Manage your assets

Summary

What is the Media Files feature in Supplier Data Manager?

The Media Files feature in Supplier Data Manager (SDM) helps you manage and link assets (images, files) to product rows during catalog enrichment. It simplifies importing, reviewing, and syncing assets with Akeneo PIM or exporting them in output files.

  • Drop media files or provide public URLs pointing to media files to enrich product information.
  • Control and review imported media files, and add or remove them before exporting.
  • Quickly identify format errors or missing assets.
  • Use the SDM Akeneo Connector to sync and create new assets in your PIM.

More about Akeneo Assets

What about assets?

This feature does not support the creation of attributes of type "media_link" in Akeneo PIM. If mapped with a "text" attribute type, the value is pushed as plain text.

How does it work?

Importing media files

During the import step in Supplier Data Manager, you can either upload media files directly or provide publicly accessible URLs pointing to media assets. This step is optional and can be skipped. SDM supports Akeneo attributes of type "image" and "asset collection". See the full list of supported attribute types here.

The maximum media file size is 500 MB, unless a lower maximum has been set at the asset family level when syncing via the Akeneo PIM connector.

Upload images in batches of 250 at a time for stable performance.

Automatic pairing

If the product file includes a dedicated column with media file names (same name and extension as the uploaded files), SDM automatically pairs them with the corresponding product rows. For example: image1.png;image3.png

Use ";" as the separator when a single cell contains multiple assets.

The screenshot above shows the Supplier Data Manager import step with a duplicate media file error, highlighting the file name that appears more than once and the error indicator in the media upload interface.

When your SDM is connected to Akeneo PIM, the import step automatically detects and flags two types of issues:

  • Unsupported format: the file format is not accepted by the Akeneo Asset Manager (the specific accepted formats depend on your asset family configuration in Akeneo PIM).
  • Duplicate file name: two or more uploaded files share the same name.

Public media file URLs

In Supplier Data Manager, you can also enrich product rows using public URLs that point directly to hosted media assets. This lets you reference content that is already hosted externally without uploading files.

Keep in mind:

  • If the same URL appears multiple times within a job, the file is downloaded only once to avoid duplication.
  • URL validation (accessibility, file size, and file format checks) happens during data processing, not at the import step.
  • An attribute for a product cannot contain both uploaded media files and public URLs.

Ensure that URLs do not contain semicolons, or adjust the default separator (semicolon) in your SDM configuration.

Managing media

In the Normalization module, you can manually add, remove, or correct media files linked to specific product rows. SDM supports bulk editing: changes applied to media files in multiple selected rows are based on the first selected row.

Depending on your SDM configuration, the Normalization module may show errors if media files are missing. If the attribute is required, you must add a media file before you can finalize the step.

The screenshot above shows the Normalization module in Supplier Data Manager with a product row selected, displaying the media management panel where you can add, remove, or replace linked media files.

You can also upload media directly from your computer using the UPLOAD NEW MEDIA button.

The screenshot above shows the media upload panel in the Supplier Data Manager Normalization module, with the UPLOAD NEW MEDIA button visible and a file browser dialog open.

Preview is not available for PDF and GIF files. Supported preview extensions are JPG, PNG, and JPEG.

Sync with Akeneo PIM

When Supplier Data Manager is connected to Akeneo PIM, SDM pushes media files based on mapped attributes and asset family configurations. Naming conventions and attribute types ("image" or "asset collection") are automatically retrieved and matched to ensure proper sync. No other metadata is pushed.

PIM naming convention and product link rules

PIM pre-set rules are applied at push time, including naming conventions on the created assets. If link rules are established in the naming convention and abort_asset_creation_on_error is set to true, media files previously linked to products in SDM can be automatically relinked after the push. See Akeneo documentation on asset manager abortion on error for details.

To avoid unintended relinking, make sure your naming conventions are not mandatory and that abort_asset_creation_on_error is set to false when using SDM.

Image and asset collection attributes: push behavior

When pushing data from Supplier Data Manager to Akeneo PIM, image and asset collection attributes behave differently:

  • pim_catalog_image attribute: SDM replaces the existing image value in the PIM with the new value from your data.
  • pim_catalog_asset_collection attribute: SDM appends new assets to the existing collection rather than replacing it.

Updating an existing asset in an asset collection is not possible

When pushing to the Akeneo PIM destination, the system automatically adds a UUID at the end of the generated asset code to ensure each push creates a unique asset. As a result, existing assets in an asset collection cannot be updated via SDM — only new assets can be added.

All previously linked assets remain associated with the product. The media file itself is not renamed.

Output files

At the end of the Supplier Data Manager workflow — whether or not an Akeneo sync is performed — two sets of files are available for download:

  • Media files not linked to any product (and therefore not pushed to Akeneo PIM)
  • Media files linked to at least one product

Limitations

  • The maximum media file size is 500 MB, unless a lower maximum has been set at the asset family level when syncing via the Akeneo PIM connector. This limit also applies to public URLs pointing to media files.
  • URLs must point to raw downloadable media files — HTML pages and redirect URLs are not supported.
  • Authentication-protected URLs are not supported.
  • Only HTTP and HTTPS protocols are supported for public media file URLs.
  • Asset formats must comply with both PIM and SDM accepted formats.
  • Supported file extensions:
    • gif
    • jpeg
    • jpg
    • png
    • svg
    • webp
    • pdf

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