Team Collections overview

One team member, the Team Collection administrator, will create the Team Collection and then share the folder.

The other team members join it. Then, they can check out a book to work on, unless another team member already checked it out. They check in the book when they are done with it. Then others can check it out to review or edit it, depending on how the team has agreed to work.

Here are buttons you will see:

• - Team Collection

This appears on the toolbar when you are working in a collection that is a Team Collection.

• Click it to open the Team Collection dialog box and learn recent collection history.

• - Updates Available

This appears on the toolbar if a team member added a book or made some other change that updated the collection in the Dropbox or LAN (Local Area Network) folder.

You can do either of these steps to update your computer:

• Click and then click the RELOAD COLLECTION button.

• Click RELOAD button which appears near the bottom of the window.

• - This book is available for editing

- CHECK OUT BOOK

• Click it to check out the book so you can work in it. The book is not checked out by someone else already.

• - This book is checked out to you or This book is checked out to name. Corresponding initials are shown as your avatar. Or, if your email is connected to gravatar, it can show a picture instead.

  • - Checked out to you. So no one else can edit the book until you check it in.

  • - Checked out by someone else. So you cannot edit the book until that person checks it in.

• - This opens a menu with two commands:

  • About my Avatar opens the Your Team Collection Avatar & Name dialog box. It has information and links to help you change your avatar and update your name and email address in your Bloom registration.

  • Forget Changes & Check in Book opens a dialog box with a warning.
    Read the warning and then click FORGET MY CHANGES or CANCEL.
    This command is not available if the book only exists locally (just created and never checked in before).

• - CHECK IN BOOK

  • Type a brief answer to the What changes did you make question box.
    Click when you are done and you want to check the book back in.
    Your answer will appear in the HISTORY tab in the Team Collection dialog box. Then other team members can see or review your work.

Note

• Team Collection is a Bloom Enterprise feature and is currently Experimental.

• Dropbox is recommended. Google Drive does not currently work with Bloom.

The Team Collection tab in the Settings dialog box has links to additional documentation (online).

• Collection settings are only available to the person who created the Team Collection, the Team Collection administrator.

Other team members can only make some changes to language selections but not in any way that affects the collection.

• Here are three situations to consider:

  • Only one person has the collection that is about to become the Team Collection. In this case, everyone else gets a linked copy.

  • Two or more people already have different versions of the collection, but the team has already sorted out any conflicts and has one master copy they want everyone to have. In this case, everyone else should delete or rename theirs before joining the Team Collection created from the master copy.

  • There are several versions of the collection around; the Team Collection should end up with all the books from all of them. In this case, make sure all are named the same, and then Join & Merge will do the job.

Related Topics

Add someone to a Team Collection

Basic tasks overview

Create a Team Collection

Join a Team Collection

Settings dialog box