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SharePoint Library - Best Strategy for Storing & Viewing Pictures?
Hi all,
We are a small contracting/service company and we migrated to SharePoint online just over a year ago. We have built a lot of useful lists and libraries and I would say we are utilizing it quite well, but one thing we haven't figured out is picture/video storage.
We service ~200 buildings over a large geographical region and so we have a "Buildings Library" (each building is a folder), and a "Buildings List". In each building folder, we have projects, quotes, and service plans, and each of those subfolders usually has site pictures for each project, quote or service plan. For reference, the "Buildings Library" is currently at 130,000 files, and my best guess is 20-40% are pictures.
We will often reference site pictures down the road (1-5 years), but at that point we just want to see all the pictures for that site and while it's nice to know what project/quote it was taken for, we really just want to be able to see all the pictures at once. For our larger buildings, we have many projects and many quotes, which means you may have to click through 30-40 folders trying to find pictures of a certain mechanical room or equipment. Previously we used a network drive and so it was faster to navigate and flip through pictures, but it has still always been frustrating.
I've looked at a few different solutions and we tried to create a separate "Site Pictures" library where every time a tech uploaded pictures, they would create a document set with attributes and a lookup to the "Buildings List", but this is cumbersome from mobile and prone to errors. It also would be a massive manual process to move all the existing pictures to this structure.
Any ideas? I'm curious if there is an automated method to tag all pictures in a specific folder or something like that. I'm happy to learn whatever is needed to implement, as long as we can keep the user element simple.
Cheers,
- One option you may want to consider is using a third-party tool that can help with organizing and searching for images within SharePoint Online. For example, some tools allow you to automatically tag images based on their content, making it easier to find and organize them later on: BindTuning Image Gallery, ImageVault , Widen Collective
Another option is to use the SharePoint Online image library feature. This allows you to store and manage images in a dedicated library, with options to tag and categorize them based on attributes like location, project, and date. You can also set up workflows to automatically tag images based on their content or metadata: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-image-gallery-web-part-bbcbe560-14a7-4369-8ef5-3255845e3bfd
To make it easier for your team to access these images, you can create a separate page or site for image galleries, where you can display images by building, location, or project. You can also use SharePoint Online's search functionality to quickly find images based on keywords or tags.
It's worth noting that if you have a large number of images, it may be worth considering a dedicated digital asset management (DAM) system, which can provide even more robust organization and search features. Some DAM systems can integrate with SharePoint Online, allowing you to manage your images from within the SharePoint interface.
Overall, the key to managing images in SharePoint Online is to establish a clear taxonomy and tagging system, and to make it easy for users to find and access the images they need. With the right tools and processes in place, you should be able to streamline your image management workflow and improve productivity for your team.
Hey!
I'm a bit late here, but I had the same kind of problem in another industry.
I also needed an app to easily upload pictures to Sharepoint with meta data etc..
So I made an app for that, it's at https://getcodascan.com :)
Let me know what you think- One option you may want to consider is using a third-party tool that can help with organizing and searching for images within SharePoint Online. For example, some tools allow you to automatically tag images based on their content, making it easier to find and organize them later on: BindTuning Image Gallery, ImageVault , Widen Collective
Another option is to use the SharePoint Online image library feature. This allows you to store and manage images in a dedicated library, with options to tag and categorize them based on attributes like location, project, and date. You can also set up workflows to automatically tag images based on their content or metadata: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-image-gallery-web-part-bbcbe560-14a7-4369-8ef5-3255845e3bfd
To make it easier for your team to access these images, you can create a separate page or site for image galleries, where you can display images by building, location, or project. You can also use SharePoint Online's search functionality to quickly find images based on keywords or tags.
It's worth noting that if you have a large number of images, it may be worth considering a dedicated digital asset management (DAM) system, which can provide even more robust organization and search features. Some DAM systems can integrate with SharePoint Online, allowing you to manage your images from within the SharePoint interface.
Overall, the key to managing images in SharePoint Online is to establish a clear taxonomy and tagging system, and to make it easy for users to find and access the images they need. With the right tools and processes in place, you should be able to streamline your image management workflow and improve productivity for your team.
