DAM ● ● ● NATMAGS

38 | June 2009 | www.printmediamag.co.uk

Natmags’ workflow and DAM grail Natmags’ search for its ideal workflow solution has been long and frustrating – but now it feels it has discovered a system that gives it everything required to meet the publisher’s future needs

Whatever the National

Magazine Company

has achieved thus far in

implementing new publishing systems

the company is clear about one thing –

this is just the start.

In the last three years, the consumer

magazine publisher of 20 titles and one

of the UK’s foremost luxury magazine

publishers, has undertaken change in

its workflow processes, with censhare’s

software – digital asset management

and editorial and production workflow all

rolled into one – at the heart of it.

Sean Briggs, NatMag’s group

publishing systems manager, is

unequivocal: “censhare is the hub now.

That’s how we always saw it, but it was

only when we started lifting the hood that

we realised it was a workflow system, not

just a publishing system. It feels like we

have made all the big ticks, but there is

such a lot left to do.”

The search which led the Hearst

Corporation subsidiary to censhare

began in 2006. The company was

looking for something that it rapidly

came to the conclusion didn’t exist in the

marketplace: a photo library, an asset

store, editorial/publishing workflow and

production workflow – all within a single

solution.

Briggs recalls: “We went to the

market and looked at all the usual

systems out there. Every time someone

said they had a DAM, we went and had

a look. We were looking for this all-

encompassing solution and there wasn’t

one, so we had pretty much decided

that we needed to start looking for two

systems to work together. That’s what the

newspapers were doing: getting workflow

and a photo library and tying the two

together.”

When NatMag came across

censhare, a German software developer,

it sounded, says Briggs, too good to be

true. Fact finding trips to Germany to

see how publishers such as Condé Nast,

MVG and Vogel were using the software

proved instructive. While Condé Nast

only had the editorial workflow, MVG the

photo library, the implementation at Vogel

was closest to what NatMag had in mind.

NatMag also checked out how BMW was

using censhare in Germany to control

a global, multi-language production

schedule.

“The sophistication of the workflow

caught our eye,” says Briggs. “Each time

we saw censhare we felt more confident

that it could give NatMag those three

things – asset management, publishing

workflow and production workflow.”

At the same time, the publisher

had a requirement to digitise all of its

print transparencies and keep them in

a repository – a project that amounted

to more than 100,000 rights managed

images. Briggs knew there were a

number of systems that could handle

such a job, and censhare said it could

also.

“It wasn’t their core competence

but we thought it would be a really

Sean Briggs, Group Publishing Systems Manager, The National Magazine Company

good test for censhare,” he explains. A

small, server-based system was quickly

set up and within six months the photo

library was created and high res images

could be stored in it. It was centrally

controlled but remote users were able

to log in, upload images and tag them

with metadata. It was quick and because

it was Java-based, it was secure, says

Briggs.

Over the course of about another

year, the system gradually developed at

NatMag, as censhare tailored the system

around the publisher’s needs.

“Out of the box it was pretty

rudimentary, but they kept adding things,

tailoring it,” Briggs remembers. “It gave

“censhare is an important part of the company’s strategy to take complete control of content production and management right through to the creation of print ready PDFs. It will provide our business with opportunities to work in more flexible ways and for us to mobilise our considerable content assets across multiple distribution channels.” Simon Horne, General Manager, The National

Magazine Company

us the confidence that they could deliver.

They said: ‘you have the basic system,

just play with it, set up a test magazine.”

We did that and it came together quite

quickly after that.”

This point in the timeline was about

16 months ago now, and it coincided

with wider change at NatMag, as the

company had already started taking its

repro in-house. It was therefore getting

used to producing its own print-ready

PDFs,

Company magazine took on the

responsibility of acting as the pilot for

censhare inside NatMag. “It took three

months to get the workflow right; a three

month pilot “Briggs says. “After that

though, we had a system that delivered

exactly what we wanted”; cover pages,

editorial pages, display and classified

were all being handled within censhare

for the magazine.

Briggs continues: “We had to be

careful with hooking censhare into legacy

systems. censhare looked at how our ad

booking system prepared its data and

hooked in remarkably quickly. I think

they have just used so many different

ad booking systems in Germany, so they

were prepared. The booking system

feeds ad information into censhare, and

censhare sits waiting for the ad to arrive.

We use OneVision Asura for preflighting

and that’s hooked into censhare as well.”

“Company is now on its ninth issue

using censhare. In six months we’ve

got 14 out of our 20 magazines inside

censhare, and we’re averaging two

magazines per month. The magazines

themselves are responsible for checking

the technical quality of the files, and

production is monitoring performance, so

we have file control where it counts. It’s

our responsibility; it’s not being handed

over to a third party.”

www.printmediamag.co.uk | June 2009 | 39

DAM ● ● ● NATMAGS

The live flatplan within censhare

is the beating heart of the software,

allowing everyone to see progress

as pages and publications are built,

while pages can be moved around

simultaneously, and re-folioing is taken

care of automatically (a small feature, but

hugely significant). As long as the page is

refreshed, the up to date flatplan is right

there on the screen.

