Get started with Nexus

Overview

Nexus is a Digital Asset Management (DAM) product tailored for small businesses and teams to effectively manage their digital assets. This platform simplifies the organization of images, videos, and other files, providing efficient collaboration and easy adaptation for various needs.

This product is tailored to the needs of two different personas:

• Administrators: They handle system configuration and maintenance.
• Users: Responsible for asset management, including searching, retrieval, collaboration and transformation.

While a single individual can take on both roles, they usually concentrate on one role at any given time.

Nexus product highlights

Nexus offers a digital solution designed to assist marketing and creative professionals in arranging their digital assets, such as images and videos. Especially beneficial for small businesses and teams, Nexus allows you to:

• Connect: Simplify the way your team manages and collaborates on digital assets by using Nexus as your source of truth, and sharing single assets as well as collections both internally and externally. You can upload images, videos, and documents directly to Nexus, avoiding the hassle of scattered folders or manual sharing. Nexus users can access and work on shared assets simultaneously, comment and tag teammates, ensuring that your team remains organized and can efficiently collaborate on projects without the usual time-consuming processes.

• Discover: Improve asset search and retrieval through a variety of features, such as customizable structured metadata fields, AI-driven auto-tagging and captioning on upload which labels and categorizes your assets using content recognition, Visual Search for finding images visually by similarity to another image or by concept, and intelligent search options like color detection, asset type, size, face recognition, and more. Nexus provides a user-friendly interface for searching based on all of these capabilities.

• Adapt: Customize your assets effortlessly to suit different needs. Imagine you have a high-resolution image, and you need a smaller and different aspect-ratio version for a web banner. Instead of relying on external tools, Nexus enables you to resize the image within the platform. Additionally, you can generate variations of a design to cater to various platforms, such as social media profiles or email templates. This eliminates the need for manual adjustments and saves time, ensuring your assets are ready for diverse contexts.

Nexus provides a comprehensive and user-friendly approach to managing digital assets and streamline your asset management workflow, from collaboration to efficient search and versatile customization. This platform ensures that small businesses and teams can focus on creativity and productivity while seamlessly managing their digital asset library.

Getting started for Nexus administrators

If you don't yet have a Nexus account, go to the Cloudinary Nexus page to sign up for free. Follow the sign-up instructions.

Once you're in your new product environment, you can navigate to all your Settings pages and views from the Product Navigation menu and sidebar.

Follow the Guided workflow for Nexus administrators below to swiftly immerse yourself in the platform's capabilities and create an environment that reflects Nexus' true potential. This process provides an essential starting point, ensuring you make the most of the platform's features.

Guided workflow for Nexus administrators

• Customize account behavior: Tailor Assets' behavior to align with your organization's workflows. Customize user interfaces, security options and asset handling options to create a seamless experience that reflects your unique processes. In particular, you may want to:
  • Enable or require two-factor authentication for the users in your account from the Security Settings page.
    
  • Select the filters that will be permanently displayed on the Advanced Search from the Preferences page.
  • Opt for automatic backup from the Upload Settings page of the Console so that you can always revert to a previous version of an asset.
  • Enable apps to extend your core DAM functionality from the App Marketplace.

• Configure upload behavior: You can configure various settings that determine what happens when assets are uploaded. For example:
  • Auto-tagging, on by default, uses AI-powered algorithms to automatically tag uploaded assets, saving time and effort.

    

    Adjust auto-tagging settings from the Preferences page.

  • Moderation, with both manual and automatic options, ensures that only appropriate assets are published.

    

    You'll need to create an upload preset from the Upload Settings page of the Console and select a moderation type from the Upload Control tab.

• Manage metadata: You can define and manage an extensive array of structured metadata fields. This ensures assets are accurately classified and simplifies the process of locating assets through efficient search capabilities.

  Go to the Structured Metadata page.

  

• Set up asset personalization: Streamline content editing and maintain brand consistency by creating transformation templates. These enable standardized edits and ensure that your organization's visual identity remains intact across various assets.

  Keep in mind that any transformations you apply in Studio, as well as any templates applied by you or other uses later on, will create asset variations without changing the original asset.

  To get started, go to the Assets or Folders tab of the Media Library. Select one or more assets and click the Open Studio icon from the assets toolbar. Inside Studio, apply your desired transformations and then save them as a template.

  

  Note

  To configure templates using the full range of available transformations, see Transformation presets.

• Manage users: Establish governance across different departments and teams using Assets' enterprise-level user management features. Invite new users and assign them roles and permissions, then grant them access permissions to assets via folder sharing to enhance security and control.

  To invite new users, click the Add Users icon in the left sidebar.

  To share folders and grant permissions, go to the Folders tab in the Media Library and select Share from the folder's kebab menu.

  To manage users and user group, go to the User Management page of the Console Settings.

Invite new users
Assign roles Share folders
Grant access permissions to assets

• Next steps: As you become accustomed to the essential features of Nexus, you might want to explore the platform's advanced tools that can enhance your asset management. Learn about our broad selections of add-ons that automate essential tasks. Find out about how you can control who can access an asset and when. Additionally, view summary details and trend graphs to help you analyze your overall DAM usage. Finally, tap into the support resources available to you, including the community forum and Cloudinary Discord server, ensuring that you're making the most of Nexus' capabilities for efficient asset management.

Getting started for Nexus users

Once you're in your new product environment, navigate to the Media Library from the Product Navigation menu.

Follow the Guided workflow for Nexus users below to become familiar with Nexus' capabilities, including its AI-powered features, so that you can jump right into your tasks and fully utilize what Nuxus has to offer.

