Welcome to Rave's brand-new Albums feature, which allows you to store, share, download, and reuse image and video files in Rave like never before!  With Rave Albums, you can easily select and export your project photos to PDF - to share with clients, copy to messages (email), project files, notes, scheduled tasks, checklists to do's, and your financial documents.



Note: This feature sits next to your project's files sub-tab.  It does not replace your project files but enhances your ability to better manage and share your project and video files.  




Album Permissions - Staff, Site Manager and Site Staff Access Only


The first question regarding Album Permissions is whether this person/user should be able to see the Albums feature via the Enable Albums check box. With the Albums permission checked, you can then choose how they interact with both the albums and the items within an album. Each album will have its own option. 



Note: These permissions are not for Contractors or Clients. 


Add/Edit/Delete my items

This allows the person to add their own items to an album and edit and/or delete those items.  The Delete is a soft delete. It will still be visible for the person to see in their Trash but other users won't see it at all. 


Manage my deleted Items

This allows the person to view, restore or permanently delete items they have deleted from their trash can.


Add/Edit/Delete albums

This allows the person to create a new album, and edit/delete existing albums - only empty albums can be deleted.


Edit/Delete all Items

This allows the person to delete any item uploaded by any user in the albums, including bulk moving and deleting those items.  


Move Albums

This allows the person to move an entire album and all its contents to a new project.

 

Manage all deleted items

This allows a person to restore or permanently delete all items in the trash can, even those not originally deleted by them. 


Note: We recommend that only branch or business owners have this permission, as a permanent delete cannot be undone.  Once your permissions are set in your user profile, you will be ready to get started.





Using Rave Albums 


To start using Rave Albums, first navigate to your project from the Site/Build button.  Once in the project you will find the Albums sub-tab sitting next to the Albums sub-tab.  This is where you can see a list of all the albums created in your project.  If no albums have been created, you will see white space. 




Creating an Album
At the top right of the album page is a green Album button.  Clicking on this button will open an 'Add a New Album' pop-up.  Here you can:

  • Add a custom name for the album
  • Choose the level of access for Clients and Contractors:
    • None - No access
    • View Only - Viewing access only
    • View and Upload - Upload and view their own content only


Note: If you choose no access at all, then only internal staff with album permission will be able to access that album.



Editing an Album
To the top right of the album is a set of icons:

  • The first icon is of a single person that may or may not have a strike through it.  This indicates if a client can or cannot see this album from the permissions you set when creating/editing it.
  • The second icon is a set of three people that may or may not have a strike through it.  This indicates if a contractor can or cannot see this album from the permissions you set when creating/editing it. 


Hovering over these icons will tell you what permissions have been set for each group - view only, view and upload, or not visible. 


There is also a 3-dot action dropdown menu that allows you to:

  • Edit the album name
  • Move the album to another project
  • Export items from this album to a series of other places in Rave, or export to PDF (see instructions below on this feature)


Note: If you don't see some of these options, your permission does not allow you to do them.



Upload item/s to an Album
Once you have created an album, you can start loading images and/or videos into the album.

  • The Upload button (to the top right of the album) will allow you to select content from your device, or if you are on mobile, you can take pictures and load them directly into the album as you go.
  • Once the images are ready, you will be able to see them loading to ensure they are successful.



The same set of icon images is also at the top right of the album - near the Upload icon.  

  • The first icon is of a single person that may or may not have a strike through it.  This indicates if a client can or cannot see this album from the permissions you set when creating/editing it.
  • The second icon is a set of three people that may or may not have a strike through it.  This indicates if a contractor can or cannot see this album from the permissions you set when creating/editing it.


Hovering over these icons will tell you what permissions have been set for each group - view only, view and upload, or not visible.  In the example below, neither the client nor the contractors have access to this album or its contents.

  • The edit icon allows you to change the album name, and change the visibility of contractors and clients.




When inside an album and hovering over an image, a 3-dot action dropdown menu will appear to the top right, which allows you to:

  • Download this image back onto your device
  • Set this image as the album cover photo
  • Export this image as a PDF to share them to a range of other places in Rave
  • or Delete this image - with permission


A checkmark on the top left allows you to select the image and decide to print or copy it to another part of Rave.

Once you select your first image, you can then click anywhere on multiple other images to bulk select them and choose to export these items from this album to a series of other places in Rave or the PDF (see instructions below on this feature) 




Clicking on an image enlarges it, allowing you to scroll left and right through all of the images in that album.


When an image is enlarged, a 3-dot action dropdown menu will appear to the top right, which allows you to:

  • Download this image back onto your device
  • Set this image as the album cover photo
  • or Delete this image - with permission


You can also view the information related to that image via the 'i' (information) icon. The information provided depends on whether the image was loaded via a mobile device.

