Equip is built with over 130 tools to help ministries streamline the production of all sorts of content, from blog posts to press releases to puppet scripts and more.
This article explains the basic function of a Tool, regardless of the end result.
The Basic Content Creation Workflow
Learning complex prompts to use to generate the exact type of result you want can be very difficult. Instead, wizard-style workflows called Tools have been built to do much of the heavy lifting.
Generally, Tools follow a consistent cadence:
- Select Source - Choose existing content from your local computer or in-app Content Library, or enter the specifics of the topic manually
- Configure Options - Set the proper tone, audience, length, style, and other tool-specific options
- Generate - The Equip program creates new content, using the source materials and options from previous steps
- Edit & Refine - The content will open in a dedicated Workspace appropriate for the output for you to customize and edit to fit your needs more closely
- Export & Share - Download the content in multiple formats, depending on the specific tool.
Details on Content Creation Steps
Select Source
In a previous step, you may have uploaded content to the Content Library in one of several accepted formats: MP4, MOV, AVI, MP3, WAV, M4A, JPG, PNG, GIF, WEBP, PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, or TXT. One of these files can be selected as the Source Material for the Tool to create new content.
Alternatively, the Tool contains a step-by-step format for generating something brand new by using a series of prompted questions. These questions vary depending on the Tool chosen.
Configure Options
Once the Source Material is chosen or defined, one or more Configure steps will introduce additional details and revisions to the source material to fit the purpose of the Tool. As these can vary widely, here are three examples:
- For a Budget Proposal, details of the church's fiscal year, weekly attendance, and available output formats come first. Secondly, a series of available budget line item categories can be selected. Finally, narrative context for budget decisions, major changes, or strategic priorities can be added, along with year-over-year comparisons and justification for why certain budget items should be prioritized.
- For Care Cards, the recipient name, relationship to the organization, occasion for the card, tone of voice and feel for the card, and personal details to be included, and card features are editable in a single step.
- For a Special Service Plan, a choice of occasion is presented, such as Christmas, Mother's Day, and Dedication. Next, unique elements like candle lighting, communion, and special music can be included. Finally, a duration, theme, and key scripture passages are presented for customization.
As you can see, the configuration settings are completely unique to each Tool. These configuration settings are what will take a basic concept and help you turn it into something unique and specific for the purpose at hand.
Generate
Once all of the configuration options are set, the Generate button will be available, including the cost in tokens of the Tool's generation of your request. Once clicked, Equip will generate the request. This activity can go on in the background, allowing you to continue your other work outside the program, or use other Equip Tools while you wait.
Because of the high level of customizability, most Tools are not instant. Some time will need to pass for Equip to produce something of value for you to continue to work with in the next steps.
Edit & Refine
Once the Tool has generated your starting point, Equip will present an editor for you to really make the content your own. Additionally, an Assistant tool is available to ask for help with improvements, weak spots, tone, shortening or lengthing, or finding points of interest for the audience. Of course, these are just starting points. Ask it anything.
The Editors are fully featured and save your work within Equip. All the work can be done inside the program. This can include creating multiple versions of your content.
Export & Share
There is never an expectation that your work is done alone. The ability to Share the content with other Amplify and Equip users is core to your experience. If the Tool was run outside of a Project, generate a Share Code to send to other users. Within a Project, other project users will be able to see the content and can be assigned Contributor or Editor rights to the content within it.
When the work is done, there are three options for what comes next. First, the content can be Exported to multiple file formats or published directly to a connected Amplify application like Streaming or Web. Next, if the content is text based, Print it directly to your local connected printer. Finally, the content can be Presented directly from within Equip for some content types.
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