If you have any problems or questions, please contact us at support@sourceaudio.com
Basic Access Settings
Set your site’s access settings to dictate what site visitors see and whether they need to sign up for an account to use your site.
You have total control over the sign-up process for new user accounts on your site. There are three main settings you can adjust to tailor the new user sign-up process to your preference. They are found in your Admin Panel → Edit Site Settings → Access → Registration Options.
- Login Required: Is registration required in order for a user to access the site? Meaning, does a site visitor need to be logged in with an active account before they can view any part of your site (the exception being playlists sent with overriding permissions)? The question to ask yourself here is, “Do I want anyone to be able to quickly search, audition, and discover my music? Or do I want to require that they first sign up or log in with an active user account before being able to access anything?”
- Admin Approval: Does an Admin need to approve new users before their account is activated? Meaning, do you want to manually review all sign-up requests, review their Music Access Filter, and approve each new user before they can activate their account? If this box is unchecked, the new user will become active as soon as they register.
- Admin Notification: Should the Admin Contact (see notifications page for details on setting an Admin Contact) be notified when a new user signs up? This is recommended.
In tandem with this setting, if you choose to engage Login Required you can check off the next box down to make just the homepage visible to non-users. The idea here is that you can share a bit about your library but still require people to sign up for an account before accessing the rest of the site.
Registration Fields
When a new user is signing up for an account they’ll be prompted to fill out and submit some basic information.
You can adjust exactly what information you request from your new user in your Admin Panel → Edit Site Settings → Registration Fields. Once the form is submitted, the user will either immediately be able to start using their account or will need to wait for your approval, per your selection to setting #1 above.
Creating and Editing Users
You can create a new user or edit an existing one at any time from within your Admin Panel.
Go to Admin Panel → Manage Users to create a user. Provide their name, email address, a temporary password (they can change this later), and any notes that you want tied to that user. Then, select the Music Access Filters that should be enabled on that account (more on Music Access Filters further down). If the new user should be a site admin, adjust the drop-down for Admin Permissions to read “Full Access”. Admins have access to all content on the site. If creating a non-admin account with the ability to download tracks via their Music Access Filter, the download limit tools allow the ability to set a limit on the number of downloads allowed during any recurring time interval (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly). Click “Create Account” to finish.
To edit a user, simply go to the “Edit or Remove a User” tab in the same Manage Users section of the Admin Panel, and enter the user’s name or email address to find them. Click a user listing to edit their information using the same tools seen during the original account setup. You can delete individual users off of your site with the Delete User function at the bottom of their information.
License Requests
When a user opts to license a track they’ll submit a License Request (unless you have e-commerce enabled).
A License Request submitted by a potential licensee provides the relevant project and contact information for you to get in touch and broker a usage license.
License Requests are submitted by clicking the “License Now” button displayed towards the lower right on any track’s detailed view. This button will prompt the user to fill out a License Request, which is then delivered to the email listed as your licensing contact in your Admin Panel → Edit Site Settings → General.
Enabling e-commerce allows you to create an automated checkout functionality. You can read more on this on the E-Commerce page.
Hiding Tracks
If you ever need to hide tracks on your site from non-admins, there are 3 ways to do so.
- The Private/Admin-Only setting: Each track has a Private/Admin-Only metadata field that contains a Yes or No value, set to No by default. This field can be adjusted on any tracks detailed view by clicking Edit Track Metadata, and then adjusting the corresponding value for Private just below the track’s waveform. The value can also be seen on any exported metadata spreadsheet as a field called Admin Only.
- Track release date: If a track’s release date is set to a date in the future the track will only be visible to admins until that date arrives. Once that date comes, the track will be pushed live and made accessible per your other settings. This metadata field can be adjusted in the same manner as the Private/Admin-Only field listed above.
- Music Access Filters: See answer directly below.
Music Access Filters
Music Access Filters allow you to customize what each user on your site can play or download.
Your site’s Music Access Filter settings are found in your Admin Panel → Manage Users → Music Access Filters. Each filter provides complete control over both visibility and download permissions on an album-by-album basis when enabled on a user account. Multiple filters may be enabled on a single user account so that the user can toggle between different access settings.
