Other information you need to know in your Making Music Platform

This guidance specifically covers some other information you need to know in your Making Music Platform. Before reading this, please ensure that you have read our help guide on Getting Started with your Making Music Platform.

All of the Making Music Platform help guides and latest Platform News can be found on the MM Platform Service Hub page.

You can also download and read the full Other information in your Making Music Platform helpguide in PDF format.

SONG LIBRARY

Dropbox integration

It is possible to reference music files contained within your Dropbox folder and link them to the songs on your Making Music Platform. The main benefits of this are:

  • You no longer need to store your music files (MP3, sheet music, etc) in your Making Music Platform's hosting account, taking up the limited space in that account. Music files can now be stored in your Dropbox account and referenced (linked to) from your Making Music Platform song pages. This frees up space in your Making Music Platform hosting account.
  • Dropbox is a simple and powerful (and free) file-sharing system that you may already be using within your group. If you are, you now need to maintain ONLY ONE copy of each music file - the copy in your Dropbox folder. You don't need to have a separate copy in your group's website just because it's a convenient place for your members to find the file.

You can use your group's Dropbox account or your own personal account. You can even use a mixture - some files from one Dropbox account and some files from a different Dropbox account - although this is not recommended (for organisational reasons).

Once linked to your website, the Dropbox file will be almost indistinguishable from files uploaded directly to the website - except they won't take up any of the space on your Making Music Platform account. If the file is an MP3 music track, you'll even be able to play the file through the player on the song's webpage.

It is not necessary to explicitly "share" a Dropbox file in order for it to be linked to your website and accessed by all your members.

At this stage, Dropbox integration is only enabled for music files (MP3/PDF/etc files attached to the songs in your song database). In a future release of Making Music Platform, we will also enable this for events, posts, documents, etc.

How it works

To add a new file from Dropbox to a song on your website, do the following...

  1. When logged in as an administrator, open up the song's page, where all song details and downloadable files are listed
  2. Click the Add new file/resource link (in the Files/Resources section)
  3. Select the Type of file, and enter a name for the file, in the normal way
  4. In the File/Resource section, you'll see an option called File from Dropbox...


    Click that button

  5. A new window will open in your browser. You may be prompted to log into your Dropbox account, or you may find yourself already be logged into your Dropbox account. Once logged in, navigate within your Dropbox folder structure to the file you want to attach, and double-click on it
  6. That's it! Click Save at the bottom

The file will be displayed on the song's page in the normal manner, just as if you'd uploaded it directly to the website. If it's an MP3 music track, it will be playable directly through the player on the song's webpage.

If you already have the file uploaded to your Making Music Platform account and wish to "move" it into your Dropbox folder, do the following...

  1. When logged in as an administrator, open up the song's page, where all song details and downloadable files are listed
  2. Download the file in question to your computer
  3. Move the downloaded file into your Dropbox folder, and allow a minute or two for the file to be automatically uploaded to the Dropbox "cloud"
  4. Return to the song's page and locate the little update icon next to the file you just downloaded. Click that icon.
  5. Tick the box to delete the uploaded file:

  6. Without leaving the page, complete steps 4 to 6 from the earlier "adding" instructions (above).

Notes

  • At this stage, we are only providing functionality for you to choose files that are already in your Dropbox account. We are not (yet) providing the ability for you to upload new files to the website and have them be deposited into your Dropbox folder (instead of into your Making Music Platform hosting account). That functionality may come later.
  • Once a file in your Dropbox folder is linked to your Making Music Platform (by following the steps above), deleting, moving or renaming the file in the Dropbox folder will break the link, and you will need to relink it.
Song file download tracking (for copyright purposes)

There is a system built into Making Music Platform to track how many times a given song file (e.g. sheet music) has been downloaded by members, usually because of copyright considerations.  To use it, all you need to do is specify which files from which songs you wish to track downloads for. This is done as follows:

  1. Visit any song's page (as an administrator)
  2. In the Files/Resources section, click the little update icon just under the name of any file that you wish to track the downloads for (e.g. the sheet music)
  3. Click the Copyright tab
  4. Tick the box called Track member downloads?
  5. Optionally specify how many copies of the file you have paid for and are authorised to distribute
  6. Optionally specify the number of downloads that should trigger a warning message (see below for more info)
  7. Click Save at the bottom

Once that's done, you'll see something like the following, just above the Download button...

Track Downloads

If you click to download the file, and then return to the page and refresh the page, you'll see that the download count has increased by 1.

Notes

  • It doesn't matter how many times any given member downloads the file, the system will still only record that as a SINGLE download. So, in effect, we're tracking the number of MEMBERS that have downloaded the file, not the number of times the file has been downloaded. In other words, if you download the file a second time, the count will not increase further.
  • Regular members can NOT see those download counts - only administrators of the songs database.

