Uploading Files

Hi Brian.

I understand that you likely get questions from people who have not done due diligence first by reading the documention. I actually spent many hours in the past two weeks reading the site documentation trying to figure out how to upload files. I thought I had figured it out and attempted the uploads yesterday. To my dismay, it did not work.

I then reached out to the person who was the site administrator prior to me and had (a couple years ago) successfully uploaded files. He too is puzzled and cannot figure it out.

It was then that I turned to your team as I am sure you know the site backwards and forwards. Note, I am not a website guru but am savvy enough that I should be able to do this if directed to the right information.

I greatly apprecaite your time on this, but the responses you gave me thus far are rather canned and vague. None of them are helping me resolve the problem.

Can you PLEASE give me a step-by-step of what is needed to be done on my end to get the files uploaded to our site and also answer if indeed they will show-up in the "Members Only" menu from the home page? I am growing very frustrated. If you can help me with that - great. If not, then please let me know that you are unable to answer my question.

Thanks,
Mary

Mary,

Brian gave you a number of things to look into. Consider this all to be a learning experience... any kind of learning requires some patience and persistence with both yourself and those who are trying to facilitate your learning.

In our case, we are all volunteers and we rely heavily on our online documentation to ensure we can focus our time on those non-routine issues that are not covered by the online documentation. If our online docs are insufficient, we need our users to tell us where there are issues so we can fix them. (hint)

You say that you have looked at the docs. Ok, but if you are not getting what you need from them, it would really help if you could tell us where we can improve them.

For your specific issue, you need to realize that the area where you upload files to be stored on our server is different than where people download the files. This is on purpose... You need to manage and control who can upload files. You upload files to the server using the File Manager module in the Admin Console. Once you upload the files in the File Manager, you can use the file descriptions and "lock setting" to control whether the general public can download the file in the Public Downloads area.

The two downloads areas are accessible from the menu at the left when you have closed the admin console. The Public Downloads area shows the files for download that you have specifically designated for public access by clicking the unlock button in the File Manager to "unlock" the file. The Members Download area is available if you log in as a member... it's link is below the login buttons and shows all of your files for download.

You mention you are uploading Powerpoint files. This is a really bad idea. Not every user should be expected to have Powerpoint on their computer. Instead, you should save those as PDF from the Powerpoint application, and upload PDFs to your website.