Setting Music Access Filter Permissions
Your site starts out with two music access filters: “Default Logged In” and “Default Logged Out”. Click the pen/paper icon next to a Music Access Filter listing to see and edit its permissions. Within these controls, click into a catalog listing to manage permissions for the specific labels within that catalog. Click into a label to manage permissions for the specific albums within that label. Content with neither the View/Play or Download boxes checked will not be visible on the site to an account using that filter. Content with just the View/Play box checked can only be played but not downloaded. Content with both the View/Play and Download boxes checked can be played and downloaded by an account using that filter. Additionally, just above the access permissions, you’ll see a checkbox labeled “Disable download permission requests”. When the aformentioned setting is engaged, affected ususers cannot send requests to download tracks (that they have View/Play permissions for but not Download permissions.) As long as that box is left unchecked, they will be able to send such download requests. After making a change to a Music Access Filter’s permissions click to save in the very bottom right.
If you’d like to create a new Music Access Filter with custom permissions, just click Create Music Access Filter on the right. Name the Music Access Filter, adjust the permissions as described above, and save in the bottom right. Once that’s done, you’re ready to enable that filter on specific user accounts.
Enabling Music Access Filters on User Accounts
To enable a Music Access Filter on any specific user accounts head to Manage Users → Edit or Remove a User, then click a user’s listing to edit their information. Scroll down to the User Permissions header where (provided the user is not an admin, more on that below) you’ll see a module to select which Music Access Filters are enabled on that account. Tick the box(es) next to the filter(s) that should be enabled on that account, then scroll to the bottom of the page and save in the bottom right to push those changes live.
Music Access Filters can also be assigned during the account approval process when an account is created from an inbound request. Note, this is only applicable if Admin Approval is required, as described here, such that account requests appear in Manage Users → Notifications. Before clicking to approve an account request, select which Music Access Filters should be enabled on the new account in the module on the right end of the request listing. If no selection is made, the account will only receive the “Default Logged In” filter.
If multiple Music Access Filters are enabled on an account, the “User’s Default” bubble selects which filter permissions the user starts out with. A user with multiple Music Access Filters enabled on their account can change which filter is activated at any time by using the Music Access Filter drop-down selector, seen just to the right of the search bar at the top of the page. Once changed, the site will immediately reload with the permissions of that Music Access Filter. Note, if a user has added a track to a playlist or cue sheet, and then switches to a Music Access Filter that does not allow access to that track, the track will appear greyed out in the playlist or with a notice in the cue sheet, and will still be playable.
If only one Music Access Filter is enabled on an account, that user will not see a Music Access Filter drop-down selector at all.
All admin accounts have a Music Access Filter drop-down selector that contains every Music Access Filter option on the site, as well as an “Admin Access” option that provides total access.
To see a list of all the users that have a certain Music Access Filter enabled on their account, head to the Music Access Filter listings in Manage Users → Music Access Filters, and click the user icon on the Music Access Filter’s line listing.
Metadata Embedding for Track Downloads
Music Access Filter selection also dictates how metadata is embedded on downloaded tracks.
First, set up your Metadata Embedding Profile preferences as described under Downloaded File Metadata, here. Next, head to your Music Access Filter listings in Manage Users → Music Access Filters and click the pencil/paper icon next to a Music Access Filter to adjust the metadata embedding settings that come along with it. Select the desired Metadata Embedding Profile from the Embedding Profile drop-down and then save in the bottom right.
With multiple Music Access Filters enabled on an account, toggling between Music Access Filters in the drop-down selector makes it easy to switch between different metadata embedding settings when downloading.
Expiring Music Access Filters
Use the Expire Filters tool to enable Music Access Filters on a user account for only a limited period of time, after which, those filter permissions are revoked, and the user receives a new set of enabled filters.
To utilize this feature, head to Manage Users → Edit or Remove a User, click into a user listing, then scroll down to Expire Filters and tick the checkbox. In the tools that appear, set an expiry date and set what the filter permissions should change to on that date. After making any changes, scroll to the bottom of the page and save in the bottom right.