How CROW streamlines content delivery with the Fotoware API
Having several online channels and a vast library of digital assets, Kennisplatform CROW relies on the Fotoware API to ensure seamless content delivery. We spoke with Data Architect Redmer Kronemeijer, to learn more about their integrations and technical ecosystem.
Kennisplatform CROW is a leading Dutch knowledge platform dedicated to providing authoritative expertise and practical resources for professionals in infrastructure, mobility, and public space management. Driven by its mission to make high-quality knowledge broadly accessible, CROW supports engineers, planners, and decision-makers across the Netherlands with proven guidelines, technical reports, and research.
As a non-profit organization, with such a vital role in delivering trusted information, it’s essential for CROW to ensure efficient and secure content delivery. This includes having the right content available at the right place, while always staying up-to-date on rights, licenses, and revisions.
A technical ecosystem with DAM at its core
For many years, Fotoware has provided CROW with its Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution, acting as the central hub where every media file resides. This repository has been the cornerstone to CROW’s technical ecosystem, ensuring asset control, rights management, and instant access for key stakeholders. Thereby empowering CROW to deliver up-to-date content and knowledge efficiently and securely.
“We’ve long used Fotoware as an image library, managing the images and illustrations for print and online publications. Since about a year we’ve promoted it to a general digital asset management system across all web properties and all types of digital assets,” explains Redmer. “That allows us to trace asset usage, reducing duplication across systems. We strive to make CROW content more interconnected and consistent, for which a single source of digital assets is pivotal.”
After moving from Fotoware On-premises to SaaS in 2023, CROW has started the work on seamlessly connecting their DAM – Fotoware Veloz – to other key software. This includes their Content Management System (CMS) Wagtail, their custom-made knowledge base, and the data management system. This way, CROW ensures a single source of truth across all platforms, where every piece of content can be traced back to the original within the DAM itself.
Read more: How Fotoware SaaS enables CROW to work with images securely and flexibly
Navigating the challenges of omnichannel publishing
As CROW’s mission extends to supporting a diverse network of stakeholders, the DAM’s ability to enhance the omnichannel publication is a key success factor. However, this is no small feat, as CROW’s digital assets span technical reports, guidance documents, documented research, and visual media – all of which need to reach stakeholders in a coordinated, efficient manner.
“We’re lucky to have long standardized print production on a fully digital process, that also underlies the same publications online. So those images already had a single source. However, other types of files, as well as images serving other online properties, did not. That’s the challenge we tackled when the crow.nl website was up for renewal and thousands of images had to be migrated.”
Among the most pressing challenges for CROW was guaranteeing that every user accessed the latest, correct version of each resource, with all associated information easily available. This includes the internal departments, like Communications, who need to keep the online channels up to date and consistent.
However, the omnichannel strategy also encompasses external stakeholders, like Civil Engineers, in need of technical specifications and construction standards; urban planners looking for guidance on sustainability, health and safety; municipal decision makers searching for policy frameworks, and many more.
The complexity was heightened by the need to manage licensing – since some materials are only available after purchase, it was crucial to ensure that access rights were properly assigned and updated as new revisions were released.
Without an integrated system, stakeholders risked using outdated documents or having improper access, and manual updates became a burden. Fixing these issues was, therefore, at the core of CROW’s goal of delivering trusted knowledge quickly and securely.
“Our knowledge base and website are now live and serving customers with Fotoware as the backing service for digital assets. It remains an ongoing effort to reuse content and assets across our systems,” says Redmer.
“There are thousands of legacy assets and many new assets created daily. We try to put metadata to good use, to make the right assets findable, in a way that promotes filling it in. From my data perspective, there’s rarely too little metadata, but for many writers, editors and readers, the desire for metadata gets in their way of uploading and using the assets, often in a highly contextual manner. So that’s an interesting balance to strike.”
Harnessing APIs for seamless integrations
Embracing modern digital strategies, CROW has harnessed the capabilities of APIs to seamlessly connect Fotoware Veloz with other essential platforms. These integrations enable automated exchanges of content and data, ensuring that every asset remains current and accessible across all channels. This is done by assigning the assets unique identifiers, enabling all connected systems to accurately reference and manage such files throughout their lifecycle.
“The well-documented Open API specification of Fotoware lets you easily write small, feature oriented services with only a few dozen lines of code. We use the API to add identifiers, to calculate file hashes, to calculate visual similarity and to export all assets’ metadata to our internal Knowledge Graph. The Fotoware API was also easy to add to the Wagtail CMS, ensuring that editors were using the right images and assets.”
By centralizing control and minimizing manual intervention, CROW has established a foundation where digital assets flow smoothly and securely between systems, supporting efficient publication and reliable access throughout.
Ensuring efficiency and control across teams
Today, assets are uploaded once to Fotoware Veloz and distributed everywhere they need to be, whether that’s the website, newsletters, or partner portals. Automated tagging and metadata management are handled within the DAM itself, making assets easier to find and administered in accordance with regulations.
“We use manual thematic structured categorization, automated visual intelligence for object recognition, we use Fotoware albums for broader content review. We feel that metadata really is a matter of shared responsibility of all who use content. Of everyone, for everyone. It should not be an afterthought.”
For marketing & communications, the setup is particularly useful, as it enables them to easily find what they need within one central repository, from which they can download, export or share the assets to the correct channel or person in seconds.
