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How to Create a Project Homepage and Client Login

Skip to step-by-step Project Homepage setup

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What is a photoSentinel Project Homepage?

A project homepage is a  personalised  portal for accessing the  photoSentinel  Control Hub  and  image  galleries.

Most commonly it is used to give clients a branded gallery experience to view images from their installations.

You can customize project homepages in a variety of ways to suit your project, including branding, style, user permissions, and where it is hosted.

You don’t need to have a project homepage for your clients to view their photos; you can just give them a login to Control Hub at setup.photosentinel.com.au.

However, the big advantage of sending clients to a project homepage, rather than setup.photosentinel.com.au, is that you can brand it with own logos, or those of your client.

This is a great way to put you or your client’s brand at the forefront of the gallery experience.

To see an example of a branded project homepage,  visit our Demo Homepage.

Project Homepage Options

Two major choices to make when setting up a project homepage include whether you create one homepage or multiple, and where it is hosted.

Single or Multiple Project Homepages

A project homepage can have one or many installations attached to it, so it’s not necessary to create a new homepage for each installation unless you want to. 

You can use a project homepage as a “Branded installation management portal” which will add all of your installations, and any new installations will be added to the homepage automatically.  

Clients will only be able to view installations that you have given them access to. This is useful if you want to have a single homepage with your own branding that you use with all your clients. 

Alternatively, you can create separate project homepages for each of your clients, with their branding being used. 

There is no wrong approach; it’s what works best for you and your clients. 

You can also set up your image galleries to allow public access (no login required). Scroll down to the Public Installations, Guest Users, and Automatic Login section for more information. 

Hosting Options

You have three options when choosing where to host your project homepage.

.photosentinel.photos

The first hosting option is the .photosentinel.photos domain, which is free to use.

Example:          bobsphotography.photosentinel.photos

White-label domains

The second option is to use one of our white-label domains.

These are domains that, while maintained by photoSentinel, give you a project homepage free of any reference to photoSentinel, that you can personalise to your brand.

There are six to choose from:

• .construction.photos
• .imagegallery.co
• .imagegallery.photos
• .jobsite.photography
• .mining.photos
• .worksite.photography

Example: bobsphotography.construction.photos

Charges apply for white-label domains and these can be found in the domain dropdown menu on the Create Homepage page.

Custom domains

Thirdly, you can opt in to our Secure Custom Domain Service, which allows you to use your own existing domain to host photoSentinel project homepages.

Examples:      timelapse.bobsphotography.com

abcconstructioncompany.bobsphotography.com.

To protect your data, and that of everyone who uses photoSentinel, you’ll need to provide us with a wildcard SSL certificate for your custom domain. Setup and ongoing service charges apply; however, after your domain is set-up with a wildcard SSL certificate, you can create unlimited project homepages at that domain at no extra cost.

Once your custom domain is set up, you will see it listed in the dropdown menu as an option along with the others.

Click here to learn more about using your own custom domain.

How to Create or Edit a Project Homepage

To create a project homepage, follow the step-by-step instructions below.

1. Log into Control Hub.
2. Select  Project Homepages. 
3. Select  Create.

Then, fill in all the relevant fields for your homepage, as detailed in the below sections.

You can edit an existing homepage by following steps 1-2 above, then selecting Setup on an existing homepage, and then selecting the Manage Details and Style button.

Organisation Name

Your organisation’s name will be pre-filled here.

Project Homepage Name

Put a descriptive name for your homepage here.

Use a Branded Installation Management Portal

You can use your project homepage as a Branded Installation Management Portal. This will add all of your organisation’s installations to the homepage, and any new ones will be added automatically.

Your staff can manage all your installations from this one homepage, giving you convenient access to all your installations.

Simply turn on the Use as Branded Installation Management Portal toggle.

You can make these portals public by turning on “Allow login bypass for guest users” mentioned below, or read the Public Installations, Guest Users, and Automatic Login section for more information.

Allow login bypass for guest users

Turn on the Allow login bypass for guest users toggle to enable Guest User access to this homepage. Guest Users will not need to provide login credentials to view installations they have access to, bypassing the login screen.

For more information on Guest users, scroll down to the Public Installations, Guest Users, and Automatic Login section.

Project Homepage URL

Select the URL and domain the project homepage will be hosted at.  As mentioned above, a homepage can be hosted at photosentinel.photos, one of our white-label domains or a custom domain.

Select Gallery Style

To change the style that your gallery uses, select the Change Gallery Style button.

You will have multiple options to choose from for your gallery style. We recommend selecting the one labelled as “recommended”, as that will always be the latest and most advanced gallery.

For the best gallery experience, we recommend always keeping your web browsers up-to-date with the latest version.

Save & Create Project Homepage

Once you have entered your information into the fields, select Save & Create Project Homepage to save your configuration. 

Once you’ve created your homepage, you’ll have access to following additional configuration sections. 

Manage Details & Style

Select the Manage Details & Style button to be taken to a modal where you can edit the sections listed above, available when you first created your project homepage. 

Manage Branding 

Select the Manage Branding button to be taken to a modal where you can select branding options for your login page and gallery. The branding options available to you will differ between gallery styles.  

