Work with digital assets

Assets are the images and other files you need to sell your products and categories. You can assign assets to products and publish from Optimizely Product Information Management (PIM) to your website.

Use the Assets section of the PIM to:

• Import many digital assets at one time.
• Organize and manage your digital assets in a central location.
• Assign digital assets to products and categories.
• Identify digital assets with missing data or associations.

Configured Commerce Storefront View

See Review How Optimizely Product Information Management Data Appears to Customers for more details.

Best Practices

Organize your asset folders based on product templates, categories, or brands to more easily find and assign assets.

If you have assets with file names that match product data like the product number, you can use this to auto-assign the assets during the import process.

Here are some tips for the Assets section:

• Use the Assets left panel to quickly filter, locate, or organize assets into folders. You can also view uncategorized assets, which are assets not included in any folders.
• View the assets in gallery or list format.
• Click Filter to narrow the list of assets.
• Drag and drop new assets into the upload area of the Assets list page, or click Browse. Click Import to use advanced options.
• Store assets without assigning them to a product.
• Use the following file types:
  • Excel (.xls, xlsx)
  • Word (.doc, .docx)
  • Images (.png, .jpg, .gif)
  • Zip, (.zip)
  • PDF (.pdf)
  • Text (.txt)
  • Other standard file types

The PIM supports metadata by asset type including:

• All Assets
  • Type
  • Tags
  • Location in Hierarchy/Node
• Images
  • Name (unique)
  • Description
  • URL
  • File Format
  • Dimensions
  • Alt Text
• Documents and other assets
  • Name (unique)
  • Display Name
  • Description
  • File Format
  • URL
  • Language

Example

Carrie wants to import and assign her digital assets for Faucets. She clicks Assets > Import. She searches her file directory for her kitchen faucet assets, selects them all and clicks Open.

Carrie selects Kitchen Faucets for the destination folder. She leaves Languages blank, since she only has English assets. She leaves the Overwrite Files toggle off, since she is uploading for the first time. Carrie adds tags of kitchen, faucet, and ShinyFaucets and adds a prefix of KITCHEN. She clicks Process to complete the asset import, then repeats these steps for her Bathroom faucet assets.

Import digital assets

You can import assets one at a time or in bulk. You can also add asset tags and file name prefixes. Avoid duplicate assets by overwriting existing assets with the same file name.

• The PIM automatically resizes imported images for optimal site performance, creating small, medium, and large URLs for each image.
• You can configure the sizes in settings. The default is 160 x 160 px for small, 300 x 300 px for medium, and 900 x 900 px for large.
• Your image retains its aspect ratio when resized. For example, if the original image has dimensions of 1800 x 1200 px, retaining the 3:2 ratio resizes the image to 900 x 600 px for the large size.

The PIM supports importing 360 degree images using the external asset import template. You must select 360 Degree Image in the Asset Type column and include the image URL in the Other Asset URL column.

1. Click Assets.
2. Click Import, select the assets you want to import, and click Open.  You can also drag and drop them from your file explorer into the upload area.
3. Use the Asset Import page to:
   • Select a Destination Folder for these assets. If you are already in a folder, the system selects this by default.
   • Select the Language for these assets.
   • Toggle the Overwrite Files option on or off. If on, the import process overwrites existing assets if new assets have the same file name. If off, the import does not process duplicates and asks if you want to proceed with the import. If the overwritten assets were assigned to any products or categories, the status of the product or categories is updated to ensure the new asset displays on your site the next time the categories and products are published.
   • Add Asset Tags to these assets to further categorize assets and allow the use of filters. Auto-complete helps you find existing tags or create a new tag. Hover over a tag and click the X to remove it.
   • Add Prefix to these assets.
   • Toggle the Auto-assign to products option on or off.
   • View the File Types Detected. This is a list of all the file types included in this import.
4. Click Process to start your import.
5. View your import progress at the top of the Assets list page or click Cancel to stop it.

You cannot import more assets until the PIM finishes processing.

When you import assets, the asset file names are hashed (for example, h92f13cj90375wp_nm.jpg) to ensure a unique static URL for each image file. This is important for asset versioning logic and allows users to change the asset name without altering the underlying URL. Using hashed names and obfuscating the S3 location also prevents images from being crawled or browsed by external users. This may affect SEO results for the images, but it should not affect the SEO results for product detail pages. If you have SEO concerns, you can choose to host the assets externally using a cloud storage provider where you have full control over naming conventions. Externally hosted assets can be imported into PIM via spreadsheet import and managed as if they are directly hosted.

