You can control what users can do within the Slidebank system by turning their User Abilities on and off.
Essentially, Slidebank is a customisable system that enables you to tailor users' Slidebank experience to your company's needs. If you want to use it as a fairly open file sharing site, that works. However, if you want abilities on lockdown (for some or all your users) for greater control, that's great too.
If you switch an ability OFF for a user, they simply won't see the relevant button on the interface when they log in.
You'll find a full list of User Abilities at the end of this article.
How to Manage User Abilities
You'll find User Abilities under 'Settings' (so you'll only have access to this if you're an Admin).
An example of a User Ability is the option to upload new files into Slidebank.
If this Ability is switched OFF, the user will not be able to upload their own files
If the Ability is switched ON, the user will be able to contribute their own PowerPoint files to the library
Deciding which abilities should be on or off for your users will be determined by how tightly controlled you want your system to be.
When an ability is turned ON, there will be a tick in the checkbox for that Department / Role / User.
When an ability is turned OFF, the checkbox for that Department / Role / User will be blank.
You can set Abilities at Departmental level (everyone in the Department has that ability) or Role level (everyone in the Role has that ability) or at User level (only some users in the Department/Role have that ability).
If you see a horizontal line in the checkbox by Department or Role, it means there are mixed abilities settings within that Department/Role. For example, in the below screenshot, only Amelia in the Administrators role has the ability to upload files, so 'Administrators' has a horizontal line:
If you want to check the full set of abilities for an individual user, you can search for the user under Setup > Manage Users. Clicking on their user name will bring up their Abilities, which you can update for them alone.
An individual user's total Abilities profiles will be displayed by clicking on their name in 'Manage Users'.
If you want to explore how a particular user experiences Slidebank, you can impersonate their user profile. Just click on the 'Options' button next to their name and choose 'Impersonate User'. This is a good way to test that you have their Abilities set up as you intend them to behave.
Note: If something in Slidebank isn't working as you expect it to, the first thing to check is your Abilities settings. It's often something in here that you need to tweak!
Abilities You Can Control Within Slidebank
Here's a full list of the Abilities you can turn on and off in Slidebank:
Uploading
Upload files: allow users to upload new files to Slidebank
Downloading
Download in PowerPoint format (PPTX) – allow users to download in PPT format
Download in Adobe Acrobat format - allow users to download as PDF
Download without saving - download slide selections without having to save as a new presentation into Slidebank first
Download non-editable slides only – turns all slides the user downloads into Read-Only format on download
Download from personal folder only – user cannot download from the main library, only their personal folder
Include notes with JPEG slides – slide notes will be available even if the slide has been turned into a JPEG static image
Enable renumbering of JPEG slides – Slidebank will update any visible page numbers, even if Slides have been converted to JPEGs
Saving
Save Master Presentations – can save presentation that will never automatically receive content updates
Save Virtual Presentations – can save presentations that will automatically update as the original slide versions evolve
Save to Personal Folder Only – cannot save into the main library, only a personal folder
File Access
Give File Access to Other Users – allows users to grant other users access to their files
Give File Access to Other Departments – a user can grant people from other Departments access to a file they own
Access for new files defaults to ‘Allow All’ – when a user uploads or saves a file, all other users are given access by default
Share Library Links - allows a user to generate a link to a file they own for sharing outside of Slidebank. The link recipient will be taken to the Slidebank login screen and beyond that, the file that has been shared. Requires Slidebank access to retrieve.
Share Slideshow Links - allows a user to generate a link to a file they own for sharing outside of Slidebank. When clicked on, the link will open the file in Slideshow mode. No need for Slidebank access.
Share Download Links - allows a user to generate a link to a file they own for sharing outside of Slidebank. When clicked on the file will download into the browser. No need for Slidebank access.
Slides
Drag and drop from personal folder – can add slides to new selections from files in their personal folder (otherwise they will only be able to add from the shared library)
Allow slide grouping for non-Admins – people other than Administrators can apply slide groupings
Templates
Upload templates – allow users to upload templates to Slidebank
Apply templates – can apply PowerPoint templates to their slide selections
Email file link – user can send a link to a file to an email recipient
Email external users – user can send files/links to people without a Slidebank login (colleagues, customers etc.)
Email other users’ files – user can send files that don’t belong to them
Metadata
Enter file metadata - user can enter metadata for files they have editing rights within
Enter slide metadata - user can enter slide-level metadata (within files they have editing rights for)
History
View history – user can see (and use) old versions of presentations and slides across the database (for files they have access to)
Detach slide history – user can detach a slide from its history. Useful if the slide has changed so much that it no longer makes sense to link it to previous versions when using the View History feature
Other
Remove files – user can ‘delete’ files from Slidebank (files can later be restored by Admins)
Move files between folders - user can move files to another folder in the library
IsolateDepartments – if enabled, the user can only access their own Department for viewing, saving, uploading and downloading files
Create folders – allow user to create (and delete) folders in the shared library
Does this article answer your questions? Please let us know if you need more help!