Inside The New York Islanders’ Modern DAM Workflow

Creating a solid digital asset management strategy

As one of three NHL franchises in the New York area, the Islanders’ creative team captures a massive amount of content that extends far beyond the ice. To manage a growing library of photos and make them easily accessible to their entire 200-person organization, they needed a digital asset management (DAM) system that was fast, organized, and intuitive.

The challenge: Organizing and finding content 

Senior Manager of Photography Dennis DaSilva is responsible for capturing and delivering images for every part of the organization. His work includes game action, community events, sponsorship activations, and concerts. His team struggled with an old system that was clunky and disorganized, making it difficult for colleagues to find the assets they needed.

• Limited categorization made the old system harder to use. The previous platform worked for basic storage but could not fully organize the library. As Dennis explained, they were struggling with “being able to fully take advantage of the organization’s ability to categorize things.”
• Teamwide access was inconsistent. Without a clear central hub, employees and partners struggled to search for or request images. Content was siloed, preventing various departments from easily finding and utilizing the high-quality images the photo team produced.
• No storage for non-game photography. NHL teams can access Getty Images for game coverage, but everything else lacked a home. Photos from street hockey programs, marketing shoots, and arena events were stored across scattered locations.
• Missing metadata made searching slow. Without a consistent and deep metadata strategy, finding specific assets was a major roadblock. Dennis notes, “A lot of times, things were getting lost by the wayside because there was a sheer lack of metadata… we needed a place to store them where it would be easy to find something that we took 4 years ago”.

“Before PhotoShelter, it was difficult to see the value of our photos at a high level because everything wasn’t as accessible.”

Dennis DaSilva, Senior Manager of Photography, New York Islanders

The solution: A real-time, AI-powered DAM for a modern sports

Before PhotoShelter, the Islanders’ asset management was a bottleneck that slowed down the entire company. Now, with a centralized and streamlined DAM, the team has unlocked a seamless, real-time workflow that empowers everyone from social media managers to external partners. Here’s how PhotoShelter helped turn the team’s challenges into wins:

• One organized and centralized library. The team can now build a sophisticated organizational structure that works for their entire company. “With PhotoShelter, you can set up different collections and galleries… More layers of organization are always better for us,” says Dennis. This structure provides a “singular place where everyone knows to go,” making the entire process “so much more streamlined”.
• Finding the perfect asset is faster than ever. They utilize a robust tagging system that employs custom shortcuts, or “Typeinator keys,” which automatically apply multiple keywords to an image. For more granular searches, Dennis uses AI Visual Search. “If I’m looking for a very specific image of a mother and daughter or father and son watching a game… it’s super helpful” in narrowing down hundreds of results to find the exact moment.

• The team can fulfill requests from anywhere. On-the-go access is critical, and Dennis relies heavily on the FileFlow mobile app. “I use FileFlow every single day,” he says. “If I’m on a shoot and somebody asks for something… It’s really great to just have that access to our system from my phone… I appreciate having the whole database at the tip of my fingers.”
• Their game-day workflow is now in real time. Speed is everything on game days, and the Islanders’ photo team now delivers assets from the ice to social media in minutes. They use Ethernet connections at photo spots to FTP images directly into a PhotoShelter folder where the social and digital teams have immediate access. “A goal is scored, we pull those cards immediately… getting them tagged out within 3 to 5 minutes,” Dennis explains.

“I think between our organization, we put up around 50,000 downloads or something like that in a 365 day period, which was pretty cool to see. And we look at those built-in analytics often. We take everything into account to make sure people are really utilizing PhotoShelter to the fullest. It’s a strong system, so we want our entire company to know that it’s available to them when they need it.”

Dennis DaSilva, Senior Manager of Photography, New York Islanders

A content power play

Switching to PhotoShelter gave the Islanders one organized home for every image they produce. The ability to track downloads with built-in analytics helps prove the system’s ROI and adoption across the company. They went from a state of disorganization to a workflow that is completely dialed in. 

“PhotoShelter really does everything that we need it to do. We went from essentially nothing, to really learning what a DAM could do, to using PhotoShelter and having our process locked down and tough as nails. It’s just been everything that we could ask for at this point…. Our reps are great, too. They always have our backs when we have questions and if we need information. Very helpful.”

Dennis DaSilva, Senior Manager of Photography, New York Islanders