Roots Visual Interacvite (RVI) is an online system for effective communications amoung dispersed teams.  It excels at organizing and sharing many images with commentary.  It can also be used for videos and online file access.

To get started you need to become familiar with your digital camera so you can take pictures of anything you want to discuss.   Establish a workflow for transferring pictures from your camera to your computer saved in an organized way for easy sorting.   Get more details of the steps by clicking the Using RVI button.

Start this tutorial, once you have some photos on your computer ready to share online.

Login to access your account for photos arranged by store into separate albums.

Go to cachelan.com from your browser

In the login area select

Login as:      Cachelan Account

Username:   Enter your username

Password:    Enter your password

If you forget your password, click the Forgot your password?  link under the login boxes and have it  emailed to you.

Access all your store albums from the Albums tab in your account.  To view the album click on the store name.  To add photos, captions and make changes click the Edit button beside the store name.  This screen also gives you information about views and usage.  Click on any of the column headers to sort by that category.

Pick a store and click the Edit button

The first screen will be the existing store album which on startup is empty.  Normally you will edit the album here.  To upload photos, select the Gallery tab to go to the Gallery where the photos are initially placed before arranging into a store album.

For a new account, you need to get a ZIP file of title screens and store them on your computer for setting up each new store.  Click the Titles button below, download and save the title screen ZIP file on your computer with your other Roots photos.

After you have downloaded the ZIP file of title screens to your computer and saved it you can upload it into each new store you set up.  In the Gallery, click the first browse button, navigate to where the titlescreens.zip file is located on your computer, select it and click the Open button. 

A progress bar appears during uploading followed by a confirmation message if the files were successfully loaded into your account.  Any uploaded files will be visable in the Gallery.

At this point you could begin arranging your uploaded photos into an album or add more.  To check if the Zip file of screen titles uploaded and unzipped into the Gallery, click the Gallery button.

Click the 1st browse button and navigate to the file folder of images for upload.  Select the first image and click the Open button.  The file name appears in the browse box. 

Repeat for up to 10 additional images.  If you are uploading a video or document, in the pulldown box to the left of the filename select File as the type.  When done, click the upload button.

For more than 10 images, put them all into a folder first then either ZIP them up and load the single zip file or go to the bottom of the Gallery screen and select Multiple Files Upload.  Follow screen directions to drag and drop the file folder in a single upload operation.

To remove an image that is in an album click the down arrow beside the image.  Images remain in the Gallery until deleted from the account in the Gallery area.  The same image can be used in multiple albums.

When all done click the Save button.  Your changes are online ready for viewing.

Put simple titles in the header box which will appear bold and centered above the onscreen photo.  For more detailed captions, write your comments for discussion in the text box.  Use the format buttons above for changing the font, colour,  centering etc similar to a word processor.

Click Save then Back to Album to select a random image or the > button to add comments to the next image.

On the Album Settings tab, chose the settings shown here.  You can select different options to alter the look and performance, eg run a slide show or choose a different view.  The email you insert here is the person that should receive comments left in the Feedback box at the bottom of the screen.

Click the View button to see how your album appears to visitors.

Clicking on a thumbnail jumps to the full screen view with captions for that image.  Use the < & > buttons to view other screens.  Visitors can leave comments by clicking the Comments button at the bottom of the screen.

Click the X button in the upper right to return to Album-Edit mode where you can make additional changes.  Any changes made appear immediately.

Files can only be deleted in the Gallery.  Check the box next to each file for deletion.  At the bottom of the Gallery thumbnails, choose Delete Selected and hit Go.  Files are permanently erased from the Gallery and in any albums where they were selected so ensure you have a copy elsewhere on your computer before deleting.

Each store has its own webspace (PIN) and Gallery to prevent mixing up photos.  Total capacity in each Gallery is 200 files.  You will need to free up space before adding more if this limit is exceeded.

When done editing the current store album select Account to return and work on another store.  If completely finished, select logout to exit Roots Visual Interactive.  Return again any time and resume where you left off by logging in at the cachelan.com  homepage.

Roots Visual Interactive is a powerful communication tool for working efficiently as a dispersed team.  All the features you need have been described. 

Explore the settings and screens for additional features and screens if you are interested.