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CDS

Brandworkz brand management software

CDS provides digital asset management with Brandworkz, cloud brand and digital asset management software enabling clients to ensure that their brand vision and marketing content is consistent in every channel. It is easy to use and provides complete control, brand compliance, content consistency and rapid distribution of brand assets.

Features

  • Content management system (CMS) for creating online brand guidelines
  • Digital asset management via a centralised repository for digital assets
  • Approval based workflows for streamlined marketing production
  • Enterprise search provides fast, intuitive search functionality across all content
  • Reporting provides real time metrics and intelligence on asset use
  • Global 24/7 web-based access
  • Granular access controls provide appropriate permissions and access for users
  • Meets the highest system and hosting security criteria
  • Experienced brand management consultants to implement/support system.
  • A simple UI presents compliant templates for print artwork

Benefits

  • Ensure consistent/positive representation of your brand at every touchpoint
  • Centralise all your content in one access-controlled repository
  • Showcase the best work from your global marketing teams online
  • Educate all team members about your brand with web-based guidelines
  • Reduce time spent searching for, sharing and re-purposing assets
  • Reduce time to market with online collaboration
  • Eliminate artwork localisation costs with web2print module
  • Provide secure, permission-based access to all staff and suppliers
  • Fine tune your brand management with reports/analysis
  • Produce compliance-based audit trail of approvals and comments.

Pricing

£26.52 a user a year

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at bidteam@cds.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

1 9 1 7 1 1 7 9 8 6 4 0 5 0 9

Contact

CDS Matt Johnson
Telephone: 0113 399 4000
Email: bidteam@cds.co.uk

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
No
Cloud deployment model
Public cloud
Service constraints
Any planned maintenance around fixes and upgrades is agreed with the client in advance, and timed to take place during low impact periods (weekends, night time etc.)
System requirements
Web access via common major browser

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
Support response times via Freshdesk ticketing software system. Urgent : respond 4hours, resolution 8hours. High: respond 4 hours, resolution 24hours. Medium: respond 8hours, resolution 5days(no redeployment) 1-3months(redeploying code). Low: respond 24hours, resolution 3 working days (question), 10days(visual/cosmetic defects),2-6months(redeploying code)
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
Yes
Online ticketing support accessibility
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
No
Support levels
Brandworkz provide a consistent level of support for all clients, as dictated by our service level agreement built into all contracts.
All clients have named administrator access to our helpdesk (email or phone). However, the logging of an incident must always be done by a clients 1st line support by sending an email with enough detail for us to replicate the issue. The response time is calculated as starting from the time this email is received.
Response times are included in the previous section. As a result of our support we contractually agree to offer 99.9% guaranteed availability over the course of any 12 month period measured as HTTP response availability of the log-in page of your web application as measured by us. If this is not achieved, we credit the cost of 1 day of SaaS service costs for every 15 minutes for which the site is unavailable, up to an aggregate maximum of two hours unavailability of the site in any one calendar month provided that you report the unavailability and request the credit in writing to us within two Business Days of the downtime occurring.
Support costs are built into the SaaS license.
Support available to third parties
Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
Brandworkz is an extremely user intuitive system to work within and therefore our experience is that minimal training is required whether it be for administrators or front-end users. Typically, 1-2 days training is need for the former dependent upon the modules employed. Included in this training is a section that covers the front-end user interface, which has allowed our customers then to use administrators as an internal training resource.
However, training and help material is provided to all users via the ‘help’ link in every instance of Brandworkz. This takes the user to a video enabled help site, covering advice on all main tasks.
Further training and help material can be produced and held within the system itself, and can be in the form of documentation, web articles or videos.
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
PDF
End-of-contract data extraction
Client admins have full access to all data during the lifecycle of the system and can, at any time, conduct a full export of meta and download of assets.
Furthermore Brandworkz exit management policy includes provision for data extraction as a part of the contract.
End-of-contract process
The exit management schedule states: 1 Migration
1.1 Where the Services provided to Customer are dependent on equipment which is not owned by Customer, Supplier will ensure the necessary migration of all Supplier Software, data and other materials from such equipment to similar equipment owned by Customer or a new service provider. Implementation of the change shall be carried out by Supplier in such a way as to cause the minimum possible disruption to the supply of the Services.
1.2 Any costs for professional services to complete such a migration will be quoted for by the supplier and agreed between the customer and the supplier in advance.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Internet Explorer 11
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
Application to install
No
Designed for use on mobile devices
Yes
Differences between the mobile and desktop service
The DAM element of Brandworkz is based on a fully responsive design so that the display will adjust to the screen size of the device being used i.e. on a mobile device the assets will display as a single column and the menu will concertina.
Service interface
Yes
User support accessibility
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Description of service interface
Our system provides client admin teams with access to the admin service UI allowing for the management of users, assets, reports, site configuration and metadata attributes.
Accessibility standards
WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
Accessibility testing
We use browser extensions and onscreen readers.
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
Yes: The Brandworkz REST/JSON based, open API is ready to be used on projects where tight integration with third party systems is needed; CMS, Ecommerce, Email marketing etc.
Our open RESTFUL/JSON API system is built as a SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). This means that the functionality of the system is broken out into separate services, for example, a service that deals with assets, another for albums, another for categories, etc.
Each service then is a standalone entity that communicates using the same architecture.
The benefits of this approach for developers and clients are:
- Speed
- Scalability
- Stability
- Monitoring
​- Development Time

