An Amara Community team is a platform team space for collaborating with your subscribers, followers or fans to help subtitle your videos within a controlled space. Amara Community is a powerful option that enables higher quality subtitles for your videos.
All of your volunteers on one easy to manage team.
Built-in quality control.
Integration with a public YouTube Channel that has public videos.
Tap into the social connections of your multilingual fans. Reach new audiences near and far!
Self-service ordering of automatic captions in many languages.
Self-service ordering from Amara On Demand, our professional captioning and translation team.
Note that Community team types are public-facing so your videos and subtitles will be visible to any Amara user.
This article will focus on Amara Community teams only. If you have not yet signed up for a Community team, you can do so from the Amara Community information page.
If you are interested in a Community Enterprise team (typically for larger groups of volunteers and contributors), or a private team, contact enterprise-support@amara.org.
Check out our Amara Blog post, Start Your Amara Community, for everything you need to know to get started with your Community team, and keep reading below to learn how to manage your Community team:
Set your subtitle languages.
Connect YouTube to Your Team.
Manage Members.
Manage Videos.
Manage Subtitles, including setting Workflow for Review, and Subtitle ordering of Automatic Captions and from Amara on Demand.
Change Plan options.
Go to Your Team Workspace to Get Started
Find your team under Teams you manage and click the Go to team link:
General Team Settings
There are a variety of settings the team Owner can adjust to suit the team’s specific needs. Visit the Settings page. From there, the Owner can:
Add a team description, logo, and banner.
Set subtitle languages.
Set team admission policy.
Set custom messages and notifications for team members.
Manage YouTube integration.
Change Plan options.
Set Subtitle Languages
Select the languages that you want subtitled for your videos. The Owner can do this during initial sign up or from the Settings > Subtitle Languages page.
Carefully select your subtitle languages because your team has a limited number of languages.
Note:
With the basic Community plan, 5 languages are included. However, you can purchase additional languages from your team Settings > Subtitle Languages page or the team’s Plan page.
After you save your selected languages, languages cannot be changed. Choose your languages from these language options on Amara: Languages supported on Amara
Connect YouTube to Your Amara Team
Integration with a YouTube channel is a requirement for an Amara Community team. Please refer to this article for integration instructions: Connect YouTube to Your Amara Team.
Note:
When you integrate the team with a YouTube channel new videos on the channel are automatically added to the team.
However, at any time you can manually add a video to the team (see Manage Videos section below), even with the YouTube channel Integration set.
Unlisted YouTube videos will not automatically import to the team, even if Integration has been set for a YouTube channel. Only videos with privacy set to Public will automatically import to the team.
Options you can choose/edit at any time:
Import existing subtitles from YouTube to the video on Amara.
Import existing automatic captions from YouTube to the video on Amara.
Note: At any time, you can create/edit subtitles and/or manually upload subtitle files, even with the YouTube channel Integration set to automatically import existing subtitles and automatic captions.
If you choose to import existing subtitles, they are imported and marked as Complete. The completed subtitles can still be edited at any time.
Export completed subtitles from Amara to YouTube, including video title, description, and/or translated video title and description.
Manage Members
View a list of everyone on your team on the Members page.
Each row in the Members page shows the team member’s name, team role, date they joined the team, and total number of subtitles completed.
Click on a member's name to view their team member profile.
Click in the area to the right of the team member’s name to expand a team member’s row to view the languages listed on their profile.
Find a Team Member
You can search for a specific team member by entering either a username or full name in the search bar.
Use the Filter and sort button to narrow down your search results by languages and team roles so you can easily find members.
Add New Members
From the team Settings > Team Admission page, Owners can manage and change how members can join the team.
Invitation: Owners invite members from the Members page.
Application: Owners must approve members. See the Review Applications for Potential Members section below.
Invite Users to Join
Invite users to your Amara team using their usernames or email addresses. Inviting a member to join a team bypasses the application process, even if the team is set to Application admission.
