With our Guest Upload feature, forms within the Database Module can now be enabled for 'Guest' Users (unregistered users who do not have a platform log-in) so they can upload files onto your platform for you to review and fill in a form to add more overall context to the uploaded material.
For example; if you work with a photographer who has captured an event for you, but is not registered to your platform due to the ad hoc nature of their engagement, then a link can be shared to them to upload their photographs which you, as a registered user, can then review and decide from there if they are to be published to your DAM.
Keep reading for a full feature breakdown on how to enable, configure, and share links that can be accessed publicly for guests to upload into and submit.
To discuss enabling this feature on your platform please contact your Customer Success Manager or contact us here.
Click below to jump to that specific section:
- Configure Guest Upload Databases
- Share Links to Guests
- Guest User Email Authentication
- Guest Upload Create Public Record & Upload to the Multi Upload Field
- Guest User Record Submit
- Configure Alert to be notified of new Guest Upload Record
- Review & Update Guest Upload Records
- Usage Tracking for Guest Upload
- Notes & Restrictions
Configure Guest Upload Databases
When overall Public Access has been enabled for your platform, then in Admin > Groups you will see the ‘Public Access’ profile will appear as a User-as-Group.
Click on the edit icon, and Permissions tab, and you will see that Databases displays as a public module.
As shown below, only ‘Create’ level access is relevant and can be enabled on a Database-by-database level:
Alternatively, permissions can be set locally in each Database. ‘Public Access’ can also be enabled here via Manage Permissions for the Group(s) can create permission rule.
Share Links to Guests
Once above has been configured, simply click to create a record as a logged in user and copy that link.
It will look something like this: https://yourplatformname.intelligencebank.com/profiler-11d9233a337f284971e209382b00d8ac/profiler/create
From there you can share this link off-platform (via email, etc) to the intended Guest Upload User, or embedded it in as a link in a Public Custom Page on your platform.
You can read more about creating Public facing Custom Pages here.
Guest User Email Authentication
When the Guest User accesses that link, they will be taken to a page that only guest upload public users will see.
They will be required to enter a valid email address before they can start uploading.
On clicking 'Next' they will then be sent an email to verify it is their actual address (ie, to confirm user is not a bot).
This email has a Verification code they will need to copy and paste into the next screen they see back in their browser:
The user has 3 minutes to apply this code.
If 3 minutes lapses, or user fails to enter the correct code 3 times, they will have to request a new code and try again.
Once they enter their code successfully, they will be then taken to the Guest Upload Create Record page.
Guest Upload Create Public Record & Upload to the Multi Upload Field
It's important to note that (when this feature has been enabled) that Guest Users can only Create Records, and not View or Edit them after Submit.
Additionally to note, Guest Users can only Create the first Stage of a Staged Database.
There are other visual and logic differences the Guest User may see when they are creating the record and adding files than logged-in users see, even for the same database, which are:
General Record Updates for Guest User
An overall simpler, cleaner view of the Create Record page exists for the Guest Public user, removing various elements on the page that this user does not need to interact with, such as links to other logged in locations.
Additionally:
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A simple platform header will show the platform's 'Small Logo' for all Record Public pages. (If no small logo exists for the platform in Admin > Templates, no logo will show.)
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Name of the Database has been removed - all that will show is 'Create Record' on page header (this will be 'Create Brief' or 'Create Task' etc as customized for that database.)
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Close/Cancel buttons do not display so the Guest User is not directed anywhere else on the platform.
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As Lookup fields that can be configured in your Form can link in data from other parts of the platform (Resource Lookups, Users/Groups Lookups, other Databases), all Lookup fields are hidden from Guest Users to remove any chance of your Internal Client data being accidentally surfaced/accessed publicly.
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Hiding these Lookup fields also will ignore any mandatory rules for the public user, as well as ignoring any display/mandatory conditions that have been configured for these fields.
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Hiding these Lookup fields also will ignore any mandatory rules for the public user, as well as ignoring any display/mandatory conditions that have been configured for these fields.
- Even if enabled on this database, the Guest User will not see 'save as Draft' as an option (since they have no avenue to return to complete a draft.) In all cases, the button they see will be Submit.
- As covered in the Notes & Restrictions section below, if a Record Publish Workflow has been enabled for a Guest Upload database, this will be skipped (not apply) for the Guest Upload user.
- Should the Manage Permissions option be enabled to display within the records (via Database Settings) this will also be hidden for Guest Upload users.
