Place - Maintaining your DAM library

On this page:

• Why asset health matters
• Assets expiring soon
• Assets awaiting review (Submitted state)
• Recently deleted assets
• GDPR: Assets awaiting consent
• GDPR: Assets with no active consent session
• Auditing asset settings
• What to do when a check raises a concern

As your asset library grows, keeping on top of asset states becomes essential — not just for good housekeeping, but for compliance and live content performance. If an asset expires, loses consent, or is deleted, any links to that asset — including those embedded on websites, in CMSs, or in external systems — will stop serving the image automatically.

This guide walks through the key checks administrators should run regularly to stay ahead of issues before they affect live content.

Why asset health matters

Place is a true single source of truth for asset delivery. This is a significant step forward for compliance and brand governance — but it means the state of assets in your DAM has real consequences outside of it.

An asset that goes out of compliance, expires, or is deleted will cause any variant links referencing it to stop working. Depending on how your organisation uses Place Asset Variant links, this could mean broken images on your website, missing assets in emails, or failed API responses in integrated systems.

The checks below are designed to help you identify and act on at-risk assets before that happens.

How often should you run these? The right cadence depends on the volume of assets in your organisation. As a guide:

Assets expiring soon

Why check this: When an asset reaches its expiry date, it is no longer served via any active links. If that asset is referenced on a website or in an integration, the image will stop appearing. Catching assets before they expire gives you time to renew the availability window, replace the asset, or update the link before it becomes a visible problem.

How to find them:

1. Open the filter panel in your archive
2. Filter by Asset availability
3. Set the date range to Next 7 days or Next 30 days depending on how far ahead you want to plan

Review each asset and decide whether to extend its availability, replace it, or let it expire intentionally. If the asset is referenced in any live links, make sure you have a plan for what should happen when it expires.

Assets awaiting review (Submitted state)

Why check this: Assets in the Submitted state have been uploaded but are waiting to be processed — approved, have metadata applied, expiry dates set, and consent checked where relevant. Until an asset is approved, it is not accessible to end users and cannot be served via links. A backlog here can slow down content teams and delay asset availability.

How to find them:

1. Filter by Status: Submitted
2. Sort by Upload date: oldest first to prioritize the longest-waiting assets, or by most recent to review the latest arrivals first
3. Alternatively, filter by upload date — Today or This week — to focus on newly uploaded assets

For each asset in this state, work through the following:

• Assign or confirm an expiry date if relevant
• Check consent requirements and link any relevant consent sessions
• Add or complete required metadata
• Approve the asset once checks are complete

Running this check regularly prevents a backlog from building and ensures assets are available to users as quickly as possible.

Recently deleted assets

Why check this: When an asset is soft deleted, any active links to it stop serving the image immediately. If that asset was in use on a live website or embedded in an integration, the image will disappear. Reviewing recently deleted assets gives you the opportunity to identify whether any had active links and take action — either by restoring the asset, providing a replacement, or notifying the relevant team.

How to find them:

1. Filter by Status: Deleted
2. Sort by Most recently deleted to review the latest removals first

For each deleted asset, consider:

• Was this asset referenced in any live links or integrations?
• Does it need to be restored, or should a replacement be found?
• If permanently deleting, are you confident no live content depends on it?

Note: Soft deleted assets can be restored. Permanent deletion cannot be undone.

GDPR: Assets awaiting consent

Why check this: Assets flagged as GDPR-pending are waiting for the relevant consent to be confirmed. Until consent is in place, these assets are non-compliant — and non-compliant assets are not served via links. If any of these assets are currently live on a website or in an integration, they will not be displaying.

How to find them:

1. Filter by GDPR status: Pending
2. Review the list and identify which assets are still awaiting a consent response

For each asset, follow up with the relevant contact to obtain consent. Once consent is confirmed and linked to the asset, its GDPR status will update accordingly and the asset will resume normal availability.

To learn more about managing GDPR consent in Place, see [GDPR Consent Management — link TBC].

GDPR: Assets with no active consent session

Why check this: An asset may have had consent at one point but no longer has an active consent session — for example, if the session expired or was revoked. These assets are also treated as non-compliant and will not be served via links. They can be easy to miss because they may not appear obviously flagged in day-to-day browsing.

How to find them:

1. Filter by GDPR status: No active session (or equivalent filter — see note below)
2. Sort by Most recently modified to surface assets that may have recently lost their session

For each asset, review whether consent can be renewed, whether the asset should be replaced, or whether it should be archived or deleted.

Auditing asset settings

Over time, individual assets accumulate different configurations — some may have external sharing enabled, others may have direct links active, and others may be missing the download controls your organisation requires. Without a way to surface these, inconsistencies can build up unnoticed.

The asset settings filters let you search your library based on how assets have been configured. This makes it possible to run a targeted audit, identify assets that need attention, and make bulk updates efficiently.

These filters are available under the Asset info filter group in the search bar.

How often should you run this check?

External sharing

The External sharing filter surfaces assets based on whether they can be shared outside your organisation.

• Can be shared — returns assets where external sharing is permitted
• Can't be shared — returns assets where external sharing is restricted

Use this filter to confirm that sensitive or internal assets are not configured for external access, or to identify assets that should have sharing enabled but do not.

Direct link

The Direct link filter surfaces assets based on whether a direct URL to that asset is active. A direct link allows someone to access an asset via a URL without logging in to Place.

• Enabled — returns assets with an active direct link
• Disabled — returns assets with no active direct link

Use this filter to review which assets are accessible without authentication. If you find assets with direct links enabled that should not be publicly accessible, you can disable the link from the asset settings panel.

Request to download

The Request to Download filter surfaces assets based on whether the download approval workflow is active.

• Enabled — returns assets that require a user to submit a download request before accessing the file
• Disabled — returns assets with no download restriction in place

Use this filter to audit rights-managed, licensed, or sensitive content and confirm that the correct approval workflow is applied. It's also useful when onboarding a new set of assets to catch any that have been uploaded without restrictions set.

Combining filters for a more targeted audit

These filters work alongside each other and with the rest of the filter panel. For example:

• Filter for External sharing: Can be shared and Request to download: Disabled to find assets that are externally accessible with no download controls
• Filter for Direct link: Enabled alongside a specific category or market to review access settings for a defined set of assets

Once you have your filtered results, you can select multiple assets and update their settings using the bulk edit toolbar.

To learn more about how each of these settings works individually, see:

• Place - Request to Download
• Place - Direct Links 
• Place - External Sharing 

What to do when a check raises a concern

If any of the checks above surfaces an asset that is linked on a live website or in an external system, here is the recommended sequence:

1. Assess the impact — is the asset currently being served somewhere visible? Check with your web or marketing team if you are unsure.
2. Decide on the action — renew, replace, restore, or remove the link.
3. Act on the asset in Place — update the expiry, complete the consent process, or restore the asset as appropriate.
4. Update any live references if needed — if the asset is being permanently removed rather than restored, ensure the teams using those links are notified and the content updated.

If you need support identifying which assets have active links in external systems, contact your Customer Success Manager. We will be building additional tooling in Place to support this workflow in a future release.

Related articles

• Image Variants — Getting Started 
• GDPR Consent Management in Place 
• Understanding Asset States in Place