When an asset is uploaded to a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, there is often a unique identifier assigned by the DAM. This is sometimes called

• Asset ID
• DAM ID
• Globally Unique Identifier (GUID)
• Object ID
• Unique Identifier (UID)
• Among other names…

The unique identifier often comprises of a series of numbers and/or letters. This is unique within the DAM system.

So, why is this important? Because a unique identifier is unique regardless of what the file name happens to be. File names are often created by people, not computers, therefore rarely unique.

Often, it is a sequential number assigned by the system upon upload of the asset. There are some unique IDs which are created with an algorithm to make sure the asset is unique within the DAM system. This can help reduce exact duplicate assets in the DAM system.