Media Browser settings¶

Asset Visibility¶

Who sees an asset is set by the audience chosen when it is uploaded: @all, or one or more groups. What each person may do is set by their role. The Asset Visibility page holds the settings that apply to the whole organization. Make your changes and click Save Changes.

Setting	Options	Default
Unapproved assets	Seen by their audience, or Hidden until approved: a pending or rejected asset is seen only by its uploader and by members with the Approve permission.	Seen by their audience
Everyone in the organization (@all)	Seen as soon as it is shared, or Seen only after approval: an asset shared with @all reaches the whole organization only once approved. Until then it is seen by the uploader, the other groups it was shared with, and approvers.	Seen as soon as it is shared
Default audience for uploads	Used when someone whose role may share with any audience leaves the audience blank: Only the uploader, The uploader's groups, or Everyone (@all). Administrators always see everything.	Only the uploader
Public share links	Allowed: anyone holding a link can view the shared assets until it is revoked or expires. Not allowed: new public links can't be created; existing links keep working until revoked or expired.	Allowed
Add-only metadata	The fields an Add only role may add to: Keywords, Description, Caption, Title, Event, Copyright. With nothing ticked, add-only roles can't change any metadata.	Keywords, Description, Caption

Sharing also requires the Share permission on the person's role. The page lists the groups that require approval, with a link to each. The Enforcement badge shows whether these rules are being enforced for your organization; contact Picsha support to change it.

Branding¶

Branding sets how your organization looks everywhere: the menu bar in Picsha DAM, Picsha Admin and Picsha Lab, and the pages people reach without signing in, such as public share links. Choose a logo set, replace any of its images with your own, and set your colors. The previews on the page show the result as you go.
Display name (up to 80 characters) is shown as the page title and beside the logo on share pages. Left empty, your organization's name is used.
Logo set: choose one of the built-in sets, or Uploads only to use just the images you upload. With Uploads only, an image you haven't uploaded borrows from one you have, and with no uploads at all the Picsha logos show.
Primary color is used for buttons, links and the selected tile, and Accent color for highlights. Enter a color as #rgb or #rrggbb, or use the color picker. Left empty, the primary color comes from the site theme and the accent color matches the primary color.
Click Save to make the display name, logo set and colors live.
Under Logo files, four images make up your logos: a square mark, used when the menu is collapsed and on phones, and a wide logo, used when the menu is open and on share pages, each in one version for dark backgrounds and one for light backgrounds. Click Upload… on any of them to replace just that image, or Remove to go back to the logo set's image. Uploads and removals take effect immediately. Use PNG, JPEG, WebP or SVG files of 2 MB or less, ideally with a transparent background.

Metadata Fields¶

Metadata fields are the information people fill in on assets. You can add up to 25 custom fields, choose which fields are required, limit pick-lists to set values, and offer fields as search filters in Picsha DAM. These rules are enforced everywhere, not only in the forms.

Built-in fields¶

Title, Description, Caption, Event, Copyright, Keywords, Asset Status and Custodian. Built-in fields keep their names. You can make them required, hide the optional ones, and edit the value lists for Asset Status and Custodian. Keywords can't be hidden and always appears on the upload form. Asset Status can't be hidden or required, and its Archived value is always kept because retention rules use it.

Adding a custom field¶

Click Add field.
Enter a Name and choose a Type: Text, Long text, Number, Date, Pick-list (one value), Pick-list (several values), or Yes / no. A field's type can't be changed later.
Choose whether it is Required, whether to Ask on the upload form, and, for pick-lists and yes/no fields, whether to Offer as a search filter.
For pick-lists, enter the Allowed values, one per line (up to 200).
Optionally add Help text, shown next to the field, and save.

Required fields must be filled in at upload and can't be cleared later. Assets uploaded before a field became required are not blocked. Use the arrows in the Order column to change the order fields appear in Picsha DAM. Hide removes an optional field from the forms (and makes it optional). Remove deletes a custom field from forms and filters; values already on assets are kept but no longer shown.

Approval Workflow¶

Uploads from roles whose uploads wait for a reviewer start as pending. With Single step (the default), any member whose role has the Approve permission can approve or reject them. A Multi-step workflow passes each asset through ordered steps, for example Editorial and then Communications, each decided by its own approvers. The asset stays pending, so audiences that need approval don't see it, until the last step approves it.

