Getting Started: Assemble 101
SETTING UP YOUR SITE: FIRST STEPS!
First things first: Make sure to take a moment to familiarize yourself with your Assemble dashboard. This is your main home for your site on the Assemble system, and is the central hub from which you can locate all our tools. Your dashboard is the first thing you see when you log in. Here's a direct link: http://assemble.me/admin/overview
One of the greatest things about Assemble is how it's completely adaptable to every phase of your film's life. You can start simple (a simple 'about' page and a trailer) and, as the film progresses, add apps and pages when they become appropriate. Thus your at-first simple site can morph into a full geolocated webstore, when the time comes.
THE BASICS
Assemble runs on the principle of 'pages', 'content modules' and 'apps'.
Your pages are literally the webpages that you will have on your site, and you can edit these directly in the left hand navigation bar in the Assemble back end. These pages will show any number of 'content modules', which can range from a simple text module, to more complex modules that link to other functionality on the site. It's entirely up to you.
For instance, you might want to add an 'About' page. On this page, you might want to then add the 'gallery' content module, which pulls images from the high res images app, as well as a simple text content module where you might type in your film's synopsis. Or you might want to add a button that links to your IMDB profile. Or you might want to pop your trailer in, by using the 'trailer' content module. You can add all these and more, simply by selecting the appropriate content module.
On your 'see the film' page, you might add the 'screenings' content module, which pulls screening information from the audience tools. Or you might add the 'press and reviews' content module to the 'press' page, and on the 'Shop' page you might want to add the 'webstore' content module as well as a text module... And so on!
In this way, you can customize any page to show any content you want.
At any time, you can activate an 'app' (thereby unlocking the content module) by visiting Settings -> Apps & Integrations. Simply click the app you want to add, and - presto - the functionality is live
Now: Brass tacks. The first steps to getting your site up and running on Assemble is to add some basic content.
1. Set up your pages
You can set up your site’s individual webpages under content -> web pages. To do this, simply click 'add a new page' in the web pages dashboard. When in the individual page editor, add the page title, and don't forget to tick it to the top or bottom navigation bar in the individual page editor- on the right hand side. You can then also add content modules into the page itself. More on that below!
The pages will appear in the navigation bar in the order you add them in the dashboard. You can re-order the pages (see attached screenshot) by dragging and dropping, just don't forget to hit 'save new page order' at the bottom of the page.
See the help topic about adding pages
2. Add content to your pages.
Adding content to your web pages is easy. Simply click ‘edit’ next to the page you want to add content to in the web pages dashboard (content -> web pages in the left hand menu).
Then, simply add the content module into the page itself. If you want text, you can add the ‘text and images’ module and type it in. If you want a gallery you can add the ‘gallery’ module (which will pull images from the high-res still section, see below), and so on.
See the help topic about adding content modules
3. Add images and galleries
Add high res press stills under content -> high res press stills on your left hand navigation bar. These will populate when you add a gallery module to any of your pages.
Note that you can tick 'background', 'press' and 'stills', which will assign them to different places, and you can specify which gallery you want to appear when you add the gallery module to any page. Thus a ‘film stills’ page could pull images ticked to ‘stills’, and a ‘press stills’ page could pull the images you ticked to ‘press’. Or vice versa! It’s all yours to decide.
See the help topic about adding images to the gallery
4. Add press reviews
You can add press reviews under content -> press reviews in the left hand navigation bar. These will automatically populate when you add the reviews content module onto any page.
See the help topic about adding press reviews
5. Add your trailer
The trailer is one of the most important aspects in film marketing. You can add your trailer anytime under content -> trailer. Pop the link in, and presto! The trailer is live.
See the help topic about adding trailers
6. Connect social media
Be sure to link your Facebook and Twitter accounts. To do this, visit settings -> apps and plugins in the left hand navigation bar, and connect the social media accounts that you want connected.
7. Set up email capture
Assemble allows for you to collect emails directly through our system-- very easy to set up, and very easy to export the emails to your own database, should you choose to. Simply add the ‘mailing list form’ as a content module on any of your pages. Then, visit audience -> mailing list from the left hand navigation bar to view the emails collected on the site.
See the help topics related to email capture
8. And more!
Want to start adding screenings? Visit content -> screenings in the left hand dashboard and start popping them in (don't forget: You will need to add the content module to a page in order for them to show on your site). Want to play with the design? Visit the Design Engine (design -> design engine in the left hand menu on your dashboard) and have a go. There is so much that Assemble offers - take a moment to explore the many options in your left hand menu, and - of course - you can always refer back to this help section.
Make sure to check out the topics in our help section! We've written comprehensive guides to most aspects of Assemble - from setting up your shipping rules to re-ordering pages.
And there you have it! Your very first steps to getting your site going on Assemble! We're glad you're here.
updated: April 2020