Publications, Profiles, and Projects

Many users have asked about the difference between a profile and a publication, for their publishing needs, so I thought I would explain with some screenshots.

Profiles

Everyone who uses Atavist gets a personal profile, automatically. It’s your own space. You can use your personal profile to publish a project, or you can opt to not use your profile for publishing purposes, and just use the space to create projects that you will move to publications. You can also skip using your profile and only work in publications, if you want!

Your profile’s avatar represents you as you work elsewhere in Atavist, on publications with collaborators; this way, they can know who you are. And, if you ever publish to an Atavist publication, your profile’s avatar can be used as a byline, and will even link back to your personal profile.

Let’s look quickly at the profile dashboard.

Two important things to note about the profile page’s dashboard:

• Your profile’s avatar is a circle (a publication is square). Knowing his can help you determine where you are at a quick glance.
  
• The “Members” icon is not on the profile dashboard (but it’s in publications), since you can’t invite others to work on your personal profile with you.
  

You can access your profile at any time by going to the menu in the upper right corner and clicking “Projects” underneath your name:

We would recommend using your profile when you want to publish a story under your own name, or when you want to work on a project before anyone else can see. When you’re ready to collaborate, you can move the story to a publication (more on that below).

Publications

If you want to work with others, publications are perfect for you. Include multiple contributors and editors under a single, unified name. In Atavist, you can create — and join — as many publications as you wish.

To create a new publication, head to the menu on the upper right corner and click the “+New Publication” text. You’ll be prompted to give a publication name and a new url for the publication, plus a new avatar. For example, my profile URL is “kathleen.atavist.com” but my publication URL should be something like “kathleenspub.atavist.com.” You will also be asked to select which plan level you want for the publication.

Once I have created a new publication, I can work in either space. I can work in my profile, or I can work in my publication. I can switch between these two areas by using the menu on the upper right corner:

Let’s take a look at the publication dashboard for comparison:

Two important things to note about the publication page’s dashboard:

• Publication avatars/logos are squares. This is a small visual cue to help you determine the difference.
  
• You can click a “Members” icon on the dashboard, and it will take you to this page: https://atavist.com/cms/settings/team
  

Once you have made a publication, you can invite members to edit and contribute on the “Members” page. Note: be sure to be in the publication in order to access this page:

We have several different levels for members in Atavist, depending on who does what in your organization. Owners have an all-access pass, administrators can manage everything (except altering the plans and billing information), and that everything includes developer features, homepage info, and commerce features. Editors can view and edit all projects within the publication and even publish stories. Contributors are able to make projects, but they cannot publish them. To show how it’s done, I used classic New York Review of Books editors and authors as an example. The head editors (Bob Silvers and Barbara Epstein) have administrator access, while Elizabeth Hardwick is an Editor. Frequent contributors (James Baldwin, Susan Sontag, and Joan Didion) have been invited to the publication as well. An advantage of inviting contributors is that their avatars will appear, which is great because...

...your team members (and their avatars) appear in every projects’ byline picker. You can publish stories under the publication’s name (New York Review of Books), by a specific contributor in your organization (James Baldwin), or even by a custom author.

This is going to seem like a small detail, but you can actually always see where you are in the system by looking in the upper right corner. Check out the small slideshow below:

My profile avatar (the circle) is in the publication logo (the square). If I’m only in my profile, I’ll only see the circle avatar.

Projects

Finally, it’s good to explain that projects are different than publications and profiles. Both profiles publications can contain projects.

Projects are these guys:

The last thing to cover is: what if you have been working on a project on your profile page? How do you move it to a publication?

Easy! First, go to the project and click on small down arrow. It will reveal a menu with the option “Move To...”

Once you click “Move To...”, you will see a menu with all the publications where you’re a member. You can pick from these publications; in this case, I’m only a member of one:

After clicking “Move”, the project will appear on the publication’s project page, automatically.

For more information, you can check out this Atavist Make post: https://make.atavist.com/introducing-publications