To find our more about the API you can read the documentation here: https://apidocs.brandworkz.com/
API documentation
Yes
API documentation formats
  • Open API (also known as Swagger)
  • HTML
  • ODF
  • PDF
  • Other
API sandbox or test environment
Yes
Customisation available
Yes
Description of customisation
Brandworkz is a fully functional Brand Management portal. Customisation can fall into two categories:
1. Standard configuration inc. site skin, choice of page templates, content architecture, meta-schema, logo finder structure, showcase structure, user groups, permissions, reports, workflow stages. All of these elements can be configured by system admins at Brandworkz or on the client team following appropriate training, using the admin interface provided as standard.
2. Bespoke customisation: Clients are able, with our help, to customise elements such as:- page templates, integrations, SSO (Single Sign On), new features (either bespoke or directed development approach), mobile apps. Depending on the nature of the customisation the work would need to be carried out by the Brandworkz product team based on agreed specification s with the client.

Scaling

Independence of resources
All server types are in auto-scaling clusters, which means that if the number of simultaneous users increases, we will automatically launch more servers to deal with the increased demand.
Auto-scaling is included for the following server types:
• Web-servers:
• Image transcoding servers:
• Video transcoding servers:
• Zip servers:

Analytics

Service usage metrics
Yes
Metrics types
The Brandworkz reporting module enables reporting on asset usage, including detailed reports on downloads and uploads. Configurable reports included in the system are:
Individual logins
Individual groups
Individual assets
Top 100 viewed assets
Top 100 viewed folders
Top 100 downloaded assets
Top 100 search terms
Top 100 users (based on number of logins)
Top 100 users (based on no. of downloads)
Top 100 download wizards
Top 100 IP addresses
Uploads for a time period
Downloads for a time period
Logins for a time period
Asset Views for a time period
Folder Views for a time period
Disk space usage
Reporting types
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Reports on request

Resellers

Supplier type
Reseller providing extra features and support
Organisation whose services are being resold
Brandworkz

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Other security clearance
Government security clearance
Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
European Economic Area (EEA)
User control over data storage and processing locations
Yes
Datacentre security standards
Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
Penetration testing frequency
At least every 6 months
Penetration testing approach
‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
Protecting data at rest
  • Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
Equipment disposal approach
Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Typically;
• All assets exported to a folder hierarchy matching the one set up in the web-UI,
• Associated spreadsheets/CSV files for each section with all metadata present for each asset.
This provides the most flexible and standard ability to import the assets and the associated metadata into another system.
If required we can explore using sidecar files for associated metadata, though this adds time.
Timescale and effort will vary based on the amount of assets but all assets would be exported within 2 to 5 days of effort. We would typically do this within 30 days.
Data export formats
  • CSV
  • ODF
  • Other
Other data export formats
  • Virtually any digital file type can be stored and managed.
  • All major Image types
  • All major document formats
  • All major video types
  • All major audio file types
Data import formats
  • CSV
  • ODF
  • Other
Other data import formats
  • Virtually any digital file type can be stored and managed.
  • All major Image types
  • All major document formats
  • All major video types
  • All major audio file types

