Comparison of sharing versus collaborating

Below is a text version of part of a longer article I wrote for InDesign Magazine on CC Libraries in issue #83. This is the section on Sharing and Collaborating. There have been minor changes since I wrote this two years ago but it's essentially accurate. I've never seen a comparison chart. The longer article is available for subscribers or for purchase of the single issue:

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Similar to cloud services like Dropbox or Google Drive, the Adobe Creative Cloud provides the ability to share a link to a library (or other Creative Cloud file) or to collaborate in working with your assets with other colleagues. But let’s get clear about Adobe’s terminology: Sharing lets users download a read-only copy of a folder, or individual assets, but leaves your assets unchanged. Collaborating gives a colleague full access to edit or share the assets.

Sharing assets

Public sharing of assets ensures that you retain complete control over your content. Recipients get read-only access to your assets, which means they cannot upload, update, or delete them. When working with individual files on disk (or in the cloud), the shared assets are accessed using a unique short adobe.ly URL that you send via email or copy/paste to share. At any time, you can turn off the URL to revoke access.

When it comes to sharing a CC library, select the library in the CC Libraries panel, and choose Share Link from the panel menu. You’ll get switched to your web browser, and see the Send Link window. If your asset is not already public, you must check Create Public Link. Then a public link and URL are created (Figure 13). Specify the email addresses you want to send the link to, or copy the link provided. If for some reason you want people to be able to see your assets but not download them, click Advanced Options, and deselect Allow Downloads.

Clicking the short URL opens the shared file or folder in a web browser. Recipients don’t have to be Creative Cloud members to view or access publicly shared files and folders.

If you want to stop sharing the library, choose Share Link again from the CC Libraries menu. The web interface opens, and in the Send Link window, choose Remove Public Link.

Collaborating

Sharing a library of assets is interesting, but what’s really cool is that you can collaborate with colleagues on a library! As I said, collaborating means you’re giving editing rights, too, so they can view, edit, use, rename, move, or delete the contents of a shared library. Be careful whom you choose—the CC Libraries panel doesn’t have an undo feature. Collaborators will need an Adobe ID; if they don’t have one already, they can create one when they accept the invitation.

Inviting colleagues.

To invite colleagues to collaborate on a library, select the library in the CC Libraries panel, and choose Collaborate from the panel menu. You’ll be transferred to the Libraries section of My Assets (as described above in “Working with library assets in a web browser”).

An invitation window appears where you can enter an email address and optional message to the person you’re inviting to share a library (Figure 14, next page). After doing so, click Invite. You can then invite additional colleagues as well.

When someone accepts your invitation (see below), you’ll receive a notification and the activity will show in the Home tab of the Creative Cloud desktop application. In the Libraries category of your Creative Cloud files, the library now appears in the Shared section, and a small Share icon appears beside its name.

Accepting an invitation.

If you’re logged in with your Adobe ID in the Creative Cloud desktop application, you’ll see an Updates And Requests banner at the top of the application. Click the banner, and click the Accept button. You’ll also receive an invitation email, sent by Adobe Creative Cloud, with a link you can click to accept (Figure 15).

All invited members of the Shared Library can now perform all the functions I’ve described above.

Managing a shared library.

You can manage collaborators to a shared library by choosing Collaborate from the CC Libraries panel menu. The Collaborators window in the web interface displays the status of your invitations. The person who initially shared the library is the “owner.” Collaborators who haven’t yet accepted the invite have “Invited” displayed next to their names/email IDs.

To remove a single user, click the X icon next to the user, and click Remove Access (if the collaborator has accepted the invitation) or Remove Invitation (if the collaborator hasn’t accepted the invitation yet). Or, to take back the whole thing so that you’re no longer collaborating, delete all the users of the library. On the flip side, if you are a collaborator on someone else’s shared library, and would like to stop sharing it, select the name of the library in the CC Libraries panel, and choose Leave Library from the panel menu.