DALIM SOFTWARE announces the launch of ES 4.5, a significant update of its popular and long-standing production automation software. The new features in ES extend the software’s reach beyond its traditional print production and image workflows to support photo studios, retailers, brand owners and their respective media service providers—in short, anyone whose marketing communication efforts or packaging production starts with a single asset. In doing so, production automation is expanded from business process management to final file processing—from preproduction to image handling to video.  

Ranging from the traditional file types used in office documents, video, sound, and print production, to RAW images uploaded right from the location of the photo shoot, and even 3D Collada files, ES 4.5 takes care of storing, revision management, cataloging, transforming and sharing. All that, combined with the sophisticated business processes for approval workflows, provides a complete content lifecycle in the cross-media production workflow.

ES 4.5: New features extend ES internal media production platform into a media asset management system, making job production and review of files even easier and faster.

ES (Enterprise Solution) is an integrated media production platform—a media asset management (MAM) platform and a web collaborative platform offering a complete solution for the management and production of the many aspects of media services, regardless of final output. This includes brand owners and retailers who need efficient communication throughout the media production supply chain (who consist of marketing services, designers and production services), who can save time by conducting advanced searches through the ES integrated MAM. The ERP and storage-friendly combination of technical workflow production along with business process management results in a highly flexible centralized platform for all participants in the media production lifecycle. 

ES 4.5 can work with referenced content including revisions on a local or remote file system—particularly helpful for those who need to produce very large video files or work with external storage devices. The ES MAM features can automatically catalog, enrich and share images and other assets, such as video or e-pubs, or can be included in 3D augmented reality models. 

ES 4.5: An asset database

ES 4.5 can also be used as an online photo portal, with easy tools to edit and manage thousands of images and hours of video. While originally just a customer-facing web based production management solution, ES has evolved to allow users to centralize all their assets and data in a database—or in the cloud. To support this, ES always has effectively handled and managed standard metadata formats. In ES 4.5, extended enterprise asset management capabilities include the ability to support custom metadata to improve production processes.

With ES 4.5, it is also possible to build a collection of assets, along with sets of private collections. The full feature set offers comprehensive basket order management for content distribution, reformatting and the creation of contact sheets. ES can convert a selected group of image files, either for download, or as a new private asset collection for use on the Web, mobile applications or print. The Clipboard can collect files from several projects and file systems to move to other collections, or for display to review in DIALOGUE Engine (for example, to compare different jobs). 

With ES, a user can either add a new file from a production workflow or select a user action to select and place images into a collection that can be used, shared via email or download link, or posted on social media. Users can conduct an advanced search, using tags or a rating system to filter any kind of asset in the database. This is extremely helpful when a photo studio, for example, can filter preferred images from tens of thousands of photos for a customer’s electronic ‘catalog’ in a web store or print. These can be linked to social media (shared on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, for example). 

ES 4.5 includes an easy to connect API, so that supporting solutions such as Wordpress or Drupal can be easily integrated. The same API makes it easy for companies to brand their own portals, offering a standard way to communicate with asset management.

ES 4.5: Focus on user experience

With the help of customer feedback, DALIM SOFTWARE built ES 4.5 with extended features and a new interface with a simple and user-friendly way to access files for review and approval.

A dynamic approval cycle allows just about any user easy access to a file within the system. ES 4.5 provides a simple way to let the complete supply chain interact with projects. With new, easy to configure SmartView items known as ‘Components’, ES provides a complete view of all projects for packaging, image workflows, video, print—whatever is being created. Meanwhile, the customizable dashboard—part of ES SmartViews—controls all aspects of projects and reports, ranging from approving or confirming production steps to uploading new data into that particular project. A Milestone Progress 'Component' offers more intuitive project tracking and interaction—the perfect way to monitor project progress and approval status—all within the dashboard view. These flexible components can significantly simplify content views for specific users, whether photographers, production departments or content originators. Depending on the role, the ES Smartview will display only the features and functionality that the user needs. 

DIALOGUE Engine: A faster and easier soft-proofing system

DIALOGUE Engine is an excellent closed-loop soft proofing application available for stand-alone integration or within ES. DALIM SOFTWARE continues to improve its performance and capabilities with super-fast HTML5 access—which no longer requires the need for Java— leading to simpler support and operation for end users. This allows companies to view—and comment—on materials for approval directly from a web page. People away from the office can review materials on smartphones and tablets.  

New HTML5 tools in DIALOGUE Engine 5 include annotation, color management, and document metadata. The user will benefit from an extended list of supported file formats, ranging from RAW images to retouched native Photoshop files, including their layers, just to name a few. 

Text annotations now also come with ‘track changes’, allowing users to easily see what has been added or removed in a document. DIALOGUE Engine also allows users to see trim, bleed and art boxes. And to assure color is viewed accurately, the preferences menu offers a drag and drop list of monitor profiles. 

“In the past few years we have been building automated production solutions to extend DALIM SOFTWARE’s involvement into video, web-based and mobile content, well beyond print-centric production,” explains Carol Werlé, CEO, DALIM SOFTWARE. “To support all of these requirements within one system for the enterprise, we have made a conscious decision to implement a functional form of asset management to help manage production, workflow and the business process. This has helped to make ES and TWIST even faster, and has provided more features between all the applications.” 

ES 4.5 and DIALOGUE Engine 5 are available to customers immediately. For more information, please visit http://www.dalim.com.