You can click the 0 number to see a full summary of the downloads for that file (and for all files from that song). There are totals at the bottom for each of the files, showing the total number of members that have downloaded each file, and whether that is approaching or exceeding the allowed number of files.

That summary contains a tickbox for each member for each file, allowing you record the fact that certain members have been given copies of certain files in some other way than clicking on each file's "Download" button. They may have downloaded the files before this new system was introduced, or they may have been given a paper (or CD) copy, etc. These tick boxes allow you to record this. Note that you need to click the big button at the bottom to record the changes you make to that summary.

Note that this summary lists all members in your database, including former members. This is because former members may also have a copy of the file, which would count towards any copyright allowance.

There's also a new report which summarises the counts of all downloadable files from all songs. To access this report:

  1. Log in to the Members Area and click on the Admin link in the top-right corner to display the Administration Dashboard
  2. Scroll down to the Songs heading, and click on the View the Song file download summary link to the right of this in the Admin Pages column

Note: This new report is supposed to exclude polecats and tags. If it's not doing this correctly, let us know and we'll adjust it for you.

Finally, if you're logged in as an administrator of the Song Files/Resources database, and you visit the main Members page, and one or more song files have reached the (optional) warning level you added above, then a warning message will be shown across the top of the page.

Adding songs to your Song Library and Song Access Levels

Your Making Music Platform Song Library is a convenient way to keep track of your whole music library. When you add a song to the library, you can attach to it information about the song’s content, key signature, performance-readiness and much more. You can also attach videos or audio clips to share with the public, and learning resources (like sheet music and learning tracks) which only your members will see. Remember that if you are putting any musical content online then you may need a licence. More information about this can be found in our copyright resource.

The first step in populating your Song Library is to upload a song by clicking the ‘Add new song’ button in the top-right of the page and entering your song’s details into the webform. You can add as much or as little detail as you need at this stage.

When you have added a song it will appear in a list of songs in your Song Library. Click on the song’s title to go to the song’s unique page, from which you can upload song resources such as sheet music PDFs and learning tracks.

Keeping Ensemble songs private

If your group has several ensembles who perform different music, you can make each ensemble’s songs invisible to members who don’t participate in that ensemble.

This option can be enabled in your Website Setup and Configuration:

  1. When logged in as a Webmaster, click the cog icon in the top-right corner of any page on your site.
  2. Click the Settings cog next to where it says ‘Making Music Platform | Your group’s name’ to open your Making Music Platform Details page.
  3. Click on the Configuration tab and scroll about halfway down the page to the section titled Privacy.
  4. Tick the box labelled ‘Each song is visible only to members of that song's ensemble(s)?’

Click Save at the bottom of the page.

If you cannot find what you are looking for in our help guides or have any questions please get in touch.

 

How to add songs to the "Have a Listen" page

(This guide does not apply to Making Music Platforms that don't have a public-facing component. If your Making Music Platform is only a Members area, this guide does not apply to you.)

The Have a Listen page is designed to contain a list of all the songs that you sing that you want the public to know about (your public repertoire).  Each of the songs that you list on this page can include one or more playable MP3 clips and/or video clips.

To include such clips on the Have a Listen page...

  1. (If applicable)  First, upload the video clip to YouTube.  If necessary you can set the video's visibility to "unlisted" or "private".  It will show correctly on your Making Music Platform no matter what visibility setting you select on YouTube.
  2. Ensure you're logged into your Making Music Platform as an administrator
  3. On the main Members page, click the Song Library icon, then click the name of the song that you wish to have displayed on the Have a Listen page
  4. On the song's page, click the Update button
  5. On the Song Details page, click the Admin tab
  6. Tick the box called Part of public repertoire.  This causes the song to get listed on the Have a Listen page (but not yet with any clips)
  7. Save your changes via the Save button at the bottom of the page
  8. Back on the song's page, in the Files/Resources section, click the Add new file/resource link
  9. This is where you add the clip - either an MP3 file or a link to the YouTube video.  First, select the Type for the clip to be Public demos.  This is important!  Without selecting this Type, the file/clip will not show on the Have a Listen page.
  10. Give the clip a Name, such as "Demo"

  11. The clip itself goes in the section called File/Resource.  If the clip is an MP3 file, you can either upload it from your computer or link to it from Dropbox - there are buttons for both options in that section.  If your clip is a YouTube video, then copy and paste the address of the video page on YouTube (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-GzCqUwr4o) into the box called YouTube Video URL.

  12. Save your changes via the Save button at the bottom

Now you can visit the Have a Listen page to see the result.