Auto-assign digital assets

Use the auto-assign by name feature when you create or import products to minimize the effort of assigning assets to products.

• Auto Assign to Products – Shows options to allow matching assets to products by file name during import.
• Auto assign based on – Select the product property that the asset file name should match with for auto-assignment.
• Include prefix in matching – Add a prefix to include or exclude it from matching.
• Match partial file name – Shows options to set the start and end position of characters:
  • Start after character – Starts matching after the given character.
  • Start at position – Starts matching at the given position.
  • End before character – Stops matching before the given character.
  • End at position – Stops matching at the given position.

Import external digital assets

You can import, organize, and assign digital assets hosted outside of the PIM to products or categories the same as other assets. You can also convert the external assets to hosted assets in the PIM. Use the provided import template to import or update externally hosted assets in the PIM.

1. Click Imports. The Imports list page appears.  
2. Click Import Template and Download the Externally Hosted Assets template if you have not already formatted your import file. 
   • Folder – The location of the asset within the PIM's digital asset management folder structure.
   • Name – The name of the asset.
   • Asset Type – The type of asset: Image, 360 Degree Image, or Other Asset.
     
3. Drag and drop the file onto the Imports page. You can also click Import, locate your file, and click Open.
4. Set the Import Type to Externally Hosted Assets. 
5. Click Import. If you receive any validation errors, resolve them before importing again. You can download the provided file to view error messages that are specific to each row.
6. View your import progress on the Imports list page. A log of the import also displays on the page when it is complete.

Update asset data

You can update existing assets in bulk by exporting the asset data and then importing the file after making changes. 

1. Go to Assets, and select or filter for the assets you want to update.
2. Click Export > Export Asset Data.
3. Choose whether to export All assets, Filtered list, or Selected assets.
4. Download the exported file and make the desired changes.
5. Go to the Imports page.
6. Drag and drop the file onto the Imports page. You can also click Import, locate your file, and click Open.
7. Set the Import Type to Update Asset Data. 
8. Click Import. If you receive any validation errors, resolve them before importing again. You can download the provided file to view error messages that are specific to each row.
9. View your import progress on the Imports list page. A log of the import also displays on the page when it is complete.

Create digital assets

You can create an individual asset.

1. Click Assets > Create.
2. Choose from Image, 360 Degree Image, or Other.
3. Enter the asset's Name. This field is required for all asset types.
4. Enter other information as needed.
5. Click Save.

Edit digital assets

Assign digital assets

Replace assets

Once you have assigned an asset, you can replace the image without having to delete and re-add a new image.

1. Go to Assets, and select the asset you want to replace.
2. Click the Replace Asset icon next to the file name.
3. Select the new image and click Open.

Unassign digital assets

Use the Asset Drawer

Use the Asset Drawer to unassign assets from products.

1. Go to Products, and click on the thumbnail of the product to edit.
2. Select the type of asset you want to unassign.
3. Hover over the thumbnail of the asset under Currently Assigned.
4. Click the X that appears.

Use the product's Images and Documents Tabs

Use the Images or Documents tabs on a product's details page to unassign assets from products.

1. Go to Products.
2. Click an individual product's name to view the details page.
3. Select the Images tab or the Documents tab. You will see assigned images or documents on their respective tabs.
4. Hover over an asset tile and click the Unassign icon.
5. Click Unassign to remove the association of this asset to the product. Click Cancel to leave it assigned.
6. Click Save.

Any asset assignments or unassignments cause the product's status to move to Incomplete or Ready for Approval.

Use the asset's Products tab

You can unassign a product on an asset's Products tab.

1. Go to Assets in the task bar.
2. Click an individual asset's name to view the Assets details page.
3. Select the Products tab.
4. Hover your cursor over the product from which you wish to unassign the asset, and then click the Unassign icon.
5. Click Save.

Unassigning an asset removes the association to a product. If the asset is the primary image for a product, unassigning it defaults to the next image as the primary image. Any asset assignments or unassignments cause the product's status to move to Incomplete or Ready for Approval.

Export assets

You can export the asset information for a filtered list or selected assets. 

1. Select the assets to export if you only want certain ones.
2. Click Export, and select Filtered list or Selected assets.
3. Click Continue. Do not close the export window before the file is ready for download.
4. Click the Download exported file link when it appears.