Note that the above does not apply to Logged in users. They (depending on permissions) can also create records in the same database without experiencing the above changes that are exclusive to Guest Users' experience.
Other than the above examples, all other form fields can be added to the form to collect more information about the uploaded assets - location of shoot, etc.
Multi Upload Field for Guest User
To protect your platform, Anti-Virus has been applied automatically to all Guest Upload User scenarios when they can add files into a Single or Multi Upload field. This will occur regardless of if you otherwise have this add-on feature enabled on your platform, or not.
While not limited to Guest User scenarios, a new setting in the Multi Upload field called ‘Maximum File Limit’ has been added to allow a custom max limit of allowed files added to a field, which currently can be between 1 and 50. This may be useful to limit the amount of files a user can add (ie, 'only upload the best 20 photos from this event'.)
- NOTE: If records exist with, say 50 files, and in the future the limit for this field is changed to (for example) 5 files, then if that record with more than 5 files is edited it will not trigger any validation errors - we only validate the set maximum number of files on upload and do not apply the limit check to existing content.
- Also note that this applies on a field-by-field basis. If you have more than one Multi Upload fields in your form, each can have a different number of maximum allowed files set within this range.
Guest User Record Submit
On successful Submit of their record, the Guest User will be taken to a 'Submit Confirmation' page.
Here they will see confirmation of the number of files/urls they may have added (total across all available upload fields in the record - inc single and multiple upload fields) as well as the record sequence ID (if it has been enabled) which they can use as a reference of sorts. They will also see the Record Submitted Date/time.
If you need Guest Users to contact you post-submit quoting these details, we recommend adding a Note field into the record with any contact info for them to follow up to.
Guest Upload users will also receive an email alert on successful submit to their verified email address, with the same information as contained on the above Success screen.
Configure Alert to be notified of new Guest Upload Record
Platform registered users can configure Alerts to be sent to themselves or other registered users to alert them when new guest records are added (the same as they can for non-guest upload enabled databases).
In this case however, the Guest user’s email address captured during verification will be displayed in the record Created By field.
- Note that Database > Alerts can’t be configured to send any alerts to the Guest Upload users (the only alerts they will receive are the ones mentioned previously - the authentication email and submit confirmation alert). Any further communication with these users will therefore have to be done off-platform.
Review & Update Guest Upload Records
Registered users (with relevant permissions to do so) can then access the records to review.
Depending on your exact needs, they then could:
- Edit the record to add an Assignee to review (using a User Lookup field that was hidden to the Guest User)
- Continue a staged record onto Stage 2 to add Internal-Only fields that were not available for the Guest User.
- Collaborate and give feedback with other registered users on the uploaded assets via the General Markup Comments feature.
- Edit the record to remove unwanted files one-by-one or in bulk, or send any for a Record File Approval as required.
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Publish select files to a folder on your DAM using the Publish-to-Folder feature.
Usage Tracking for Guest Upload
We have appended the public user’s email address (that we capture on authentication) into the Create User details in Usage Reports in both the Record Usage, and Admin > User Usage locations - as shown below:
Likewise, we also display this email address in other key locations, such as in the Multi Upload field:
Guest Upload Notes & Restrictions
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For Email Verification of Guest Upload Users, note that this only applies to Guest Records pages. Public Custom Pages and Public Folders are not supported.
- Users who might navigate between these public modules will see the email authentication page as soon as they access a Create Record link for Publicly enabled databases, but not on a Public Custom Page they might access the Create Record link from.
- Users who might navigate between these public modules will see the email authentication page as soon as they access a Create Record link for Publicly enabled databases, but not on a Public Custom Page they might access the Create Record link from.
- A Guest User has 4 hours to submit their record before the platform-wide Public Usage window lapses and will log them out of their Guest access session.
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Due to security and the email authentication process, should a Guest user refresh during that verification process, or when creating their records, they will have to begin again and re-enter their email address for a new code.
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Configured record Publish Workflows will not apply for Public Users. These will be bypassed, even if mandatory. Internal users will need to edit the records and then submit these for approval should they require this. We have added below notes on Database + local Workflow Settings pages to explain this (which show when a database is configured for public users):
To discuss enabling this feature on your platform please contact your Customer Success Manager or contact us here.
You can read more about your Databases module here.
Please note that the 'Database' and 'Records' terminology referenced above may appear differently in your platform as these are customisable terms.
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