Media Library Help

Workspaces for Collaboration

Workspaces empower our University of Idaho creative teams and Industry Partners to collect assets from various areas of the Media Library to share, comment on, and approve assets all in one place and in real time — without ever leaving PhotoShelter. Users can gather assets from different galleries and add them to a Workspace, then invite other users to work with those assets. 

Accessing & Creating a Workspace

University of Idaho faculty and staff can create and add images to a new Workspace for collaboration or access and add images to Workspaces shared with you.

To create a new Workspace: 

• Log in on to the UCM Media Library Portal site.
• Click "Workspaces" in the Portal navigation bar.

• To create a new Workspace, click "New Workspace."

• In the window that appears, name your Workspace. We suggest the name begin with your username or department name, followed by a short description of your project. A longer description is also encouraged. When done, click “create.”

• Now you are ready to add images and share the workspace for collaboration.
• Before you can invite others for collaboration, you will to need to request permissions from the UCM Digital Asset Manager for the proper permissions.
• From within the Workspace find and click on the gold circle in the upper right corner.

• You will now see your permission status.
• To request additional permissions, click on Request Permissions.

• Select “Allow me to invite” and any other permissions you require for this project.

Note: All University of Idaho users can upload assets from the media library to a Workspace. The “Allow me (users) to upload” permission allows the user to upload media files from their computer that are not in the Media Library to the workspace for collaboration. See “Upload New Files to a Workspace” in the “Collaborating in a Workspace” section below.

• When ready, click on Request Permissions. An email will be sent to you once approved.
• The workspace is now ready for you to invite users for collaboration.

To access a shared Workspace:

• Log into the UCM Media Library Portal site.
• Click "Workspaces" in the Portal navigation bar.

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• Click to expand the "Shared with Me" tab in the left pane.

• Select a Workspace from the options available.

Adding Files to a Workspace

Files can be added to a Workspace in batch or individually from both the Invited Galleries view and from the Portal Search results page. When selecting files, use the "Add to Workspace" icon pictured below to add a file or file(s) to a Workspace.

Adding Single Files to a Workspace from Invited Galleries

• Click on a file thumbnail to view a single file.
• Using the Quick Actions toolbar in the Portal footer, select the "Add to Workspace" icon to add the file to a Workspace.

• Select an existing Workspace or create a new Workspace and click "Add."

Adding Multiple Files to a Workspace from Invited Galleries

• Click the "Select" icon in the Portal footer. 
• Use the Select icon on an image thumbnail to select an individual image. 
  • TIP: To add all files in an Invited Gallery to a Workspace, use the Quick Actions toolbar in the Portal footer to "Select All" You may also use the Shift + Click shortcut to select multiple items in a group.
• Once your selections are made, click "Add to Workspace" in the Quick Actions toolbar.

• Select an existing Workspace or create a new Workspace and click "Add."

Collaborating in a Workspace

Once files have been added to a Workspace, there are a number of actions users can take on those files.

Curate Sets of Files With Approvals

Approvals enable you to collect feedback from your team in real time so you can easily curate the best assets for your workflow. Library Staff or any Invited User with “Approvals & Comments” permission can approve files. 

In the Workspace view, hover over an asset and click the thumbs-up icon to approve it—click it again to remove approval.

Download Files From a Workspace

Library Staff and any user who has been granted download permission can download individual files and batches of files directly from a Workspace to save locally.

• In the Workspace view, click the download icon in the footer to download all assets in the Workspace.
• To download a single file, click the file thumbnail and click the download icon in the footer.
• Select your file format and file size, then click Download.

• Use the same icons in the Quick Actions toolbar when working in batch mode.

Leave and Collect Feedback with Comments

Comments enable you to host real-time conversations in Workspaces. Comments are always related to a file so your team can get specific with their feedback, likes, and dislikes on any individual asset. Library Staff and any user with “Approvals & Comments” permission can leave comments on assets in a Workspace.

• In the Workspace view, you can see which assets have comments with the message icon beneath the asset.

• Click on an asset to enter the Single-File view, and then click the “Comments” tab on the right to view or leave comments. 

Upload New Files to a Workspace

Along with files from the UCM Media Library, collaborators from outside your organization can be invited to upload assets directly to a Workspace so all of your project files are in one place. Library Staff or any user with “Upload” permission can upload to a Workspace.

• While viewing assets in a Workspace, click the upload button in the footer to bring up the Workspaces uploader.

• You can drag files directly from your desktop into the upload window or click “Select Files” to choose files from your computer.

• If needed, you can apply Custom Filters to the files in your upload by selecting a filter from the drop-down in the top left.

Using Custom Filters

Custom Filters empower users to organize files in Workspaces by marketing channel, campaign, project status, team, or department—whatever your team needs to get the job done. Any user who has access to the Workspace may create new Custom Filters, add files to Custom Filters, and use Custom Filters to narrow down their view in the Workspace.

• While in the Workspace view, you can create a new Custom Filter by opening the “Custom Filters” tab on the left and clicking the “New Custom Filter” button.

• Once you’ve created Custom Filters for your workflow needs, you can add a single file to a Custom Filter by hovering over its thumbnail in the Workspace view and clicking the “Add to Custom Filter” button.

• Need to rename a Custom Filter? In the Workspace view, open the “Custom Filters” tab and hover over the filter name on the left. Click the pad and pencil icon to edit the Custom Filter name.
• You can add a batch of files to a Custom Filter by selecting images while in the gallery view. Once your selections are made, click "Add to a Custom Filter icon" in the Quick Actions toolbar.

• In the Add/Remove from Custom Filters dialog, pick the custom filter or filters then click done. Or, you can add a new custom filter by clicking on Create New and Add.

• The “Approved by” filter enables you to view the assets that have been approved by a specific user or a specific group of users. Just open the “Approved by” tab on the left and check the boxes next to each username to filter your Workspace and view the assets those users have approved.
• You can also check on a custom filter along with an approver. To do this, select the custom filter or filters.

• Select the approver or approvers.

• In the scenario above, we only see the image in the Custom Filter “Portrait” and images “approved” by the user Joe.