Page last modified 13:10, 2 Feb 2010 by Admin

Portfolio

1. Portfolios
1. 1.1. What Is a Portfolio
  1. 1.1.1. Supported File Types
    1. 1.1.1.1. Document, Text, and Office Files
    2. 1.1.1.2. Graphic and Image Files
    3. 1.1.1.3. Audio Files
    4. 1.1.1.4. Video Files
    5. 1.1.1.5. Archive and Security Files
  2. 1.1.2. Filters
  3. 1.1.3. Properties
  4. 1.1.4. Web Service API Support
  5. 1.1.5. Including Portfolio Items in Messages
2. 1.2. Why Use a Portfolio
2. Scenario
3. Requirements and Best Practices for Files and Headers
1. 3.1. Images
2. 3.2. Documents
3. 3.3. Header Images
4. 3.4. Content Box Widths
4. Procedures

This document contains conceptual and procedural information about the portfolio file management feature. This document is intended for application users who need to understand the portfolio feature. The portfolio feature is available in all versions of the application.

Portfolios

ExactTarget customers automatically receive the portfolio for use in managing their email send assets online. If you opened your ExactTarget account before April 2009 the portfolio functionality appears alongside your image and document libraries. If you already store images and documents in your account, you may continue to use those libraries if you wish. However, you can begin using your portfolio at any time. In addition, your portfolio must be used for any activities involving Social Forward or Live Offers.

The application interface and Web Service API both support most portfolio functionality. You cannot batch upload a compressed file to the portfolio with the Web Service API. Future enhancements will support this functionality.

What Is a Portfolio

A portfolio is a single entry point to manage the image, document, and media files that you use and refer to in your emails and microsites. You can see all of your stored digital assets together in the portfolio.

The files in your portfolio retain the names that you specify when you upload them, allowing you to predict the URL of a file in your portfolio. For this reason, a file name in the portfolio must be unique. If you have administrative privileges, you can see the base URL for your next uploaded image on the Account Information screen of the Admin tab. Portfolio image URLs are the base URL plus the file name.

NOTE: If, at the time portfolios were enabled, your organization was known to store a very large number of files in your account, your account may have been set up to automatically create a new behind-the-scenes directory every 250 files. This is done to protect the performance of the portfolio feature and does not affect how you store files in your application. However, in this case there may be some variability in your URLs, and you may not be able to overwrite files from your previous directory.

In the Portfolio workspace, you can see your digital assets as thumbnails or in a listing. The workspace provides the ability to filter the files that you see to help you find files. You can upload, rename, and delete files from the workspace, giving you great flexibility in managing your files. For example, if your company uses a logo file named logo.gif in your emails and microsites, you can overwrite that file with a new logo file.

NOTE: When you use the portfolio feature to manage your digital assets, deleting or renaming a file can break the references to it in existing emails and microsites.

From the workspace you can also view the properties and preview the files.

Supported File Types

The following file types can be imported into your portfolio. Portfolio only accepts images at or less than 200KB in size. Other files must be 1 MB or less in size.

NOTE: Depending on your needs, your portfolio can support different file types than the ones listed below as well as non-image files larger than 1 MB in size. Contact the Customer Success Center for more information on enabling these features.

Document, Text, and Office Files

.css
.csv
.doc
.docx
.dot
.htm
.html
.ics (iCal and Outlook format only)
.js
.mdb
.mpp
.pdf
.pps
.ppsx
.ppt
.pptx
.rtf
.sxc
.sxi
.sxw
.txt
.vsd
.xls
.xlsx
.xml
.xsl
.xslt

Graphic and Image Files

.bmp
.gif
.jpeg
.jpg
.png
.tif
.tiff

Audio Files

.mp3
.ogg
.wav

Video Files

.avi
.mov
.mpeg
.mpg
.swf

Archive and Security Files

.gpg
.zip

Filters

The following filter choices are available for viewing the digital assets in your portfolio:

All items - Displays all of the files in your portfolio.
Images Only - Displays only JPG and GIF files.
No Image - Displays all files EXCEPT JPG and GIF files.
Microsoft Office Files - Displays files created by Microsoft Office applications, such as DOC, DOCX, XLS, and PPT.
PDF Files - Displays PDF files only.
Media Files - Displays MP3, SWF, and other media files.

Properties

When you select a file and click the Properties button from the toolbar, the following information about the file appears for you to reference or edit:

File URL - The web location of the file. Use this value to refer to the file in an email or microsite.
Display name - The name of the file in the application. This name must be unique, regardless of the file type or the folder that the file resides in. For example, you could not have a .JPG file and a .PDF file with the same name. File names can contain only numbers, letters, and spaces.