Because Amara Community teams are public, members can apply through the contact a team admin link on the team home page.
Review Applications for Potential Members
If the team’s admission policy is set to Application, applications can be reviewed from the Settings > Team Admission page, or from the Members page by clicking on the Review Applications link at the bottom of the page.
You can filter applicants by their languages spoken. Check the box next to an applicant and then select approve or deny from the slide-up menu at the bottom of the page. You can approve or deny multiple applicants at one time.
Remove Members
Select a member by clicking the box next to their name. Then you can use the menu that slides up at the bottom of the page to remove them from the team.
Manage Videos
Only Owners and Admins can add videos to an Amara Community team.
Add videos to the team from a hosting site OR use a direct link.
We support flv, mp3, mp4, ogv, webm file formats.
Add URL from YouTube.
Videos on an Amara Community team must be public YouTube videos.
Only add videos that you own or have obtained permission to share.
Review Amara’s Terms of Service for more information.
Important: Amara does not host or store videos.
We only import video information, and stream from a host site.
Video must be embeddable and public to view on Amara.
Check host site settings, and whitelist if necessary;
If a video is private, users will not be able to view it.
Videos Page
Filter, sort, and search for team videos on the Videos page:
Switch layout between List or Grid View.
Search for videos by title.
Filter and sort team videos by:
Video language;
Needs subtitles;
Completed subtitles;
Project;
Duration;
Sort by date added, video title, and number of completed languages.
Click the check box next to the video to display a slide up menu with options to order captions and subtitles; remove the video; move the video to a different team or project; edit the video title, language, or thumbnail; and download subtitles.
Add Videos
From the team Videos page;
Move videos from the Amara Public Workspace;
Using Amara integration with YouTube (see section above).
Add Videos on the Team Video page
On the team Videos page click on the + Add videos button.
Add a URL
Add a video URL from a hosting site.
The URL of the video on Youtube is in the address bar of the video page:
Copy the URL in the browser window on the video page on the host site and paste it into the URL address field.
Select the source language spoken in the video.
Click the Add video to your team button.
Add a video URL window.
Add Multiple URLs
Enter the URLs of any compatible videos. Enter one URL per line. Press the Enter key to move to the next line.
To designate titles for the videos, add a space after a URL and enter the title after the space.
Note that if you don’t specify a title in this window, then the titles for the team videos will be populated with information from the videos at the host site.
Select the source language.
Note that when adding multiple videos they must all have the same source language.
Optional: select the team Project.
Select the Add Multiple button.
Move Videos from Amara Public Workspace
From the video page on the Amara Public Workspace, click the three button menu on the Add/Edit subtitles button and click Move video to your team in the menu.
Troubleshoot adding videos to your team
Videos must be embeddable. This means that either they should be a direct link to a HTML5 compatible video, or to a player supported by Amara (like YouTube). If you have the option, whitelist www.amara.org for embedding on the video's source site.
Videos must be public at the host site to add to an Amara Community team.
Manage Subtitles
Start Subtitling or Translating
Any team member can start subtitles as soon as a video is added to the team. There are a number of ways that you can subtitle or translate team videos.
Go to the team Dashboard.
Click on the Transcribe [language] or Translate [language] button under a video and you will enter the editor.
3. Or you can go to the Videos page and click on the video you wish to subtitle or translate.
If no subtitles exist in that language yet, click on the Add/Edit subtitles button.
Select the language in the Add new subtitles dropdown, then click on the Add button.
Or if subtitles for the language already exist, click on the subtitle language from the Incomplete Subtitles or Completed Subtitles list.
Optional Subtitle Workflow: Review
To maintain greater control over subtitle quality you can set the Subtitle Workflow for Review. Go to the team Settings page >> Subtitle Workflow, then check Enable review:
Note: The same team member should not perform the Subtitle and Review Workflow steps. One team member can create subtitles, then a second team member should perform the Review step.
