In this guide, you'll learn how to create an automation that tags assets based on where they’re stored in your DAM, specifically using breadcrumbs, which refer to the asset's folder structure.
If you’re new to automations in Frontify, check out our intro guide before getting started.
What are breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs represent the folder path of an asset; in other words, its exact location within your library’s folder structure. For example, if an asset is stored in: Campaigns > 2024 > Spring > Social, its breadcrumbs would reflect that full path.
Your library’s folder structure often reflects business logic — and tagging assets accordingly can help keep everything aligned and easier to find.
Frontify Automations let you use this location data to automatically apply relevant tags to your assets, helping you keep things organized without manual input.
Step-by-step: Set up your automation
In your project or library backend, click on Automation at the top of the screen. Then, click the New automation button at the bottom to get started.
Name your automation, then select Asset created as the trigger. This means the automation will run every time a new asset is added.
You can narrow when the automation runs using conditions based on:
Description
Extension
Title
Each condition contains options such as: Is, Is not, Contains, Does not contain, Starts with, Ends with, Is empty, and Is not empty.
Lastly, set up actions. You’ll need two actions:
“Get asset details”
This action checks the asset attributes and retrieves relevant data such as its description, alt text, expiration date, and more.
“Add tags to asset”
In this step, select the Breadcrumbs variable from the list of available data points.
This tells the automation to add each folder in the asset’s path as a separate tag.
The automation in action
Upload a new asset to your library. If the automation is set up correctly, it will tag the file based on the full folder path, adding a separate tag for each folder the asset is stored in.