Canto Upgrade Cumulus To 9.0.2

One of our featured DAM Vendors, Canto, have upgraded their Cumulus DAM system to version 9.02.  The new features are:

• View and manage all relationships between files
• Metadata entry templates (defining sets of default values)
• Updated UI design
• Toolbox UI controlled by permissions

The full details (with some screen grabs) are on Canto’s blog: http://blog.canto.com/en/?p=7907

On the first point, I am not sure whether ‘file’ and ‘asset’ are being used interchangeably in the context of their description.  My own take on Digital Asset Management concepts are that files and assets are not synonymous since the metadata (and potentially other elements) that accompany them are what generates the value to elevate a file into an asset.  However, I will acknowledge that from a practical perspective, getting hold of the file is the key purpose for many DAM users – although that would  be a point worth checking if your interest is as much metadata as distributing files.

The number upgrades seems a bit slim and some of this, especially stuff like hiding features which users cannot access due to permissions inhabits that grey area between ‘feature’ and ‘bug’.  I would imagine that this has come about due to users asking why button x is visible for user y when they can’t access the feature behind it.  That said, it’s easy to be dismissive of what ostensibly appears to be minor upgrades and for Cumulus users this may well be small but significant.  As discussed yesterday in relation to the Asset Bank upgrade, it’s quite easy for some external commentator such as myself to gloss over what may have taken their developers a lot of time to get working satisfactorily.

There is a press release, which isn’t that useful if your interest is more functional and hands-on, but there is information on a webinar they’re running on 29th January which may be relevant to Cumulus users (existing and prospective).

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