Airtable's blog post about using Airtable as a digital asset management tool

how are you all managing large collections of assets in Airtable now? Have you found any new tricks or automations that make things smoother? I've been testing different ways to tag and filter images, but I'm wondering if there's a better approach to keeping everything organized, especially when working with a team.

I’ve personally found that using linked records with categories and tags makes searching way easier. Also, setting up a gallery view helps a lot when quickly browsing through visual assets.

Airtable can serve as a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution for organizations with a limited volume of assets or for startups seeking to consolidate their tools in one place . This is particularly true for independent and small to medium-scale companies . Its flexibility allows for the organization of various data types, including digital assets, and facilitates collaboration .  

However, when considering factors like upload and download speed, especially for larger files, integration capabilities, and API availability for extensive asset libraries, Airtable may not be as robust as dedicated DAM systems . While Airtable offers an API , it has rate limits and might experience performance challenges with very large bases and numerous API calls . The platform also has storage limits per base depending on the subscription plan, which can be a constraint for organizations with a large number of assets . The maximum file size for attachments is 5GB .  

For enterprise-level organizations with substantial asset collections and complex workflows, dedicated DAM solutions like Iconik and Frame.io often provide superior performance, advanced features such as in-suite editing and sophisticated search capabilities , and better scalability . These platforms are specifically designed to handle large volumes of rich media and offer features tailored for professional media workflows and enterprise needs .  

Therefore, while Airtable can be a useful tool for basic DAM needs, especially for smaller organizations, larger enterprises with demanding requirements will likely find dedicated DAM systems to be a more suitable choice.

👍

Nice! Thanks for sharing ​@kuovonne.

Currently building a system involving DAM for a client. Even if sacrificing some user experience, we decided to have an integration done with Google  Drive via n8n (same could have been done using Zapier or Make).

Some context for any reader out there.

A simplified description of our current workflow would be:
1. As a new project is created, we automatically create a Drive folder for the whole project, with a specific sub-folder schema within it.
2. Attachments get stored on a specific table to such effect, which are linked to the Project.
3. Each revised version of the attachment will have it’s own record, as to store additional information for the record (e.g. time stamp, notes, status).
4. Each attachment record has a single select to choose out the corresponding sub-drive folder which it should be saved to.
5. When the Project status becomes “Complete” all attachments (actual attachment from Attachment field) for such Project get pushed to the corresponding Drive folder and the filed Attachment URL gets updated with the specific file drive url.

Is it ideal? Probably not.. Does it work? Yup!

The intention of the above is to avoid hitting a different Airtable limitation (other than the record count mentioned by you): GB of attachments per base (20 Gb, and 100 Gb on the Team and Business plans)

Would love how you are handling third party integrations for similar use cases.

Mike, Consultant @ Automatic Nation