Whatever process is used to acquire the assets, metadata should come along for the ride. The digital asset
manager’s goal should be to try to get as much metadata added to assets before they come into the DAM. If you
choose to build an upload API, or uploading tool, ask for an Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) crosswalk to be
part of the uploader if your DAM does not automatically read XMP into your metadata model. As mentioned in the
previous chapter on metadata basics, XMP is the metadata layered into a visual asset at the time of creation or edited
into the object at the time of completion. Your uploading tool should be able to pull as much as possible automatically
from the assets being uploaded, such as file name, extension, and size, preventing the unnecessary work of adding
that information by hand. Further, XMP can be written or programmed into assets at the time of creation.