Guided workflow for Nexus users

• Upload assets: Leverage Nexus' robust upload features to streamline the process of uploading and categorizing large quantities of assets, including AI-driven auto-tagging and automatic moderation which needs to be set up by your administrator. This empowers you to efficiently manage your digital resources, ensuring a well-organized repository.

  Click Upload to open the widget or simply drag and drop files into a destination folder.

  

• Manage metadata: Utilize the extensive metadata fields in Nexus to capture detailed information about your assets to make them more discoverable.

  You can import your metadata in bulk from a CSV file by clicking Bulk Update Metadata from the kebab menu at the top right corner of the Media Library.

  To manually add or edit the tags or structured metadata for individual assets, double click the asset to open the asset management drill-down page and then select the Metadata tab.

  

• Search for assets: Use the Advanced Search to find the assets you need based on a variety of characteristics, including asset name, resolution, video duration, colors, automatically assigned tags, face detection, and more. You can also perform searches based on structured metadata field values. Enriching your metadata with relevant information will make it simpler to find assets tailored to your specific content and company needs.

  Go to the Assets tab at the top of the Media Library.

  

  Tip

  Boost the effectiveness of your asset discovery with the AI-powered Visual Search (Beta).

• Personalize assets at scale: Make the most of Studio to execute complex transformations in bulk and personalize and optimize images for diverse use cases. This empowers you to tailor your images to your specific needs with ease. When you're done, you can download the transformed images as a ZIP file.

  In the Media Library, select the images you want to transform and click the Open Studio icon from the asset toolbar. In studio, apply transformations and then download or export the results.

  

• Collaborate and approve: Assets includes powerful collaboration tools for enterprises. Using collections, you can easily share groups of assets with teammates at different permission levels, and provide external stakeholders with a link for viewing and commenting.

  Select Collections from the tabs at the top of the Media Library.

  

In addition, single asset share and commenting allow you to easily collaborate in one place and establish an organized approval process.

Double click the asset. Invite teammates to comment by selecting Invite from the Share drop-down button and sending a the link. Read and post comments from the Comments tab.

• Transform and download: Your administrator has most likely created transformation templates to streamline content editing and maintain brand consistency. These templates allow consistent edits and safeguard your organization's visual identity across assets. You can download assets with applied templates, or you can download an asset sized to meet a social media platform's requirements with one click.

  Double click an asset to see all of the available Download Options.

  

• Manage versions: If the need comes up, you can revert to previous versions of an overwritten asset using the Version History feature for enhanced content management.

  Double click the asset to open the asset management drill-down page. Select Version History from the kebab menu at the top right corner.

  

  Note

  To make this feature available, your administrator must enable the automatic backup setting.

• Next steps: As you become accustomed to the essential features of Nexus, you might want to explore the platform's advanced tools that can enhance your asset management. Dive deeper into AI-powered workflows, such as asset analysis, to automate repetitive tasks and optimize your processes. Learn about relating assets to find them by association, and discover how you can view an asset's access control mode. Additionally, tap into the support resources available to you, including the community forum and Cloudinary Discord server, ensuring that you're making the most of Nexus' capabilities for efficient asset management.

Sample use cases

The following use cases showcase how Nexus serves as a dynamic and versatile solution tailored to meet the unique needs of different businesses.

Explore Nexus's documentation pages for in-depth insights into these use cases and more. Each scenario underscores Nexus's adaptability and value in transforming real-world challenges into solutions.

Use Case 1: Collaborative design for social media content

A dynamic design team faces the challenge of creating captivating graphics for an upcoming ad campaign across various social media platforms.

Their key requirements include automatically moderating new content to make sure all available assets meet standards, locating and retrieving assets relevant for the campaign quickly, creating multiple variations tailored to each social media platform's requirements and cross-team collaboration to make informed design decisions.

The team uses Nexus to execute the following steps:

• Photographers upload high-quality images to Nexus, which automatically tags them for convenient organization and retrieval. In order for a new assets to become available, it must pass moderation to ensure the quality of the available images and videos.

• The team uses Nexus' Studio to apply transformations and craft templates that ensure the graphics stand out on social media.

• Dynamic collections allow designers to group related content, facilitating focused collaboration. Real-time viewing and approval streamline the process, resulting in consistent and cohesive visuals.

• Upon finalization, the team downloads the designs in various social media sizes, optimized for different platforms, ready for publication.

Use Case 2: Interactive video content creation for a website

A small business aims to enhance its website with captivating video content for online visitors.

Their key requirements include automatic moderation for quality control of new content, efficient labeling and categorization for simplified discoverability, easy editing for consistency and branding, and an easy way to insert finalized videos into their Content Management System (CMS) for website design and publication.

The team uses Nexus to execute the following steps:

• Uploaded videos undergo automatic moderation for quality control and are tagged for easy retrieval.

• The team uses the Advanced Search to find the videos they're looking for.

• Leveraging Nexus' editing tools, the team configures aspect ratios and lengths for website consistency, adding thumbnails and watermarks for branded appeal.

• When ready, marketers incorporate the videos to the website by copying and pasting the Cloudinary delivery URL into the designated CMS slot.

Use Case 3: Personalized marketing campaigns

A small business aims to run targeted marketing campaigns for specific customer segments.

Their key requirements include the ability to indicate target audiences for assets using structured metadata fields, bulk editing capabilities and an brand alignment approval process before distribution accross campaigns.

• The team selects multiple assets and populates structured metadata to specify corresponding audience.

• Assets are easily retrieved by their structured metadata field values, and collections per audience are created and shared with the relevant stakeholders.

• Designers utilize Nexus Studio to edit the assets at scale.

• Team members can comment on and further enhance the assets until final approval.

• Approved assets are then integrated into the targeted campaigns.