Select the Choose file button to upload images or Remove image or Use default image to remove them. Select the Save Changes button when you are done.

Login Logo

• The recommended size for the Login Logo is 600 x 200px.
• .jpeg, .png, and .svg are all supported image formats, but .svg is recommended for best compatibility with all screen sizes.
• The maximum login logo file size is 50KB.

Login Background

• The recommended size for the background is 1920 x 1080px
• The recommended image format is jpg. but png. is also supported
• The maximum background file size is 5MB.
• Your login background will be aligned to the top centre of the page. Keep this in mind when uploading your image.
• The background image will be clipped on smaller screens and scaled on larger screens. For this reason, if your client will be commonly viewing the page on a smaller screen (e.g. tablet), you may wish to upload a smaller image that will look best on the smaller screen and scale up to the larger screen (e.g. desktop computer).

Gallery List Background

• The recommended size for the gallery list background is 1920 x 1080px
• The recommended image format is jpg. but png. is also supported
• The maximum background file size is 5MB.

Gallery Banner/Logo

• The recommended size for the banner is 1920 x 100px.
• You can use a logo in the place of the banner; to do this, use an image with a size of 400 x 100px.
• .jpeg, .png, and .svg are all supported image formats, but .svg is recommended for best compatibility with all screen sizes.
• You can insert a hyperlink into the banner, or leave it blank for no hyperlink
• You can set a background color for the Gallery Banner and Logo Background using a valid HTML color string.
• You can set the banner’s alignment to left, right, or centered
• Your logo or banner will be displayed at 100px height regardless of how long the image is. The edges of the banner will be cropped on the side(s) to fit the browser window according to the alignment of the image.

Delete Project Homepage

Select the Delete Project Homepage button to permanently delete your project homepage. You will be asked to confirm before deletion of the homepage.

Manage Installations

Select the Manage Installations button to be taken to a modal where you can add or remove installations associated with this homepage.

To add an installation, follow these steps:

1. Open the Manage Installations modal by selecting the button.
2. Open the Add an installation dropdown menu; locate your installation manually or search for it by name.
3. Select Add Installation to Homepage.

To remove an installation, follow these steps:

1. Open the Manage Installations modal by selecting the button
2. Tick the Remove Selected checkbox next to the installations you wish to remove
3. Select the Remove Selected button

How to Set Up a Client Login

Once you’ve created a project homepage, you will then need to create a client login to give your clients access.

There are two steps to creating a user:

1. Create the user.
2. Associate them with an installation/s.

We’ll look at both of these.

How to Create a New User

To create a new user, navigate to the Users page, and click Add User. Then, fill in all the fields.

Not all fields will be relevant to all users; for example, most clients won’t need to have advanced permissions or receive system warnings.

First name, surname, username

Fill in the user’s name and surname, and create a new username for them.

Timezone

Select the user’s timezone.

Password

You can randomly generate a password or manually create one for this user. Make sure to copy the username and password to send to your client.

Supplier

Only tick “Supplier” if you are creating another admin user who you want to be able to configure installations.

Company

The company field is just for your own reference and can be left blank if you wish.

Email

Input the user’s email in case they need to reset their password. This email will also be used to receive system warnings, which generally are not necessary for client users.

Mobile

The user’s phone number is only required if they are going to receive critical warnings by SMS, and so is generally not needed for client users.

Notifications

Notification settings only apply to users with permission to receive alerts and so are not generally required for client users.

Save

Once you’ve filled in all the relevant fields, click Save.

You have now created the user, but you have not yet associated them with any installations.

How to Associate a User with an Installation

1. Select your installation from the drop-down menu and  click on  Info.
2. In the Users Associated  section, select your new user from the drop-down menu.
3. Tick the checkboxes for the permissions you would like your user to have.  We recommend not checking “Write” or “Receive Alerts” unless the user will be managing the installation and editing its configuration.
4. Click  Set User Permissions to save these settings. The user should now appear in the list of Users Associated.

Public Installations, Guest Users, and Automatic Login

You can create an image gallery that is public and does not require login credentials to access.

To do this, you must associate a Guest User with it and enable automatic guest login on the homepage via the Allow guest user to access this Project Homepage toggle.

Your organization will have a Guest User by default. Guest users will not be able to login to photosentinel.com.au URLs.

Setting up a Public Installation (a gallery that does not require login)

To grant public access to a gallery:

1. Select the installation you would like to have a public gallery.
2. Go to Info
3. At the bottom of the page, associate the user ‘Guest User’.
4. If the installation is attached to a project homepage with “Allow login bypass for guest users” enabled, they will be able to view the gallery via the homepage URL without logging in. Follow the steps below to enable “Allow login bypass for guest users”.

How to enable “Allow login bypass for guest users”

You can turn “Allow login bypass for guest users” on or off by following the steps below:

1. Login to Control Hub  
2. Select the Project Homepages tab.
3. Click Setup on the project homepage you would like to use for the public gallery.
4. Select Manage Details & Style.
5. Ensure that the Allow login bypass for guest users toggle is enabled or turn it off to disable it.

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If this article did not resolve your issue, please lodge a Support ticket.