Setting an embargo date in Assets Server

In many companies, assets are shared with external users such as advertising agencies, marketing departments and design studios.

On many occasions, the owner of the content specifies an embargo date, meaning that assets may not be shared until that date.

Scenario

In this article we will describe a typical scenario:

1. Assets are stored in a folder.
2. The assets in the folder should become visible to a select group of users, but not until a set date is reached.

Configuration

The process of making this work is as follows:

1. A Rule is set up which includes a reference to the folder as well as a metadata query.
2. The Rule is assigned to a user group.
3. The embargo date and/or time is set.

Note: For information about setting up Rules, see Controlling user access to folders and assets in Elvis 6.

1. Setting up the Rule

• Title: Demo Zone/Images/New Product - embargo until 1st January 2017
• Folder: /Demo Zone/Images/Travel
• Metadata rule: embargoDate: [* TO NOW]. This will hide the assets until a date that is later than 'now'.

Note: In general, using wildcard queries in a query restriction is not supported because they slow down searches too much and will affect every search done on the system.

Tip: With the above Rule, the folder is always shown in the Folder Browser, but no content appears until the embargo date is reached. To only make the folder appear when it is searched on, configure a Rule query that also contains the folder location: assetPath:/Demo Zone/Images/New Product AND embargoDate:[* TO NOW].

2. Assigning the Rule to a user group

See Controlling user access to folders and assets in Elvis 6.

3. Setting the embargo date

For each asset in the folder, set the Embargo date by using Assets.

Note: The Embargo metadata field is part of the 'Rights' group of fields in Assets Server.

Alternative method: using a Scheduled plug-in

When you find the use of a wildcard too much of a limitation on the use of Assets Server (or you want to be more in control over the process of setting metadata), an alternative method is to use a Scheduled plug-in to update metadata fields based on a query.

Do this by customizing or developing a Scheduled plug-in that queries Assets Server for assets that have reached a particular date, and have the plug-in set a metadata boolean value (true or false) for another metadata field (for example public="true").

That other metadata field with the boolean value (in our example public="true") can then be made part of a Permission Rule configuration instead.

Step 1. Configure User Permissions to show only assets that have that a certain boolean value.

Step 2. Import assets with and embedded pur:EmbargoDate and XMP-prism:EmbargoDate value or add the value during or after import into Assets Server.

Step 3. Regularly run a custom configured scheduled metadata_update_bulk plug-in to find assets that have reached the current date.

Step 4. A custom configured scheduled metadata_update_bulk plug-in script changes the other metadata field with a boolean value.

Example plug-in

metadata_update_sample plugin (4KB, January 2016)

This plug-in is configured to query for embargoDate: [* TO NOW@DAY] and the public field set to "true". Further customize it to your needs.

<property name="query">
	<description>A query that specifies which assets to update.</description>
	<value>embargoDate:[* TO NOW@DAY]</value>
</property>
<property name="metadata">
	<description>A JSON object that specifies what metadata to update.</description>
	<value>{"public":"true","usageTerms":"Elvis Demo","event":"Elvis Demo"}</value>
</property>
...

For more info on the query syntax The Elvis 6 query syntax.