 

OTHER FEATURES

Member Audits

Member audits are a great way of collecting specific pieces of information from your members – you can view Member Audits as being similar to a poll, a survey, or even just a questionnaire. A question or topic is created, and members can input their answers; these answers can be simple Yes/No answers, multiple choice, numeric answers, or longer forms answers.

Creating an Audit Group

Before any Member Audits can be created, an audit group must be created. An audit group is the framework for asking more specific questions – for example, you may want to ask the following questions: Do you have a music folder?; Do you have a water bottle?; Do you have concert uniform?. These questions can all be nicely grouped together in an Audit Group. In this case, I am going to name this Audit Group ‘Member’s Performance Equipment’. To create an Audit Group, navigate to the Admin Dashboard, and scroll down to the section called Member Audits, and click the Member Audits link:

In here, click the ‘+ Add new audit group’ button in the upper right-hand corner:

From here you can fill in the desired details.

 

Creating a Member Audit

Once you click ‘Save’ at the bottom of the Audit Group page, you will be invited to create your first question. Fill in the details as desired/required, including deciding how answers can be entered:

  • Simple, short response (Typically one or two words. E.g. a colour, size, name, country, etc)
  • Comprehensive response (Allow space for several sentences/paragraphs (e.g. skills register, bio, etc))
  • Numeric response (e.g. How many children do you have?)
  • Multiple-choice tick-boxes (Members choose one or more options from a set of options)
  • Single-choice radio buttons (Members choose one single option from a set of options)

Note that if you choose the multiple-choice or single-choice options, you will be provided with a text-field in which you can enter the possible options (separate each answer by a line break).

In this settings page, you can also choose whether a collated summary of responses is shown, as well as choosing the privacy preferences relating to Member’s answers.

 

Adding more questions to an Audit Grouping

Now that we have added a first question to the Audit Group you will be able to see the responses of this audit, listed within the Audit Group page. If you want to add more questions to this Audit Group, simply click ‘+ Add new question’ within the relevant Audit Group’s page:

 

 

Seeing the results of your Member Audits

Within an Audit Group’s page, you will immediately see a useful table of all answers – this is called the ‘Collated’ view:

You can also switch to seeing the answers organised by question asked, or by Member, by clicking through the tabs (shown at the top of the previous picture).

Finally, at the bottom of this same page, you will see a summary of the answers to all the questions in this Audit Group. Note that if ‘Show a collated summary of responses?’ was not ticked in the Member Audit question’s settings, it will not show a summary. The summary will look something like this:

 

Useful Tips for using Member Audits

  • A Member’s answers will appear at the bottom of their Profile.
  • If a Member Audit requires an answer, the Audit Question will appear on the Members Home page for those members that need to answer.
  • By clicking on a Count Number in the Audit Summary, you can see which members contribute to that Count Number
  • Webmasters (and Data Admins with the correct permissions) can answer for Members
Tracking website visitors

Enable the module

Firstly, you will need to enable the Website Visitors module on your Platform. To do this, click the Cog in the top-right of your Platform, to access the Website Setup and Configuration page. From here, click the upper most cog (to the right of Making Music Platform: Group Name). This is your Platform’s global settings page.

In the Configuration Tab, you will see a list of available modules that can be enabled on your Platform. Tick the tickbox next to Website Visitors and scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.

Website Visitors report

The best way to track visitors is via the Website Visitors report. This can be found in the Admin Dashboard, in the Website Config/Info section, entitled Website Visitors Report. In here you will see a list of Visits, sorted  by Log-In member (or where there is no Log-In, it will be listed as [General Public]). You can find information on how many visits were made, how many pages were viewed, and when the last time and date of a visit was recorded.

A more detailed breakdown of Website Visits

If you are needing to view more details about a specific visit, there is also a page for this. In the same Website Config/Info section of the Admin dashboard, in the right-hand column is a link entitled Website Visits. This will show you each visit as a separate record in the table, with pages viewed per visit and time/date also listed.

Sending text messages to members

As standard, the Making Music Platform allows those with data admin or webmaster permission levels to send text messages to any member in the member database that has a telephone number listed on their profile. The individual who is sending the text message is also required to have a mobile number added to their profile (any replies will be sent to this number) before they can send text messages.

To send a text message go to the Admin dashboard and under the Members section click on the link to Send a text message to all members. You are able to choose a particular member grouping to send the message to or manually select individuals to send the message to.

How much does each SMS cost to send and when will we be invoiced for this?

Each SMS costs 8p +VAT to send (for example, if you were to send the same text message to 10 people, it would cost 80p +VAT). A single text message is classed as being under 160 characters. You are able to write more than this but will be charged the relevant amount based on the number of characters used/text messages sent. When the groups Making Music Platform is up for renewal then if you have sent any text messages in the previous year you will receive two invoices from Making Music. One for the groups renewal for the next year and one for any SMS sent over the course of the previous year.