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
TLS (version 1.2 or above)
Data protection within supplier network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
We guarantee 99.9% availability over the course of any 12 month period measured as HTTP response availability of the log-in page of your web application as measured by us.
Notes.
1: Guaranteed Availability excludes scheduled downtime including:
- required restarts after installation of critical software updates or software installations which will so far as possible be performed outside Business Hours and
- scheduled hardware/software updates to the network (which is usually performed between 1 and 5 am in the morning UK time).
2: Guaranteed availability excludes unavailability occurring due to technical faults arising on networks outside the control of our hosting provider.
SERVICE CREDITS
If Guaranteed Availability is not achieved, we will credit you the cost of 1 day of your SaaS service costs for every 15 minutes for which the site is unavailable below the level of Guaranteed Availability up to an aggregate maximum of two hours unavailability of the site in any one calendar month provided that you report the unavailability and request the credit in writing to us within two Business Days of the downtime occurring. In the event that you are entitled to multiple credits arising from the same event, such credits shall not be cumulative.
Approach to resilience
Our hosting partner is Amazon Web Services who operate some of the most secure, state-of-the-art facilities in the world:
- UK and other clients are hosted in Amazon Ireland (across multiple data centers) Backup and Disaster Recovery is at Amazon Frankfurt, Germany
- 24 hour video recording/surveillance.
- Bio-metric entry.
- Dry-pipe fire suppression.
- 20 mins battery power for entire building in case of power brownouts
- Diesel generators for power in case of power blackouts
Hosting Security Overview:
- All client data encrypted at rest (AES-128)
- Encryption of data in transit (HTTPS/TLS – 2048bit)
- Firewalls (incl. NAT)
- Network monitoring and intrusion prevention (DDOS, MITM, IP spoofing, Port Scanning, Packet Sniffing)
- Minimal attack-surface
- Hosting provider has following accreditations: ISO 27001, PCI DDS Level 1, SOC 1/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 (SAS70), SOC 2, SOC3 FISMA, DIACAP, FedRAMP, DOD CSM levels 1-5, ITAR, FIPS 140-2, MTCS Level 3, HIPAA, CSA, MPAA
- Dev, QA and Production environments completely segregated
- Only necessary ports open
- Trend Micro anti-malware installed
- Hardened OS
Outage reporting
Our internal monitoring includes tools such as:
Uptime Robot, AOI Science and AWS Alerting. These provide us emails and sms alerts as to outage or performance issues, along with our own dashboard monitoring.
Outages are communicated to clients via email with full details as to cause and resolution activity.

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
Granular user permissions are easily created and managed in Brandworkz by your administrators; setting up appropriate groups, with associated permissions, that multiple users can be added to. The actual configuration of permissions is done through simple clicks against folders that you want to allow or restrict access to.
Your administrators, by virtue of their user profile in the system, will have access to a specific management interface where they alone will be be able to manage elements including:
-Users
-Groups
-Workflows
-Site Skin (Branding)
-Page Templates
-Download wizards
-Hot folders
-Messaging
-Archiving
-Import
-Reports
Access restriction testing frequency
At least once a year
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users have access to real-time audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
User-defined
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
User-defined
How long system logs are stored for
User-defined

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
NQA
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
13/7/2021
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
N/A
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Cyber essentials
No
Cyber essentials plus
Yes
Other security certifications
No

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
  • ISO/IEC 27001
  • Other
Other security governance standards
Our hosting provider is accredited to PCI DDS Level 1, SOC 1/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 (SAS70), SOC 2, SOC 3, FISMA, FedRAMP, DOD CSM Level 1-5, ITAR, FIPS 140-2, MTCS Level 3, HIPAA, CSA, MPAA
Information security policies and processes
The hosting provider is accredited to PCI DDS Level 1, SOC 1/SSAE 16/ISAE 3402 (SAS70), SOC 2, SOC3 FISMA, DIACAP, FedRAMP, DOD CSM levels 1-5, ITAR, FIPS 140-2, MTCS Level 3, HIPAA, CSA, MPAA

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Supplier-defined controls
Configuration and change management approach
Internal change processes to general software:
• Write business case,
• Approve business case
• Write technical spec and if relevant design wireframes and visuals
• Optionally invite interested clients to review if major change/improvement
• Approve spec
• Enter change as ticket(s) in Jira – including assign to upcoming release
• Code the changes incl. peer review
• Commit code changes to GIT
• Submit Jira tickets to testing and QA
• Functional, integration and scalability testing
• Change will become part of general release and outlined in release notes
Vulnerability management type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Vulnerability management approach
* Regular scheduled scans with Qualysguard Vulnerability Management (DAST/WAS and VM)
* Prioritisation as per Qualysguard severity ranking
* Critical are scheduled for implementation/hotfix immediately
* Hotfix regression tested, deployed and a rescan done to confirm fix
* The timescale for implementing severities less than critical are evaluated on a case-by-case basis and are typically released as part of our software release schedule
Protective monitoring type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Protective monitoring approach
* QualysGuard penetration and DAST testing.
* Pro-active monitoring of entire environment via AWS Inspector (pro-active monitoring of services/processes, abnormal activity on servers, etc. Scheduled security assessments running automatically, with pro-active alerting).
* Log shipping to protected log store for log files (AWS CloudTrail + shipping of own log files to offsite ElasticSearch index)
Incident management type
Supplier-defined controls
Incident management approach
Yes Brandworkz have a well defined and documented approach to cover system and security incidents. Relevant staff are trained in these processes and they are detailed, reviewed and made available to staff in these specific policies:
1.Security Breach procedure
2. Business Continuity Policy
3. Information Security Policy
Our security breach procedure in particular includes steps for identifying, resolving and reporting on incidents.
We are happy to supply the full documentation on request.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Social Value