There are many other areas where

censhare is already proving its worth to

NatMag. It looks after disaster recovery,

and provides numerous automated

features, such as the re-folioing already

mentioned, but also time saving

processes such as ensuring images are

in the right file format, colour space

and resolution before they get to the art

teams.

“It’s only three little steps, but before

censhare it was three little steps that the

art team had to do. Whenever we see

those little gaps we are pretty sure that

censhare can do it,” says Briggs.

Also, instant archiving of publications

that have gone to press is an automated

process. censhare is configured to keep

text files, the final InDesign document of

each page and the print version of the

PDF. It also stores each original image

and the final manipulated version. These

are all linked and stored automatically,

while any other interim versions are

wiped away.

The image workflow can still be

improved in other ways also, Briggs

explains: “It does what we set out to do

but it could be better. We’re now on a

treadmill of getting images on, so we

have not had time to finesse it. That

will happen in October, when all the

magazines are on.

“The real problem is that on a digital

shoot there will be 50-100 images, and

you might only use five of them. But do

we put them all in censhare and tag

them? censhare is also responsible for

rights management which is important

for future ways of working.”

Rights management was certainly an

important consideration for NatMag in

moving to censhare. With censhare, the

rights information has to be uploaded at

the same time as the image itself. There’s

no way round that. Having the rights data

with the image ensures that everyone

knows how a picture can be used,

including the digital teams taking images

for the web that have already been

automatically converted for such usage.

“It’s a small thing but it means that

the web designers don’t have to go into

Photoshop to convert it themselves.

These little time savings are everywhere

in censhare,” says Briggs.

Things can certainly still be

improved within censhare itself, Briggs

believes. For a start, the interface

feels old and simply functional; it’s

not the type of interface that creatives

enjoy. The criticism has been passed

along to censhare, and Briggs reveals:

“They have shown us version 4, and

it looks like an Apple product – it’s

beautiful. So we know censhare is

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“We had to be careful with hooking censhare into legacy systems. censhare looked at how our ad booking system prepared its data and hooked in re-markably quickly.” Sean Briggs

DAM ● ● ● NATMAGS

40 | June 2009 | www.printmediamag.co.uk

censhare is a leading provider of knowledge and

expertise to the global publishing industry, specializing

in the development of the innovative censhare

Publishing System, an end to end solution for managing

and producing content across all media channels.

The company encourages businesses to work more

efficiently with integrated ways of working. censhare

offers the most up-to-date technological advancements

along with specialist experience at both a strategic level

and at project delivery level.

Clients include many major international companies

including Condé Nast, Bauer, Dyson, BMW, General

Motors, Siemens, Swiss Reinsurance Company and

McCann Erickson.

censhare has offices in London, Zurich, Verona with

headquarters in Munich and clients based in Europe,

USA and South America.

• www.censhare.co.uk

About censhare

Rupert Firmstone,

CEO of censhare

(UK)

addressing it, but we want it now.”

Editorial teams were involved right

at the start, to define the scope of the

system that was required. The team on

Company magazine was so positive and

so keen to grab the control that censhare

promised that it was happy to be the

guinea pig.

NatMag’s General Manager, Simon

Horne says: “censhare is an important

part of the company’s strategy to take

complete control of content production

and management right through to the

creation of print ready PDFs. It will

provide our business with opportunities

to work in more flexible ways and for

us to mobilise our considerable content

assets across multiple distribution

channels”,

Sean Brigg’s best tip for other

publishers looking at the workflow areas

of their business is to recognise that

censhare is incredibly extensive. If they

want only a small aspect, other systems

might be more suited. If they want asset

management with very sophisticated

publishing and production workflow and

more, such as approvals, tracking and

control, and disaster recovery, on top,

censhare could be the one.

“It’s really hard for publishers to get

their heads around what we show them

because it’s so all-encompassing. If we

showed them just the editorial workflow,

or just the photo library, they would get

it – but this is everything.”

NatMag is looking ahead, says

Briggs “It feels like we are much better

set up for the future. We are ready for it

now. We have no idea what that future

will look like, but we have the tools in

place. Having this flexible workflow tool

makes life easier and means we can

react and use any kind of media with the

same kind of control.”

Rupert Firmstone, CEO, censhare

(UK) says, “The Natmags project is of

global significance due to its scale and

“It feels like we are much better set up for the future. Having this flexible workflow tool makes life easier and means we can react and use any kind of media with the same kind of control.” Sean Briggs

complexity. Everyone involved should

be proud of this achievement and for

the smoothness of the transition, which

was largely due to the strength and

openness of Natmags and its teams. Just

like many other censhare customers,

Natmags is now prepared for the future

with a defined way of working for

everyone involved. Content is organized

in a structured way that is accessible to

everyone and many previously manual

processes are now being automated.

Natmags is a flagship for censhare and I

very much look forward to helping other

companies prepare for the future.”

Natmags Project Team: Bob Bousfield, Amber Maher, James Naylor, Sean Briggs, Patrick Renner, Sue Rice and Timmie Steele

Above: Company magazine working with censhare

Below: censhare flatplan