How to Create and Share An Album
2. Upload a Photo to Your Album
How Accounts and Membership Works
How Album Visibility And People Permissions Work
This tutorial begins after you have signed-up with Campfire Oasis.
From the dashboard, the first step will be to navigate to "My Albums" and click Create Album.
Next, you’ll enter an Album Title and click Create. If this is your first album, you’ll be presented with a permission request to connect Campfire Oasis with Google Drive and GMail.
Note: Campfire Oasis wants you to own and be in control of your data so we utilize your Google Drive to host uploads and your GMail to send notification email of uploads. We don’t want to intrude on any of your data outside of using our service so Campfire Oasis is only asking for access to files uploaded through our service and the ability to only send email. We do not have access to your entire Google Drive and we do not have access to your GMail inbox. For more information, please see Google’s support of third-party access or contact us at help@campfireoasis.com.
Once you’ve created your album, you’ll want to upload your first photo. Navigate to your album page by clicking the blue square and arrow icon next to your album title.
Now you are on your album page. To upload your first photo, click Add to Album and click Choose Files, select a photo using your device’s file picker and confirm your choice, and then click Upload.
You’ll see progress status for your upload and when it is complete, it’ll have a little green check icon next to your file and you’ll receive an email notification.
Most importantly, your album page should refresh with your photo now included.
In order to share your album with others so they can view photos and collaborate, you’ll need to (1) have an active membership and (2) have set the album’s permissions to public.
If you are sharing your album with a restricted guest list, those members will receive an email notifying them of their access.
If you are sharing your album with anyone with a link then they will need the URL to the album which can be found by navigating to the album page and clicking Share in the top menu. You can then share the album via QR code or via link. The link should be in the format:
https://campfireoasis.com/album/[your-unique-code]
All Campfire Oasis accounts are free to sign-up and all you need is a Google account to sign-in. Google accounts can be created with any email address, they are not just GMail accounts. Once you have signed into Campfire Oasis, you’ll have access to any albums you are a guest member of and you’ll be able to create as many host albums as you like. However, the ability to share albums you are the host of depends on you having an active membership.
Your account membership status can either be "active" or "inactive". Your membership status, at the very top level, determines whether your host albums are available to guests to view and collaborate.
Let’s say you have a Campfire Oasis account and an inactive membership... this means all of the albums you created are private and only you can view and collaborate with those albums. Anyone else with links to those albums or small group permissions to access those albums will no longer be able to see them. However, for albums where you are a guest and another host has an active membership, you will be able to view and collaborate on those albums.
Now let’s say you have a Campfire Oasis account and an active membership... this means all of the albums you created are available to be public. Everyone else with links to those albums and/or small group permissions to access those albums will be able to see them.
To activate your membership, navigate to the Membership tab on the dashboard. Then there are two membership options: the one week membership and the monthly membership.
The one week membership is a one-time payment and like the name suggests, lasts for 7 days from the time of purchase.
The monthly membership is a recurring payment and like the name suggests, lasts for an entire month from the time of purchase and is auto-renewed. Once purchased, monthly memberships can be "paused" at any time which suspends future payment however it also effectively changes your membership status to "inactive".
At the very top level, your membership status determines the visibility of all your albums. Next, the album visibility setting determines the visibility of the specific album. By default, albums are marked Private when created. When you are ready to share an album, you must mark it as Public.
Once an album is marked as Public, you must set the album permissions before it can be seen by guests. By default, the permissions of an album are "not available" to guests when an album is first created. For each album, there are two types of guests - "anyone with link" and "restricted access" - and for each type of guests there are three settings - "not available", "can contribute & view", and "view only".
The first type of guest, "anyone with link", is where anyone has access to the album. The "anyone with link" guest does not need to log into Campfire Oasis or have an account in order to view and contribute to an album.
The second type of guest, "restricted access", only has access if their email has been added to the album by the host. The "restricted access" guest is required to have an account with Campfire Oasis in order to view and contribute to an album but they do not require a membership. Only hosts require membership for an album to be shared.
The permission settings for "anyone with link" and "restricted access" are set separately and can be a combination if desired. By default, "not available" is the permission setting for each album guest type. "Not available" for either guest type means those users will not be able to see the album.
Selecting "view only" will allow the guest type to view photos and videos but they will not be able to collaborate. Adding, removing, and commenting is disabled for "view only" guests.
Selecting "can contribute and view" will allow guests to view photos, videos, and comments, as well as collaborate on the album by adding files and commenting. They will also be able to self-moderate the album with the features to remove uploads from the album and delete comments. See How Moderation Works to learn more.
Campfire Oasis was designed so the host owns the data and can invite guests to collaborate and help moderate. If the permission setting is "contribute and view" for guests then guests will also have the capability to remove photos and videos from the album gallery. Note this, removing a file from the album gallery does delete it in the host’s Google Drive. Removing a file from the gallery only hides the file from public view. The host would also have to delete the file from Google Drive if they want to get rid of the file completely. To remove a file from an album, click the trash can icon on the image or video you want to remove from the gallery.
To counter a mistaken removal, host have the added capability to "reinstate" any photo or video that has been removed from an album. To reinstate a file, navigate to My Albums and click Re-instate. From the re-instate page, clicking the circle arrow icon will place the photo back into public view in the album.
In addition to removing files from an album, guests may also delete comments. Note this, deleting a comment is permanent unlike removing a photo. Once a comment is deleted then it is gone forever. A comment can be deleted by clicking "Delete" next to the appropriate comment on the album page.
