New feature spotlight: Draft entry 

Did you know that Draft Entry was recently released? No? Perfect, that’s why we’re highlighting Draft Entry for our first New Feature Spotlight. We’re going to tell you what a draft entry is, what you can do with it, and then help you figure out how to use it. Don’t worry, it’s easy. Cue the music! 

What is a draft entry? 

A draft entry lets you create a media entry (video, audio, or image) in KAF (or KMS) without uploading the actual content. You can enter in the relevant media metadata such as the title, description, and tags then save that entry for later. 

Why is a draft entry helpful to me? 

So, a draft entry really helps you improve your workflow in a couple of different ways. 

• Draft – Instructors and teachers like to set things up ahead of time. You have plans and structure and schedules to maintain. As its name implies, a draft entry lets you create a draft entry. Helpful? Ok. Let’s say that you know that you’re going to add specific videos later, but you don’t yet have them ready for upload. Rather than wait for the videos to be ready before adding the relevant metadata, you can do that ahead of time. You can create a draft entry, enter in the metadata like the title, description and tags, then save it. When your videos are ready, all you need to do is upload them to the draft entry and publish it. Draft entry helps you plan out and visualize what videos you need to create, upload, and share with your students.
  
  
• Collaborate – Draft entry helps you collaborate with your students, co-teachers, and teaching assistants. Maybe you want to prepare the entry descriptions and metadata while your TA uploads the specific video. Before draft entry, collaboration had to happen outside of KAF. Now, you can create a draft entry and enter in all the relevant metadata, then a teaching assistant or student can simply upload the video to the draft entry. Draft entry can also be a way to prepare student video assignments. You can enter the relevant information required by the assignment, then have students upload their videos when they are ready to the specific draft entry. 

To recap. Draft entry helps you improve your workflow by preparing the entry with all the relevant information before the content is ready, so when it is, you’re ready to go. It also helps you collaborate with your TA’s and students by letting you prepare the entry and having them upload the content and publish later (or vice versa).
 

How do I create a draft entry? 

Now for the important information. You can always find how to do almost anything in Kaltura in the recently revamped Kaltura Knowledge Center. Learn about the ins and outs of draft entry by clicking Creating and Working with Draft Entries. Or, you can continue onward with me, and I’ll cover the basics.
 

Psst…Admins you must enable the Draftentry module 

Before you can create a draft entry, you’ll need to enable the Draftentry module in KMS Admin:  

1. Sign into KMS Admin 
2. Under Modules, select Draftentry 
3. Set enabled to Yes 
4. Click the Save button 

That’s it. Draft entry is now enabled for your KAF. To show you how easy it is, I recorded the first time I enabled the Draftentry module myself.

Create a draft entry 

Now that the Draftentry module is enabled, we can start creating draft entries. 

1. Click Create or Add New 
2. Select Draft Entry 
3. Fill in the relevant metadata 
4. Click Save 

Note: Draft entry required fields will be the same as any other media entry required fields. So, if you have required fields before saving, then draft entry will adhere to those rules. 

Alright, since the proof is in the pudding, I have also recorded the very first draft entry I created in my own KMS. You’ll even get a sneak peek at some new looks! 

Spotlighted 

Draft entry is a great improvement to your workflow. Just to be sure, draft entry lets you save a media entry placeholder without the media. So, if you want to get some of the background work done before you have your content, you can and that just helps you get things done in the order that you can. Draft entry also lets you divide and conquer, by divvying up duties for someone to enter in the entry metadata that others will upload content into. Enable draft entry from your KMS Admin and try it out. It’s available today!