About Lifecycle States

Every asset in Data Dwell has a lifecycle state that says where it is in its life: being processed, waiting for approval, held back until a release date, available for use, past its expiry date, or archived. The state is stored on the asset, so anyone looking at it can see whether it may be used, without checking a spreadsheet or asking a colleague.

How Lifecycle States Work

An asset is always in one of these states:

• Processing: uploaded, with previews still being generated.
• Creation: processing is complete and the asset is being routed. Assets that need approval move to Review, everything else becomes Active.
• Review: waiting for approval from its reviewers.
• Embargo: approved, but not available until its release date.
• Active: approved, released and available to everyone whose permissions allow it.
• Expiration: past its expiry date, or flagged for a decision, and waiting for its owner to decide what happens next.
• Archive: kept for the record, but out of circulation.

Assets move between states when people act on them (for example approving an asset in the review queue) or automatically through lifecycle rules.

Key Features

• Review queue: assets waiting for approval, where reviewers approve, approve with embargo, reject or archive them. Found under Asset Lifecycle > Review queue. See How to Review Assets.
• Review chains: decide who reviews which assets, based on folder or metadata, in one or more steps. Set up by admins under App Setup > Review chains. See How to Set Up Review Chains.
• Embargo: keeps approved assets unavailable until a release date, then releases them automatically. Upcoming releases are listed under Asset Lifecycle > Embargo.
• Expiration: collects assets that need an end-of-life decision, so their owners can archive, delete or extend them. Found under Asset Lifecycle > Expiration.
• Locked assets: blocks an asset from being downloaded, shared or used, with a reason. Locked assets are listed under Asset Lifecycle > Locked assets.
• Access requests: users can request permission to use a locked asset. Admins approve or reject the requests under Asset Lifecycle > Access requests.
• Lifecycle rules: move, lock, archive or update assets automatically when conditions are met, for example when rights expire or an asset reaches a certain age. Set up by admins under App Setup > Lifecycle rules. See How to Create Lifecycle Rules.

Default Behaviour

• Lifecycle features are optional and turned on per workspace. Ask your workspace admin or Data Dwell support if you don't see the Asset Lifecycle menu.
• A built-in Catch All review chain handles assets that no other chain applies to.
• Four built-in lifecycle rules are available for common end-of-life cases, for example archiving expired assets. They are off until an admin turns them on.

Common Use Cases

• Brand approval: new uploads go to the brand team for review before anyone else can use them.
• Campaign launches: finished campaign material is approved with an embargo and released on launch day.
• Licensed content: assets with expired rights are moved to Expiration or locked automatically, so they aren't used by mistake.
• Library clean-up: assets older than a year are flagged so owners can archive or delete what is no longer needed.

Planning Considerations

• Start with the parts you need. A team that only wants expiry tracking doesn't need review chains.
• Decide who reviews what before setting up chains, and keep the number of steps small.
• Agree what should happen to expired assets (archive, review or a decision by the owner) before turning on lifecycle rules.