Even files that appear in separate subfolders in the Portfolio folder must have unique names. If you try to upload a file with the same name as a file that is already in your portfolio, the system prompts you to decide whether to replace the existing file with the new file or rename the file you are uploading.

External Key - The unique identifier of the file. Use this value to refer to the file using the Web Service API. This value is required. If you do not provide an external key, the system uses the file name.
Description - A text description of file. Future enhancements let you search for files based on the description.
Tag - One or more comma-separated keywords that describe or categorize the portfolio item. Future enhancements let you search for files based on the tags. Note: This feature is available in limited release and may not appear in your account.
Folder - The location of the file in your folder hierarchy within the Portfolio folder.
File type - The file type of the file.
File size - The size of the file.
(images only) Image width - The width of the image in pixels.
(images only) Image height - The height of the image in pixels.
Created - The date on which the image was created.
Modified - The last date on which the image was modified.

You can edit the Display Name, External Key, Description, Tags, and Folder from the properties screen.

Web Service API Support

You can use the Web Service API to create, retrieve, update, and delete digital assets in your portfolio. The Web Service API uses the external key value to identify the file in the portfolio.

You can import the images directly from an HTTP URL using the Web Service API, avoiding the need for an FTP process. If you use this process to upload a file with the same name as an existing file, the Web Service API defaults to overwriting the file. The External Key of the file defaults to the file name.

Including Portfolio Items in Messages

You can use the Image() function to include images from your portfolio in your emails. You may also use the AttachFile() function. See the AMPscript Guide for more information.

Why Use a Portfolio

Use a portfolio to simplify storage of your images and other files by maintaining them in a single folder.

With the portfolio feature, you can retain the filename on a file you import, allowing you to predict the URL of a file.

Using the portfolio feature, you can upload some file types, such as CSS and javascript files, that you cannot upload with other asset library features.

Scenario

Northern Trail Outfitters would like to use a few images for their new Birthday Discount email. While in the Content tab, they create a new subfolder by right-clicking Portfolio and selecting New Folder. The following New Folder screen appears:

File:Portfolio/1.png

Northern Trail Outfitters gives their subfolder a name by typing over the highlighted "New Folder" text.
To upload more than one file, they click the button. The following screen appears:

File:Portfolio/3.png

They select their first image by clicking Browse and selecting their image from their local machine.
The file name appears under the Display Name field:

File:Portfolio/4.png

They click Browse again to upload an additional file. The following screen appears displaying the additional uploaded image:

File:Portfolio/bday.png

Northern Trail Outfitters clicks OK.

File:Portfolio/upload.png

When the files are finished uploading, they click OK and the images appear in their portfolio.

Northern Trail Outfitters is now ready to create their email by using the files located in their Portfolio subfolder.

Requirements and Best Practices for Files and Headers

The following section contains requirements and best practices for images, documents, and headers to be used in emails.

By default each document should be no larger than 1MB in size, and your portfolio folder can handle up to 100MB for all of your stored documents combined. Please contact your ExactTarget representative to increase these limits
See the the ASCII page for a list of characters that are not allowed in your document filename..

Images

Use only the supported formats listed above.
The maximum width of the image depends on which content box contains the image. Each template layout option has different content box widths. For best results, consult the width specifications for content boxes in a standard email template later in this topic.

Documents

You can upload upload any type of document that can be opened in a browser window. However, the subscriber clicking the document link must have the software necessary to open the file installed on his or her computer. For this reason, the recommended format for documents is PDF, as the Adobe Reader software necessary to open a PDF can be downloaded for free by any subscriber.

Header Images

As a best practice, your header should consist of an image only, with Original selected as the image size.
Your header image should be exactly 600 pixels wide and no deeper than 150 pixels.
Use 72 dpi for your header image.

Content Box Widths

See the Template Size Guidelines document on 3sixty for the maximum base width (in pixels) for an image that you want to insert into a content box in your template-based email, depending on which layout was chosen for the template.

Note: Please note the following:

The image sizes shown are the absolute maximum widths, which can be used when you leave the content box border set to "off" and you change the margin setting to 0 (by default, the margin is set for a 4-pixel padding). If you add a border or include a margin, you'll need to decrease the width of the image accordingly.
If your header includes an image, set all of your content boxes' margins to 0 so as to avoid white space in the header. Having a margin greater than 0 widens the email, which adds padding around the header area, leading to white space around the header image.

The border and margin settings are defined in the Borders/Background dialog box of the Content-Building wizard.