Social Value

Social Value

  • Fighting climate change
  • Tackling economic inequality
  • Equal opportunity

Fighting climate change

CDS is committed to being an organisation that minimises its environmental impact, while establishing a sustainable environment for the benefit of staff, customers and suppliers.    

CDS is certified to the internationally recognised standard BS EN ISO 14001: 2004 – Environmental Management. The standard underpins our commitment to look after the environment, prevent negative environmental impacts, manage waste and reduce our carbon footprint. 

CDS is Planet Mark 3 accredited, helping us to transform society, the environment and economy by measuring our carbon and social data. We have also signed the UK SME Climate Change commitment and have pledged to halve our carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050.

The Bailie Group (of which CDS is part), is also certified to ISO 50001 Energy Management System, which focuses our efforts on continually improving energy performance.

Our aims for 2024 are:   
- Maintain zero to landfill   
- Reduce energy consumption by 5% YOY
- Install solar panels at our head office site.

Tackling economic inequality

CDS is committed to creating new businesses, new jobs and new skills within our local communities, designed to address economic inequality.

Employment opportunities and training
CDS commits to reducing the skills gap by providing apprenticeships, training opportunities and supporting ex-offenders in creating employment opportunities in our local communities.

As a national company, CDS operates from three primary offices, each run as an autonomous business unit, managed by locally based teams. This regional structure has resulted in CDS becoming a community-focussed organisation and is committed to using local suppliers and subcontractors.

Apprenticeships
CDS has an ongoing commitment to recruit and provide job opportunities in our local communities through apprenticeships. In the past two years we have provided nine apprenticeships, of which four have become full-time employees. A further four are currently taking apprenticeship degrees via Leeds Beckett University.

Supporting educational attainment and addressing skills gaps
CDS is committed to supporting educational attainment to reduce the skills and employment gaps in the local communities in which we work.

Initiatives include delivering careers talks in local schools about pursuing a digital career, career mentoring, mock interviews, CV advice and careers guidance. We also Provide work placements for school/university leavers and the unemployed: 1-6 weeks, more for internships

Volunteering in the local community
We make a valuable contribution to the community by supporting local charities and social enterprises. Each year our colleagues choose a local charity to be our charity of the year, that is aligned to our purpose and values.

In 2024, we will be working in partnership with Business In The Community (BITC) in our quest to continually improve what we do, and operate as a responsible business that makes a positive impact in our community.

Equal opportunity

CDS regards its Equality and Diversity Policy as an integral part of its overall company strategy and is committed to encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion among its workforce and eliminating unlawful discrimination. It recognises the value of working with differences, and not against them.  Our aim is for a workforce that is truly representative of all sections of society and our customers, and for each employee to feel respected and able to achieve their full potential and enjoy a fulfilling career with us. 

CDS positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation (protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act 2010). Our recruitment process is fair, equal, and non-discriminatory and works on the premise that the best person for the role will be offered the job.  

CDS is proud to be a Disability Confident Committed employer (Level 1). With access to expert knowledge and guidance, we are committed to providing an accessible and inclusive recruitment process and working environment for everybody.

In 2022 CDS invested in a new recruitment applicant tracking system (JobTrain), which includes an accessibility module to support applicants with disabilities. The system uses ReciteMe to offer a toolbar that helps neurodivergent candidates with their application.

CDS gives all staff the chance to achieve their full potential. We deal with people solely based on merit and will ensure fair and equal treatment including appraisal - access to training - career development - job allocation - promotion - grievance and disciplinary matters.  

In 2024, in partnership with Business in the Community, we will be developing our Diversity & Inclusion Strategy and defining a set of key objectives to help measure progress and implement change.

Pricing

Price
£26.52 a user a year
Discount for educational organisations
No
Free trial available
No

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at bidteam@cds.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.