to get to the bottom of any issue I might be having, or explain a feature I may not be knowledgeable in. Their entire team is always looking for ways to improve the tool based on user feedback and suggestions. It's great to have a company so open to what the users are saying. I have also found that the tool itself has been great in meeting our DAM needs. By building out a thorough and intuitive organization structure through categories, asset groups and metadata, we have been able to greatly increase the use of our tool and have received numerous compliments on the improvements. That along with Widen's new interface launched in 2012, the collective is now a much more user friendly and intuitive tool for both users and administrators alike.

Minpunten:

My only complaint at this time is that the "Send File" feature has been discontinued with the launch of the new interface. I believe our company may have been one of the few groups that used the tool fairly often, and were sad to see the feature go. We hope to be able to find a solution either with Widen or with an outside service in order to send large files directly to another user without having to have the asset 'live' in the DAM tool.

Overall, Widen has been a huge benefit and time saver not only for the company, but for my position.

Pluspunten:

The convenience and logical layout of the site as a whole. Our sales reps, the Woolrich team, and our buyers all are able to use the site without any hiccups. I really like that I am able to control who can see and download what. Because of Widen I don't have to download every asset and take up space on my computer, I can send links to anyone and everyone that needs them, but also it makes it so our reps can take care of their accounts directly and aren't coming to me for everything. It reallly makes my job so much easier!

Minpunten:

I don't really have any complaints except I wish I didn't have to change my password so much. I'm running out of ideas! :)

Great Media Management

Opmerkingen: We now have ONE place everyone in the company can go to for assets to add to presentations, advertisements, blogs, websites, collateral and more. The Marketing team can work more efficiently and employees within the company are embracing the brand more consistently.

Pluspunten:

Customer and technical support are world-class. Widen is always looking to its customers for roadmap enhancements and give honest, helpful feedback to all inquiries.

Minpunten:

The Adobe CC Connector is still a little buggy and looses connection links to the DAM during updates or if shared with someone without a CC Connector license. I would like enhancements to make it more user friendly.

Widen Collective Support & Features

Opmerkingen: The storage capability that Widen offers has really benefitted our team since we heavily use the archiving feature. We are able to organize our multimedia files when obsolete, expired or updates have been made.

Pluspunten:

The storage capability that Widen offers is awesome. Using this platform has helped our team manage our multimedia content in one single place and make it available for others when needed. Uploading assets and tagging the metadata is easy and can be done in batches for efficiency, which saves us a lot of time.

Minpunten:

If portals can be searched for on the collective site, it will really help our team communicate our newest products. Currently, portals are not able to be searched for and sharing individual portal links can be time consuming.

Widen is what our department needed

Opmerkingen: I'm part of a small, internal corporate video team. We have presenters around the world who often need access to some of our video assets on short notice. They used to have to contact us, and we would have to drop what we were doing to send a file to them. Now they can just log on to Widen and easily find what they need. Quick note about what kind of company this is: A few weeks after we first joined Widen, we asked our representative if a certain feature existed (sorry, I don't remember exactly what it was'it was something that would make things easier for some of our users). He said no, it doesn't, but he would suggest it to the development team. Just a few days later he called us back to let us know that he had talked to the development team and they were going to incorporate that feature into the next release, which was just a few weeks away from launching. Great news! So here is a company of people who listen to their customers and genuinely want us to have a good experience. The interface is easy to use, I like the upload wizard, I like uploading new versions of items--the asset's url stays the same. The only 'con' I can think of is that there was a bit of a learning curve at first to figure out how to, for example, send one or more assets to someone to download (not just view). For the most part, it's intuitive to use but plan to spend at least a few minutes familiarizing yourself with it when you first use it. We looked at other DAM products out there as well (don't remember their names). If anyone else out there is looking for a good DAM system, this is what worked for us. I could see it working for a large corporation or even a business like ours of ~130 people (plus over 100 presenters and international associates). The best value, best features, best customer service, a perfect fit. Thanks.

Excellent! The application is SO easy to use :)

Pluspunten:

Everything about this product is easy! We initially chose the software after closely reviewing more than 7 different solutions. Widen accommodates all of our needs where others came up short. Ultimately the deciding point came down to the out-of-the-box video streaming feature, this is what makes Widen different. The Widen team has the roll-out process down to a science. They worked with us to define a solid taxonomy which paved the way for an easy initial asset upload. Training and the on-boarding process was seamless. The application is easy to use but, when in doubt, they have a fully loaded training library (Widen University) which has video tutorials and easy to find articles. We are very pleased with Widen and would definitely choose it again!

Widen Makes My Job Easier

Pluspunten:

In a business where we are writing proposals for nine regions across the midwest and southeast, it's so nice to have all of our assets- photos, logos, project information- all in one place. The DAM makes it easy to find our assets and share the content with our teams across the country. Winning work is much easier thanks to the Widen DAM!

Minpunten:

The only downside to this software comes from me not being here upon it's inception. Therefore, some of the conventions are not as intuitive as they could be. Also, many outdated files clog up our DAM...we are in major need of an overhaul.

Widen has been great software to catalog our images and b-roll.

Pluspunten:

Sending and finding images has never been easier. Customer service is amazing and helped me tremendously when setting up my companies DAM.

Minpunten:

We have a different use case than most because most of the time we are sending media outside of our organization. Widen collects emails when items are downloaded, but we are not able to get the data. I know they are working on this and we look forward to this update.

Impressive DAM with great customer support

Opmerkingen: Implementation with Widen was so smooth and the Widen team was knowledgeable and helpful. They broke down the implementation process into manageable steps and answered all questions we had in a timely manner. Our users find it so much more user-friendly than our old DAM!

Pluspunten:

We love portals! We may be even using them more than intended - we find that portals are the most user-friendly way to surface the right assets to our users!

Minpunten:

We do have some features that we'd like improved or added, but Widen is all about customer feedback, so I feel heard when I make new feature requests.

Widen Collective always reliable

Opmerkingen: I have been using Widen collective since 2008 and I have always been happy with the software. It's an easy way to send high-resolution photos and videos to our clients and talent.

Pluspunten:

It's an easy way to send high-resolution photos and video to our clients.

Minpunten:

It's hard to find the 'order's I have previously done. Sometimes I like to put the orders back in my cart to re-send but I can't seem to find how to do that anymore.