Integrating OpenEdit DAM with Canto Cumulus

OpenEdit DAM was originally designed to be a web-based front end for Canto's Cumulus product. While OpenEdit DAM has grown into a standalone Digital Asset Management solution, we find that many users still wish to use their Cumulus database as a backend. By following the steps outlined below, you can integrate OpenEdit DAM with Cumulus.

1. Each Catalog that will be imported from Cumulus must be configured to be "Shared".
2. Add openedit-cumulus-x.xxx.jar (x.xxx will be the newest version number) to the /WEB-INF/lib/ directory. For information on obtaining the openedit-cumulus jar file, please contact us.
3. Add the following line to /WEB-INF/base/archive/configuration/beans.xml

<bean id="store" bean="cumulusstore" />


4. In the file archive/configuration/archive.xml, you will need to add the following line.

<deletelogs-directory>[Full path to Cumulus Delete Logs directory]</deletelogs-directory>

5. You will need to create the file /WEB-INF/cumulus.xml as follows.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<archive>
  <username>username</username>
  <password>password</password>
  <readonly>false</readonly>
  <server>192.168.1.1</server>
  <skipthumbs>true</skipthumbs>
  <skipmeds>true</skipmeds>
</archive>

• Username and Password - These need to have the correct values for the login credentials for your Cumulus setup.
• readonly - Set this to true if you do not want OpenEdit to write any metadata back into Cumulus.
• server - This needs to be the address of the Cumulus server you will be connecting to.
• skipthumbs - If set to "true", OpenEdit will NOT copy the thumbnail images created by Cumulus. Those images will instead be created by OpenEdit. This is recommended so that you will get correctly sized thumbnails.
• skipmeds - Same as above, except referring to the medium sized images (those used for the hovering image as well as the product details page). This is also recommended to be set to "true".


• Create a category for each Cumulus catalog that you wish to import as outlined below.

• Select "Edit Categories" from the "Tools" menu in the DAM header bar.
• Use the "Add New Child Category" link to create a category that is a direct child of the top-level Index category".

• Set the Name and ID for your new category, save those edits, then click on the "Properties" tab.
• Set the value for "External Id" to the name of the catalog from Cumulus. This is case-sensitive and must be the exact name.

• Be sure to click "Save Edits".

Configure any metadata fields that you wish to be populated with data from Cumulus. You will need to set the External ID for each property to the associated field from Cumulus. For more information on this, please see the documentation on customizing metadata fields in OpenEdit.

From the "Tools" menu in the DAM header bar, select "Administration".

Click on "Sync to Databases (Full Sync)" to begin the Cumulus Synchronization process. When this completes all of the assets from your Cumulus catalogs should show up in OpenEdit.

Troubleshooting

If, after doing the Full Sync to Databases, you have products for all of your assets, but no images, or are unable to download, there are several possible problems which you can check for.

1. Check that your OpenEdit server has permission to access the original images. If the server cannot access the images, it will be unable to create thumbnails or serve up the files for download.
2. It may also be the case that your Original assets are not reachable via the network path listed in the Asset Reference field in Cumulus. You will need to point OpenEdit to the location of those original images. This could be the case if you are synchronizing with Cumulus, and then replicating your OpenEdit data to another server which cannot access the originals. If this is the case, you will need to make a local copy of those original images, and then point OpenEdit to their location, using the following steps.

• Go to the File Manager from the Content menu in the OpenEdit Toolbar.
• Select the folder archive/products/[Your Category]. i.e. If you set up a Category called "My Photos" that was importing assets from Cumulus, you would select archive/products/My Photos.
• From the action menu for your folder (the dropdown from the pencil icon), click "Folder properties".
• Add a new property called "importfilepath" and set its value to the root location of the original images. This will be prefixed to the path taken from Cumulus. This is important because you need to be sure that your file structure matches exactly. If the path that Cumulus was using was "//mynetworkshare/photos/foo/myimage.jpg", then your local copy of that original might be something like "/home/originals/mynetworkshare/photos/foo/myimage.jpg". You would then set the "importfilepath" to "/home/originals".

• You will need to do this for each of your categories. If the original images for all of your categories are located in the same place, you could set the importfilepath property directly on the products directory. The property will then trickle down to each of the subfolders.