All: First of all, I'd like to thank all those who helped me get CollectionSpace installed and configured correctly! The best part of OSS is the community around it! Thanks! Now, I am a service provider, and have been asked to get CollectionSpace installed for a client. I have, with all your help, accomplished this. Now, I need to turn this over to the client. However, the client has never used CollectionSpace. They are planning to use it to catalog their memorabilia collection, at the recommendation of a third party. My question is, what are the next steps I can recommend they take? I have the basic software installed, and the core and lifesci demos both work, but I know they will want to create their own collections. Can you point me to the documentation entry points for them? Thanks again for all the help, and for the amazing software! Steve Newell Voonami, Inc. http://www.voonami.com

Steve, Glad to hear that you had a successful install and configuration. A good place for your end users to start is with the CollectionSpace user manual, available on the project's documentation wiki: http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/DOC/User+Manual. There is a downloadable PDF that explains how to use each facet of the system, and a series of short videos illustrating some of the more complex end-user functionality. I'd also strongly encourage your clients to join this list, which is used by both developers and end users. We've been through data migrations, staff training, project planning and more, and are happy to answer questions. Best of luck with the project, Megan On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Steve Newell <newellista@gmail.com> wrote: > All: > > First of all, I'd like to thank all those who helped me get > CollectionSpace installed and configured correctly! The best part of OSS > is the community around it! Thanks! > > Now, I am a service provider, and have been asked to get CollectionSpace > installed for a client. I have, with all your help, accomplished this. > Now, I need to turn this over to the client. However, the client has > never used CollectionSpace. They are planning to use it to catalog their > memorabilia collection, at the recommendation of a third party. > > My question is, what are the next steps I can recommend they take? I have > the basic software installed, and the core and lifesci demos both work, but > I know they will want to create their own collections. Can you point me to > the documentation entry points for them? > > Thanks again for all the help, and for the amazing software! > > Steve Newell > Voonami, Inc. > http://www.voonami.com > > _______________________________________________ > Talk mailing list > Talk@lists.collectionspace.org > > http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org > > -- Megan Forbes Director of the Collection Museum of the Moving Image 36-01 35 Avenue Astoria, NY 11106 movingimage.us 718 777 6800 Direct 718 777 6834

Hi Steve, To expand on Megan's excellent overview, below: Is it the case that, 'out of the box,' your client might first want to enter Cataloging records for their memorabilia collection? If so, are all of the fields in the Cataloging record, and their values, already suitable for the names, categories, etc., of the objects in their collection? If not, some of the first customizations that you might look at are: * Changing the labels above one or more of their fields. * Hiding unnecessary fields. * 'Closing', by default, unnecessary or little-used sections of the record * Changing the values in drop-down menus Many of the above are documented in the Configuring CollectionSpace documents on the Documentation wiki. (Be sure to expand the table of contents link in the left-sidebar, by following the instructions on http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/DOC/CollectionSpace+Release+Documentation) Note that: * Some of this documentation is rough or outdated. * If ongoing maintenance and upgrades to future CollectionSpace versions aren't a hugely important issue, it's fastest and easiest to simply modify the core tenant in place - it's already been created. * Otherwise, there's a document on the wiki about how to create a new, custom tenant for your client, which is a best practice, but requires a bit more work: http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/DOC/Creating+your+new+tenant * To change field labels: http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/DOC/How+to+rename+a+field * To hide fields: http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/DOC/How+to+hide+a+field+or+group+of+fields * To 'close' entire sections by default, when viewing a record http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/DOC/How+to+set+the+default+toggle+to+closed+for+a+section+or+panel Changing values in dropdown menus is not well documented at present. There are actually several documents on modifying the options in such menus, whose titles often refer to 'term lists,' but these generally reflect older practices, and some of their content can be confusing. For starters, here's a commit demonstrating how to change the values in two pull-down lists in the Cataloging record, by making two changes in the core tenant. https://github.com/aronr/application/commit/b7a47d94fc6d44d0cad74f6444710a35373291c7 The customization method shown here reflects recently-added 'merge' capabilities that allow you to simply replicate the block of configuration you want to customize from the default settings, copying them into a separate file for your own museum, and make your changes there. Your changes will then override the corresponding configuration block in the default settings. To do this, you'll check out the source code tree for CollectionSpace's Application layer, make your changes there, much like those shown in the commit above, and 'deploy' (copy) your changes to the server via the command: mvn clean install -DskipTests at a terminal/shell/command prompt, from within the top-level directory of that source code tree. Aron On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Megan Forbes <mforbes@movingimage.us> wrote: > Steve, > > Glad to hear that you had a successful install and configuration. A good > place for your end users to start is with the CollectionSpace user manual, > available on the project's documentation wiki: > http://wiki.collectionspace.org/display/DOC/User+Manual. There is a > downloadable PDF that explains how to use each facet of the system, and a > series of short videos illustrating some of the more complex end-user > functionality. > > I'd also strongly encourage your clients to join this list, which is used by > both developers and end users. We've been through data migrations, staff > training, project planning and more, and are happy to answer questions. > > Best of luck with the project, > Megan > > > > > > On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Steve Newell <newellista@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> All: >> >> First of all, I'd like to thank all those who helped me get >> CollectionSpace installed and configured correctly! The best part of OSS is >> the community around it! Thanks! >> >> Now, I am a service provider, and have been asked to get CollectionSpace >> installed for a client. I have, with all your help, accomplished this. >> Now, I need to turn this over to the client. However, the client has never >> used CollectionSpace. They are planning to use it to catalog their >> memorabilia collection, at the recommendation of a third party. >> >> My question is, what are the next steps I can recommend they take? I have >> the basic software installed, and the core and lifesci demos both work, but >> I know they will want to create their own collections. Can you point me to >> the documentation entry points for them? >> >> Thanks again for all the help, and for the amazing software! >> >> Steve Newell >> Voonami, Inc. >> http://www.voonami.com >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Talk mailing list >> Talk@lists.collectionspace.org >> >> http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org >> > > > > -- > Megan Forbes > Director of the Collection > > Museum of the Moving Image > 36-01 35 Avenue Astoria, NY 11106 > movingimage.us 718 777 6800 > Direct 718 777 6834 > > > _______________________________________________ > Talk mailing list > Talk@lists.collectionspace.org > http://lists.collectionspace.org/mailman/listinfo/talk_lists.collectionspace.org >