Collaborator Guide: Video Content
Having helpful content available to your members, including videos, is a valuable component of creating, maintaining, and growing your community.
Gradual plays your videos from the native player of the video hosting service (YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, etc.) which allows for native video hosting features like speed control, closed captions, quality adjustment, volume, etc. to be available to the end-user on Gradual. It also means views on Gradual will count on the video hosting video, too.
The guide below walks you through the steps to create, edit and manage video content from your dashboard.
Dashboard
The dashboard is the behind-the-scenes or back end of the community where you can create and manage content.
The administrator of your community has configured your access and permissions, so if you think there is something you should be able to access or see that's not available, reach out to your administrator directly.
The direct link to your dashboard is dashboard.gradual.com.
Navigate to that link and sign in by entering your email address in the email field. This will prompt the system to send a magic link to your email inbox to log into the dashboard.
Follow the link in your inbox and you will be directed to the dashboard. Select the community you will be managing, and you're in!
Creating and Editing Video Content
The guide below walks through creating and editing video content and the access and permissions for those at the Video Editor (fewest permissions/most limited access) to the Video Admin level (most permissions/most expansive access).
The permissions and access build off of the level before, so Video Managers have all the permissions and access of a Video Editor plus any listed below that level. A Video Admin has all permissions and access of a Video Manager, plus those of a Video Manager, plus any listed below that level.
The administrator of your community has configured your access and permissions, so if you think there is something you should be able to access or see that's not available, reach out to your administrator directly.
Video Editor
As a Video Editor, you can create, edit and manage many elements of a video.
To create or edit videos, navigate to the Content menu item in the dashboard and select Videos.
Creating videos
- Select + Add New Video button at the top right.
- Fill out all of the fields required for your video upload including the title, video URL, cover image, and video duration.
- The Title will be visible on the front end, and the Video URL is the URL from your hosting site.
- Gradual supports hosting your videos on most popular hosting sites such as Youtube, Vimeo, Wistia, etc. If you have a specific hosting site you’re not sure is supported, contact us and ask!
Note: The Summary, Transcript and Speakers are not mandatory but are great to include to provide members with more information on the video content.
- Once everything is filled out, click Submit. From there, give your video URL a try and ensure it’s populating and looking as you'd hoped.
Your video isn't live yet! As a Video Editor you are not able to Publish videos. Once the video looks as you intended, reach out to your community administrator to Publish the video and have it go live to members on the front end.
Once published, you can change the Published Time. The most recently published content will populate to the top of the homepage and content page.
Editing videos
If at any time you want to make changes to the video's information, you can do so by selecting the video from the list, and selecting the 'Edit Video' button in the upper right. Once published, you can change the Published Time. The most recently published content will be listed first on the homepage and content page.
Changing SEO Settings
You can change the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) setting of each video by selecting the 'SEO Settings' button in the upper right-hand side. This allows you to change the title that's listed when social sharing or searching, add keywords to guide users to your video, and provide a description of up to 160 characters. The platform will automatically load the video cover image as the image, but you can upload any graphic you'd like in its place.
💡Pro Tip: After an event takes place you can publish the event recording and add it to the event as a Replay. This a great feature for anyone who has missed the event or wants to rewatch as well as a valuable addition to your content. This also ensures anyone returning to the event page can find the replay for that event easily.
Learn more about publishing replays here.
Video Manager
Video Managers have all access and permissions listed above under Video Editor plus the ability to publish or unpublish videos.
Published videos
Published videos are visible and searchable on the front end to members.
Once you have uploaded and created the video and are ready for it to 'go live' and be watchable on the front end of the community, you must Publish it.
All videos remain unpublished and hidden until an admin or collaborator takes action to publish them.
You can publish it by selecting the eye icon in line with the video from the video list. From here you'll be navigated to the video page, and you'll select the green 'Publish' button at the top.
Unpublished videos
Unpublished videos are hidden from members on the front end and the community home page or content page. Keep a video unpublished while it's in draft form, or if you want it hidden until a certain date or time.
All videos remain unpublished and hidden until an admin or collaborator takes action to publish them.
If you need to unpublish a video, select the eye icon in line with the video from the video list. From here you'll be navigated to the video page, and you'll select the red 'Unpublish' button at the top.
💡 Pro Tip: Unpublished videos are visible and accessible through the direct Video URL!
If you would like certain people to view the video (or ensure it's ready to be published), but don't want it visible to all members, keep it unpublished and share the Video URL found on the video page in your dashboard (beneath the Poster URL graphic).
Video Admin
Video Admins have all access and permissions listed above under Video Editor AND Video Manager, plus the ability to change the URL slug, and delete the video entirely if needed.
URL slug
This is the text that is included in the URL for the video, and link a user to it in Gradual. The platform automatically populates a slug that includes the title of the video and the date that it was created. You can edit the text included in the slug, but note that changing it may affect SEO performance if it has been shared in the past or includes great keywords related to the video.
Deleting videos
If you need to delete the video entirely, select the eye icon in line with the video from the video list. From here you'll be navigated to the video page, and you'll select the white and red 'Delete' button at the top.
Deleting is permanent and you will NOT be able to recover the video once it's deleted.
If you'd like the video to be hidden from the front end community, simply Unpublish it by selecting the red 'Unpublish' button at the top.
💡 Pro Tip: Add tags! Tags serve to power related content and group it in a way that members can select a tag, and see all content that's been tagged and is related.
Tags should be one word, or very short as they appear as hashtags either below the title, or beside the content list to navigate users to grouped content.
