Open source and commercial apps extend TACTIC?s functionality to meet the needs of multiple industries

SIGGRAPH 2014 (Vancouver, CAN) -- Aug. 12, 2014 -- Southpaw Technology, the developer of the open source digital asset and workflow management platform TACTIC, announced today that it is in development on open source and commercially available apps to extend the functionality of the TACTIC platform. Three such apps -- “TACTIC | VFX”, “TACTIC | aSync” and “TACTIC | ServerAssist” -- will be available starting this Fall. Southpaw Technology will be discussing its new app initiative and the individual apps in the Ontario booth at Siggraph (Booth #801).

“Open source TACTIC provides the building blocks for creating any digital asset and workflow management system users might want,” said Peter Tanner, director of product development at Southpaw Technology. “Based on requests we commonly receive, our new apps let users extend the TACTIC platform to suit the very specific needs of their markets, such as remote collaboration, faster content searches and specific UIs. Right now, we?re building these apps for customers. Ultimately, we can imagine our clients building their own apps for TACTIC and sharing them with others.”

The TACTIC | VFX App

The new, open source TACTIC | VFX App is based on learned best practices from the visual effects market, and puts all of the features a visual effects studio might expect in a digital asset and workflow management system into one clean user interface. Its main features include:

Asset Management - naming conventions, file organization, versioning, etc.
Workflow Management - automated processes, event triggers, notifications, messaging, etc
Task Management - scheduling, assigning tasks, apply a status to an assetc, etc
Reporting and Analytics Tools - provides actionable data to keep productions on track
Shot/Sequence Planner - simplifies planning by associating assets, messaging and collaborative tools to shots and sequences

The TACTIC | VFX App is part of TACTIC?s open source code, which can be downloaded from the Southpaw Community site or from the Southpaw project on GitHub. It will be available to users starting this Fall.

Development has already started on other best practice apps that meet the needs of game development, broadcast, marketing / advertising, and more.

TACTIC | aSync

TACTIC | aSync addresses the digital asset and workflow management needs of businesses based in multiple locations and multiple time zones.

Already in use at Fortune 500 companies, TACTIC | aSync enables globally distributed companies to work on and share assets in real time. By transmitting data and information instantly and asynchronously, TACTIC ensures that all data, and all transactions made on that data, are up to date no matter where in the world (and in what time zone) that data is worked on or stored. Check-ins, event triggers, undo, versioning, tasks, notes, and more are all supported.

TACTIC | ServerAssist

Valuable content is lost or misplaced everyday between coworkers. Using multiple folder shares and sub-folder infrastructure, these ownerless data share dungeons have grown to virtually unmanageable proportions. TACTIC | ServerAssist simplifies the way users organize and manage data.

TACTIC | ServerAssist

turbo charges OS searches by up to 4000% within TACTIC. Content that has been ingested into TACTIC can be found using advanced search vectoring and displayed to users via an ever-evolving TACTIC ranking system that gives users the actionable results they need. To improve file management and searching, users can add and edit file versions and metadata as easily as they find their content.

Pricing and Availability

The TACTIC | VFX App will be available for free in the latest TACTIC code release, which is scheduled for this Fall. TACTIC | aSync and TACTIC | ServerAssist will also be available from Southpaw Technology this Fall and can be supported, like all TACTIC deployments, by the Southpaw Professional Services team, which provides workflow advice and technical expertise for companies needing to rapidly extend the functionality of TACTIC across departments, studios and entire enterprises.

About Southpaw Technology Inc.

Southpaw Technology provides digital asset and workflow software to companies of any size. Available via commercial or open source licensing as a web-based solution for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux, TACTIC combines the workflow management, file management and configurability that teams, departments and companies need to make, move, store and share digital data across heterogeneous computing environments. Southpaw also provides open source and commercial applications built to work with TACTIC that extend the functionality of the TACTIC open source platform. Customers include Procter and Gamble, Lockheed Martin, Blohm and Voss, Astral Media, Legend3D, 2G Digital, Inhance Digital, and many others. The company is headquartered in Toronto, ON. For more information, visit us at www.southpawtech.com, our community site www.community.southpawtech.com or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tactic_software.