Step by step

1. Open the albums screen

   In the left-hand navigation, find the Media group and click The albums. Your organisation may use different wording for the group name, but the screen address is always /admin/actions/albums. The entry is declared with that fixed href and belongs to the media group.

2. Create a gallery document if you do not have one yet

   If no albums exist, you will see a Make an album link. Click it to open the gallery creation form. Fill in a title, a date (today is pre-filled), and optionally a description and an event link. Most importantly, choose a visibility: Public, Members only, Leadership only, or Administrative — private. The default is Administrative — private, so set it deliberately. Save the form to create the gallery; its status will start as Draft.

3. Review the gallery list and its visibility

   The albums screen loads all galleries belonging to your organisation. Each album card shows the photo count, published state, and the visibility level you chose. Confirm the visibility shown matches what you intended before you proceed.

4. Add photographs to the album

   On the album card, use the file picker to select one or more image files. When you submit, each file is uploaded as its own media record and automatically given the same visibility as the gallery.

5. Order the photographs if you wish

   Once at least one photograph has been added, an Order them, and choose the cover control appears on the card. Expand it and type a number next to each photograph to set the sequence. Submit the order form and the gallery saves the new arrangement. Photographs left unnumbered move to the end.

6. Choose a cover photograph if you wish

   In the same expanded panel, a list shows all photographs in the album by title. Select the one you want as the cover and submit. The gallery record is updated with that choice. Only a photograph already in the album can be set as the cover; the system rejects any other selection.

7. Publish the gallery

   Click Publish it on the album card. The button is disabled until at least one photograph exists. Publishing updates every photograph in the album to the gallery's visibility, marks the gallery as published with the current date and time, and sets a cover photograph if you did not choose one yourself. An audit event is recorded.

8. Change visibility by editing the gallery document directly

   The albums screen shows visibility as a label only; you cannot change it from here. To alter visibility before publishing, go to the photo-galleries collection and open the gallery document to edit the visibility field there. The status field cannot be set by hand anywhere in the CMS — only the Publish action can move a gallery to published status.

What happens next

Once published, your gallery record carries a status of published, a publication timestamp, and a cover photograph. Every photograph in the album shares the same visibility level as the gallery itself, so access is consistent across all images. An audit event is written recording that the publication took place.

Good to know

Visibility is set on the gallery first and then flows down to every photograph when you publish.

The status field is fully controlled by the system and cannot be typed into or overridden manually, even by an Operations admin. The only way to publish a gallery is through the Publish it button on the albums screen.