Completing Subtitles
When subtitles are completed by a team member in the editor:
If you have not enabled Review in your Subtitle Workflow, then the subtitles are considered complete and published.
If you have enabled Review in your Subtitle Workflow, then when subtitles are completed by a team member, the subtitles will show as being ready for Review:
Other team members will see the Review available on their Dashboard under a video thumbnail:
Click on Review to enter the editor. Watch the video, verify that the subtitles are correct, then click on Publish to complete the review and have the subtitles marked as Complete:
Note that team members can edit subtitles at any time, including completed subtitles.
Upload Subtitles
You can upload subtitle files from either the video page or from inside the editor.
On the Videos page click on the three dots to the right of the Add/Edit subtitles button, then click on Upload subtitles.
Or you can select Add/Edit subtitles in any language to enter the editor.
Select Subtitles tools
Select Upload subtitles.
Download Subtitles
There are a number of ways that you can download subtitles. We recommend downloading VTT file type for most use cases.
Download from the Video Page
When viewing a video page, click on the download button to the right of the Subtitles header and choose the Completed or Incomplete language and the file type you wish to download.
Or click on any language that you want to download from either the Incomplete Subtitles list or the Completed Subtitles list.
Click on the Download dropdown under the subtitle language header and choose the language and the file type you wish to download.
Download from the Subtitle Page
From the subtitle page for a set of subtitles not only can you download subtitle files, but you can view activity for team subtitles and compare subtitle revisions.
Go to the Videos page.
Either click on the video from the Video column, and select the subtitle language from the Completed or Incomplete Subtitles sections of the page;
Or click on the area to the right of the video title to expand information about the video and view subtitles, start new subtitles, or edit incomplete subtitles for a video.
The subtitle page opens, and from the subtitle page you can download the subtitles, compare revisions, edit the subtitles, and follow the subtitle set for updates.
The menu bar below the video has options to view the following subtitle details:
Subtitles shows current subtitles and their timestamps.
Subtitles Info shows video information.
Activity shows all activity by team members.
Subtitle Notes shows notes left by team members in the Amara Editor.
Sync History shows the status of subtitle export attempts to the video’s hosting site.
Compare Revisions, Rollback Revisions
The Compare revisions link on the subtitle page allows you to view the progress of the subtitles, compare two revisions of the subtitles, or rollback to previous versions of the subtitles.
Click the Compare revisions link and select two revisions to compare, then click the Compare button:
In the compare revisions window you can scroll through the revisions to see the differences between two subtitle versions.
You can rollback to a previous version of the subtitles by clicking on the Rollback to version # button.
Subtitle Orders: Free Automatic Captions, and order from Amara on Demand
From the team’s Subtitle Orders page, the team Owner can order:
Automatic speech recognition (ASR) captions for the following languages:
English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese Brazilian, Italian, and Dutch.
Community teams get 20 free minutes of automatic captions every month. Free automatic caption minutes are reset at the beginning of each month, and do not carry over from month to month.
Or you can order captions or translations from Amara’s expert team of professional linguists, Amara on Demand (AOD).
Your captions are delivered to your Community team, and you or members of your team can then edit, review, and approve the auto-captions from within your team space.
Order professional, human crafted captions and translations!
You can also submit a video to our Amara On Demand team of professional linguists.
Manage Plan Options or Cancel Team Subscription
Manage Plan Options
Only the team Owner can access the Plan page to change plan options such as the number of seats (team members), number of languages, or the payment information.
If the team ownership needs to be updated or changed, the current Owner of the team/billing credit card should send an email to enterprise-support@amara.org requesting the ownership change.
Canceling Team Subscriptions
If you have a team with a paid subscription and would like to cancel your subscription, please contact invoices@amara.org.
Please note that deactivating your personal Amara user account will not cancel Paid Subscription Plans. If you have any questions regarding your team on Amara please contact us at enterprise-support@amara.org and we will be happy to help!
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