Acquia DAM (Widen) Administrator cheat sheet

Assets live in a hierarchical category tree; an asset can belong to multiple categories, and category permissions govern visibility independently of asset metadata.

Metadata fields are typed (text, date, controlled vocabulary, related asset); controlled-vocabulary fields draw from predefined terms and drive faceted search and filtering.

Embedded metadata (XMP/IPTC) is read on upload and can be written back to files; the mapping between embedded fields and DAM metadata fields is configurable.

Asset status is a lifecycle control: active assets are downloadable and searchable; expired or archived assets can be hidden from end users without deletion.

Permissions are granted by role and group at the category and asset level; inheritance flows down the tree, and explicit child settings override inherited ones.

Upload links and portals let external contributors submit assets into a designated category without full DAM accounts, typically routed to a review/approval step.

Versioning preserves prior renditions of an asset; the current version is served by default, and prior versions remain retrievable by users with the right permission.

Derivatives and conversions are generated from the original file; web renditions and thumbnails are produced automatically, while custom conversions follow configured presets.

Audit and reporting data (downloads, searches, uploads) supports governance; usage rights fields track license expiration and can trigger expiration workflows.

Acquia Cloud environments are organized as applications containing Dev, Stage, and Prod environments; code moves via branches/tags and artifacts, not direct file edits on Prod.

Configuration is managed as code; environment-specific settings belong in settings files or environment variables rather than in the database, to keep deployments reproducible.

Acquia Cloud IDE provides browser-based development against a copy of the codebase; commits push to the application's Git repository.

Acquia Cloud Platform pipelines automate build and deploy: tests and artifact builds run before code is deployed to an environment.

Acquia Customer Data Platform and Acquia Personalization consume site data; integrations require correct credentials and are configured per environment.

The Acquia Cloud API and CLI allow programmatic management of environments, backups, and tasks; API authentication uses keys or OAuth tokens.

Backups are environment-scoped; on-demand and scheduled backups exist, and restoring a backup overwrites the target environment's database or files.

SSL certificates, domains, and CDN (Acquia Edge) settings are configured per environment; production domains point to the Prod environment's load balancer.

Acquia certification fundamentals emphasize the shared responsibility model: Acquia manages the platform layer, while the customer manages application code and configuration.