  • File Name - the name of the image/video
  • Uploaded By - the user who uploaded the image/video
  • Size - file size of the image/video
  • Original Filename - the default device name of the image/video
  • Location - where a mobile uploaded image/video was taken
  • File Extension - the type of image or video, i.e .jpg or .png
  • Media Type - the media type
  • Uploaded Date and Time - when the image or video was uploaded 
  • Description - a brief description (250-word limit) of the image or video that you can then search for via the timeline view




Moving Items

You can also bulk-select items within an album and move them to another album within the same project or a different project. A pop-up will ask you to choose the project and then the new album you want to move the images to, or you can keep the current project selected and choose the new album. If the New Project doesn't have an album, it won't let you transfer any images until you create one.




Exporting Items
To select items to export, click the icon with a check mark inside a circle. Once the first image is selected, you can click anywhere on the other images to select them in bulk. 


Selecting a single or multi-image image(s) will bring up an Export To option. This option allows you to choose how many photos per page you want to export, name the export, and select an export method.


There are a number of choices for the export method, depending on your permission:


Download - This will download the image(s) as a PDF document

Project File - You can select which RAVE default folder you want this PDF saved to

Contractor File - You can select which Contractor Files folder you want this PDF to be saved to

Client File - This PDF will be saved under the Client Files folder of this project

Client Profile Notes - This PDF will be saved to the Client's Profile Notes in our CRM section 

Site/Build Notes - This PDF will be saved with any comment you add to the project site build notes section of this project

Client Site/Build Notes - This PDF will be saved with any comment you add to the project's client site build notes 

Schedule Task Comment - This PDF will be saved with any comment you add to the selected schedule task under the comments section of the task

Checklist To Do Comment - This PDF will be saved with any comment you add to the selected TO DO under the comments section of the checklist

Estimate Version Attachment - This PDF will be saved to the selected estimate version as an appended attachment 

Quote Request Attachment - This PDF will be saved to the selected quote request as an appended attachment 

Quote Attachment - This PDF will be saved to the selected quote as an appended attachment 

Purchase Order Attachment - This PDF will be saved to the selected purchase order as an appended attachment 

Bill Attachment  - This PDF will be saved to the selected Bill as an appended attachment 

Supplier Credit Note Attachment - This PDF will be saved to the selected Supplier Credit Note as an appended attachment 

Progress Payment Attachment - This PDF will be saved to the selected Progress Payment Invoiceable as an appended attachment

Progress Payment Internal Note - This PDF will be saved with any comment you add to the selected invoiceable as an internal note

Progress Payment External Note - This PDF will be saved with any comment you add to the selected invoiceable as an external note

Invoice Attachment - This PDF will be saved to the selected Client Invoice as an appended attachment

Client Credit Note Attachment - This PDF will be saved to the selected Client Credit Note as an appended attachment


Note: If you don't see some of these options, your permission does not allow you to do them - or your business does not have those modules added. 




When you select one of the internal ways to export the image, you will be required to select the sub-item such as quote number, bill number, purchase order number, schedule task, todo task, etc.  The PDF will then appear as an attachment to that specific location. 


You can also choose to include the photo details on the export, which will show the image name, upload date, and Album Name. 


The Export to PDF will include the business name, project, contract name, site address, and your company logo. You can then either include or exclude the photo details. 


Any time you export from the albums section, an entry will be added to the project's audit trail.




Notification Options - User Level 
We now have a range of ALBUM notification options under the Profile Settings - Notification Control - Project tab.  A user with permission can edit their own and others' notifications.  The toggle can be switched on/off for both internal and external email notifications for the album options below.





Notification Options - Project Level
We have also added project-level album notification options. By turning these off at a project level, users with these individual permissions will NOT receive the notifications for this specific project.




Timeline
The second Albums sub-tab is called Timeline.  This is where you can search for an album name, item name, or description to find any image or video that exists in this project that you have access to.  You can select a date range to view all images loaded to all albums in that time (that you have access to) or view only your uploads via the My Uploads only toggle.  You can change the ascending or descending view to show the oldest or newest first, depending on your requirements.   We will show all images and the timeline they were loaded to this project.




You can click on the items to blow the thumbnail up to a larger size, and then scroll through them.  You can hover over the items, and the 3 dot action dropdown will allow you to (with permission) delete the item or download it to the device you are using.  You can also bulk select and export from the timeline view - see instructions on Eporting Items.



Trash
The third Albums sub-tab is called Trash.  Those with permission to delete items and or albums will find the items in the Trash sub-tab.  

  • If you have permission to delete only your own items, you will only see your own deleted items.
  • If you have permission to delete ALL, then you will see every item deleted, regardless of who deleted it. 


Hovering over items in Trash, you will see an icon of a person with an X. This will tell you which user deleted that item.


The three-dot action dropdown will also allow you to (with permission) restore an item that was deleted by yourself or another user or to delete it permanently.


You can bulk select items to Permanently Delete, which will delete them forever - we cannot undo this action.


You can bulk select items to Restore which will require you to choose which album you want to restore them to.


When an item is permanently deleted, it cannot be brought back, so we recommend carefully selecting this permission.


The main DELETE option is a soft delete. It goes to a trash can, so it's hidden from all users except the person who deleted it and the users with the overall permanently delete permission.