Step 2: Creating and Managing Your Clients' Archives

Step 2: Creating and Managing Your Clients' Archives

This is step 2 of the getting started guide for Photo Managers. Read on to learn how to create and manage your clients' archives on Permanent.org, or use the navigation links below to navigate to other steps in this guide.
  1. Introduction
  2. Step 1: Creating Your Account
  3. Step 2: Creating and Managing Your Clients' Archives
  4. Step 3: Manage Storage and Payments on Permanent.org
  5. Step 4: Build Your Client's Archive
  6. Step 5: Hand Off Your Client's Archive


Creating and managing archives for your clients

Once you’ve created an account, you’ll want to create your first archive. A Permanent archive is a preserved collection of materials about a person, a group or family, or an organization. You can create an archive about:
  1. an individual person (The Lukas Bennett Archive)
  2. a part of your client’s family tree (The Pinson, Tarrant, Tuagilelagi Archive)
  3. an interest group or association (The Philanthropy Southwest Archive)
  4. a business (The Medorose Ice Cream Company Archive)
  5. or whatever makes the most sense for you and your client
With your Permanent account, you can create or join as many archives as you need. There are no limits to the number of archives you can be a part of. This allows you to create an archive for each of your clients (or each project for your clients!). Your other clients will not have access to archives that you haven’t specifically requested for them to join, so they will not be able to see your other clients’ materials.

You’ll be asked to create your first archive right after you’ve created your account (see a step by step guide here). There are two things you need to decide when creating an archive: the archive’s name and the archive’s type (don’t worry though! You can always change both of these things later). 

The archive is named in the format “The [Insert Name Here] Archive.” You can customize what information you put into the blank, but all archive names follow the same format. 


Some examples of archive names include:
  1. The Hollstein-Briggs Family Archive
  2. The Jonathan Stanley Hodgins IV Archive
  3. The Lakeway Community Garden Archive
  4. The Myerbrook Car Dealership Archive

If you change your mind and need to edit the archive’s name after you’ve created it, you can do so in the archive’s profile (learn more about how to edit an archive’s name here).

The archive type represents who or what the archive is about. It also changes what fields you’ll have available to in the archive’s profile. There are three archive types on Permanent:
  1. Person - an archive about an individual, whether that be your client or a loved one of your client
  2. Group - an informal group of people such as a neighborhood, family, interest group, or church
  3. Organization - a formal organization such as a business, library, archive, or museum

If you aren’t sure what archive type to create, try creating a group archive if the material you’re working with is about more than one person, or a person archive if the material you’re working with is about just one person. You can change the archive type later in the archive settings (learn more here). 

When you need to create a new archive for a new client, you can do so in your account menu. You can also switch between your different archives in your account menu (see a step-by-step guide for creating a new archive and switching archives here).

I’m working with a client who has materials from lots of different family members. Should I make one archive for all of it, or separate it into multiple archives?
We advise that you speak with your client about what they and their loved ones would prefer. We also suggest showing them a few examples of public archives in the Permanent Public Gallery so they can get an idea of what a finished Permanent archive looks like, which might help them to make a decision. 

Quick Links

  1. Create your account and first archive
  2. Learn how to edit your archive’s name
  3. Learn about archive types
  4. Learn how to create a new archive
  5. Learn how to switch between archives


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