 

GOING LIVE WITH YOUR MAKING MUSIC PLATFORM

(Full website users only) Connecting your domain name to your Making Music Platform

Note: this help guide does not apply to Making Music Platform users that are using the "members area only" sites.  This only applies to sites that have a public-facing website. 

When groups get a Making Music Platform for the first time, they are set up with a template website hosted at a private makingmusicplatform.com website address.  Groups add content to their new Making Music Platform, and eventually deem it to be "ready" - ready for launch to their members and supporters.  In other words, they are ready to connect their domain name, and make their new Making Music Platform "live".

For example, let's say your group's name is "Example Group", your domain name is 'examplegroup.com', and that your Making Music Platform was created at 'examplegroup.makingmusicplatform.com.'  When your new Making Music Platform is ready for launch, you want to connect the domain name 'examplegroup.com' to your Making Music Platform, so that when someone visits 'examplegroup.com', they are taken to the new Making Music Platform.  After that happens, your Making Music Platform will be able to be find via two web addresses, 'examplegroup.com' and 'examplegroup.makingmusicplatform.com.'

How to do it

Note that if we (Making Music) manage your domain name, then we will do  this for you. All you need to do is tell us when you're ready for it to happen, please see our FAQ on domain name management for important information about how to co-ordinate going live (connecting your domain name to your platform) and setting up Making Music to manage your domain name. If we are not your domain name provider, then read on...

To connect your domain name to your new Making Music Platform website, you need to log into the website of your domain name provider - the website where your domain name was registered and is now managed and renewed.  If you don't know who your domain name provider is, then contact us - we may be able to find out for you.  Once logged in, you need to locate the place where you change your domain name's "nameservers".  This is sometimes called "delegation".  The place where you change nameservers is different in every domain name provider's website.  Once you've located the place where nameservers are changed, replace any existing nameservers with the following...

  • ns1mm.harmonysite.com
  • ns2mm.harmonysite.com

...and then wait several hours for that change to take effect.  Please also let us (Making Music) know as soon as the change has been made, so that we can update our records.

(Members area only) What we need to think about before going live with our members area?

If you want to use the members area only instead of the full website that is fine. This will be set up using the temporary address http://yourgroup.makingmusicplatform.com

As this domain is temporary you will need to choose a different domain name for the members area, something like http://members.mygroup.com. We have outlined the two options below, including what you need to consider regarding emailing. Please note that either way your Platform will be separate from your current website and therefore, you would need to add a link from your current website to your new Platform so that members can easily access the members area.

1. Set up a sub-domain as part of your current website

If your domain name for your main website is (for example) mygroup.com, you may want to use a sub-domain (e.g. members.mygroup.com) for your Making Music Platform.  To do this you would need to create that sub-domain in your own website's DNS system (this is normally easy to do via your online account with your domain name provider). Once done, let us know what the new domain name of the Platform will be, and we can change the information in our system.

2. Register a new domain name

You may decide that adding a sub-domain is not suitable for your group and want to set up a completely different domain name for the members area. To do this you would need to know the domain name which you would want to use. If you have asked Making Music to manage your domain name then we can register and manage the renewal process for you, just let us know what name you would want to use. If we do not manage your domain name, then you would need to register the domain yourself using services like GoDaddy or 123Reg.  Once you own the domain name let us know what it is, and we will change the information in our system.

Email

You will also need to decide whether to retain your existing email provider, or switch to the Making Music Platform for your emails.  The Platform provides a full suite of emails - mailboxes, forwarders and mailing lists.  These can exist on your regular domain name (e.g. mygroup.com), or a sub-domain (e.g. members.mygroup.com).  If you choose to retain your existing email provider for all email addresses, then you will miss out on the excellent integration between the Platform's member database and email system.

To get the full email functionality of the platform we would recommend that the Platform is used as your designated email provider instead of your current provider. If you want this, then you would need to make a small change to just the DNS configuration of your current domain name. Contact us when you are ready for this to happen (if we manage your domain name we will do this for you and if we don’t manage your domain name we will provide the technical information required to do this yourself). Once this change has been made your Making Music Platform will become your email provider, and your previous email provider will no longer be involved.

If you want to retain your existing email provider and  use Making Music Platform for emails, then you would need to set up a sub domain as outlined above. This will allow you to use the email addresses set up in your current domain e.g. president@mygroup.com as well as having a separate set of emails addresses set up in your Platform e.g. mailinglist@members.mygroup.com. These will both operate separately from one another.

 

We hope you find this Making Music resource useful. If you have any comments or suggestions about the guidance please contact us. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the content of this guidance is accurate and up to date, Making Music do not warrant, nor accept any liability or responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of the content, or for any loss which may arise from reliance on the information contained in it.

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