Setting up a multi-step workflow¶

Choose Multi-step.
Under Applies to, choose Every upload that starts pending, or Only uploads bound for these audiences and tick the audiences, such as @all. Other uploads keep single-step approval.
For each step, enter a Name and choose who approves it under Approved by: roles, Groups (members whose role can approve) and People (reviewers only). Choose none to let any reviewer decide the step. Roles without the Approve permission can't be chosen, because their members can't see pending assets.
Click Add step to add another step (up to 10), use the arrows to change the order, or click Remove to delete one.
Under When a step rejects, choose Reject: back to the uploader, or Send back to the previous step (a rejection at the first step still rejects).
Tick the email option to email each step's approvers when an asset reaches them, and the uploader when it is approved or rejected. Click Save.

Administrators can decide any step. Saving creates a new version of the workflow: assets already in progress finish on the steps they started with, and assets that were pending before the workflow was saved stay single-step until someone marks them pending again. Switching back to Single step doesn't change assets already in a workflow. In Picsha DAM, approvers find the assets waiting for them with the Waiting for me approval filter.

Taxonomy¶

The taxonomy is the navigation tree in the Picsha DAM library sidebar. Each item (node) is one of these types:

Query (structured search): shows the assets that match a search you build with the query builder, for example by search text, tags, face, place, object, text in the image, album, file type, date created or date added.
URL (saved route): opens a saved location in Picsha DAM.
Tags: shows assets carrying a tag phrase, requiring ALL words or ANY word.
Placeholder (group only): groups other nodes under it and runs no search.

To add a node, click Add New, enter a Name, an optional Display Name, the Parent node's Name (blank for the top level) and a Sort Order, choose the type, and click Create. The Matches: line summarizes the query in plain language.
Name a child node [face], [place] or [session] to have Picsha DAM expand it into one node per person, location or recent upload session, each using its parent's query. Other options:

Visible in the DAM sidebar (on by default).
Assignable: lets people file assets under this node.
Visibility (Mentions): leave empty for everyone, or enter @mentions so only matching users see the node.

Children refer to their parent by Name, so renaming or deleting a parent leaves its children without a parent. Delete a node from its edit page.

System Hashtags¶

System hashtags are organization-wide #tags, offered to everyone as suggestions when tagging and searching. People's personal hashtags are separate and are not listed here.

To add one, type it in Add new hashtag... and press Enter or click Add. The # is added for you.
To rename one, click the pencil, edit, and press Enter (Esc cancels).
Turn off Visible to hide a hashtag from suggestions without deleting it.
Drag rows to set the order. The Uses column shows how many assets carry each hashtag.

Checked-out Files¶

While a file is checked out, only the person who checked it out can edit, replace, re-version or delete it or change its metadata. Everyone else can still view, download, share and order it. Files are checked out by hand in Picsha DAM, automatically while open in an editor, and when downloaded for editing; uploading the new version checks them back in.
Set how long a check-out lasts in A check-out lasts (hours, 1–168) (default 24) and click Save. Editor sessions hold a file for 30 minutes at a time and renew while the editor is open. The table lists every current check-out with who holds it, how, and until when. Click Release to end a check-out early.

Retention Rules¶

Retention rules archive or delete assets automatically once they reach a set age.

Archive sets the asset's status to Archived: it leaves the library and search results, but the file is kept. Setting another status brings it back.
Delete moves the asset to the trash, where it can be restored for 30 days before it is removed for good.

Assets tagged #legal-hold are never touched. An asset that someone restores is never taken again by the same rule. Rules run daily at 3:00 and every run is recorded on this page and in the Audit Log.

Creating a rule¶

Click New rule and enter a Name.
Choose Which assets: file type, tags (all of), album, asset status and keywords.
Set Older than (default 3 years) and whether age is Measured from the upload date or the capture date (assets without a capture date are skipped).
Choose Then: Archive or Delete.
Set how many days ahead to Email owners first (default 14; 0 for no notice), the most assets to act on per run (default 500), the time zone, and who receives a summary email of each run.
Click Preview to see the oldest matching assets without changing anything, then Create (paused).

New rules start paused. Click Activate to start a rule, or Run now to run it once; both show a preview and ask you to confirm. With a notice period, nothing is archived or deleted until the notice period has passed. Deleting a rule doesn't bring back assets it already archived or deleted. For rule ages, a month counts as 30 days and a year as 365.