A Gallery in Dapple is a public-facing page that automatically fills with submissions as they reach a chosen stage in your project — used to showcase finalists, run a public vote, or display an open call's shortlist. You switch them on for a project from the Features tab, then add one to any stage from the Workflow & Reviews tab. Creating a gallery takes you through a five-step wizard — Name & Stage, Schedule, Card Design, Features & Moderation, and Appearance — and every setting in it can be changed again later from Edit Gallery.
Galleries are only available on the Growth plan and above.
What is a Gallery in Dapple, and when should I use one?
A Gallery turns one stage of your project's workflow into a public page. Every submission that enters the gallery's source stage becomes a gallery item automatically — you don't add items by hand. Use a Gallery when you want to:
Publish a list of finalists or shortlisted entries for an award, open call, or residency
Run public voting on submissions, with results visible to your team at all times
Show accepted work for a competition or exhibition once judging finishes
Add a shop-style showcase where each item links out to an external checkout, with a custom link on the card
A project can have more than one gallery, each tied to a different stage — so you can, for example, run a shortlist gallery and a separate finalists gallery from the same project.
How do I turn on Galleries for a project?
Galleries are available on the Growth plan and above. Before the option appears anywhere in a project, switch it on from that project's Features section:
Open the project and go to Settings → Features
Find Galleries in the feature list and toggle it on.
If your organisation is on a plan below Growth, you'll be prompted to upgrade before the toggle takes effect.
Once Galleries is switched on for the project, the option to add a gallery appears against every stage in Workflow & Reviews.
Where do I add a gallery once Galleries is switched on?
Open the project's Workflow & Reviews tab. Each stage is shown as its own column, and below that stage's Review Round section is a Gallery area with an
+ Add gallery button. Click it to open the New Gallery setup wizard for that stage.
What do I set in the Name & Stage step?
Once selected, you'll be taken through a setup wizard. The first step of the wizard sets the name and the stage (note the stage can't be changed once the gallery is created).
Gallery name — the title displayed at the top of the public gallery page.
Source stage — the stage whose submissions automatically become gallery items. This is locked once the gallery is created, because items are already tied to that stage.
Click Continue to move to Schedule, working through the different steps of the setup wizard. Once created, this can all be edited later.
What do I set in the Schedule step?
The Schedule step controls whether the gallery is visible to anyone outside your team, and whether voting is open. Gallery status has four options:
Gallery status | What it does |
Draft – Hidden from public | Not visible to visitors. Use this while you're still setting up card design and moderation. |
Live – Open for Viewing/Voting | Publicly visible, with voting open if activated. |
Closed – Voting concluded, page still public | Voting stops, but the page and its results stay visible to visitors. |
Archived – Hidden everywhere, results kept | Removed from public view entirely. Vote data is retained, not deleted. |
You can also set whether or not to set up Public Voting. If wanting to just display submissions online without the ability to vote on them, toggle this off. If wanting to gather votes from visitors, toggle on and then set optional Voting Opens At and Voting Closes At dates and times, so the gallery follows a schedule without you needing to change its status manually.
What do I set in the Card Design step?
Card Design controls what each submission's card shows on the public gallery page. This can all be customised once the gallery has been created so add a few options to get started and then edit in the main setup page after going through the setup wizard.
Under the Basic details tab:
Card title — the submission field used as the card's headline. If you don't choose one, a fallback title is shown instead.
Additional card fields — up to 5 submission fields shown beneath the title, in the order they appear on the form.
Card summary — a submission field used as supporting copy under the title.
Card image and media — which of the submission's image or media uploads gallery cards are allowed to use.
A separate Fallbacks tab lets you set what a card shows when a submission doesn't have your chosen field filled in, so a gap in one entry doesn't leave a card looking broken.
What do I set in the Features & Moderation step?
This is the longest step in the wizard, covering how visitors interact with the gallery and how items are approved before they go public:
Setting | What it does |
Custom link | Adds a link to each gallery item — for example, to an external shop or checkout. When you turn it on, you set the Link type, Link label, and Destination URL. Dapple adds a button to the card which sends visitors to that destination; payment and fulfilment stay with that service. |
Max Votes Per Voter | The number of gallery items each visitor can select and vote for. |
Allow voting before sign in | Recommended if wanting public voting. When on, visitors can vote first and verify their vote by signing in afterwards. When off, they must sign in before they can vote. Either way, Dapple protects voting with browser/session controls, IP auditing, rate limits, and CAPTCHA. |
Changing a vote | Lets a voter move their vote to a different gallery item after they've already cast it. |
Show results to voters | Controls whether vote counts are shown publicly (for example, set to Never). Your team can always see vote counts inside Dapple, regardless of this setting. |
Gallery item moderation | Auto-Approved (default): items go live as soon as a submission enters the source stage. Pending Review: a team moderator must approve each item before it appears on the public page. |
What do I set in the Appearance step?
The final step sets the gallery page's visual theme:
Match the submission form — the gallery page uses the project's existing form design, and stays in sync if you edit that design later.
Give this gallery page its own design — set a background and colours that apply only to the gallery page, independent of the submission form.
We would recommend matching the existing form in this step and then editing later if necessary. Click Create gallery to finish.
Can I change a gallery's settings after creating it?
Yes. Every gallery can be reopened from its Edit panel, which organises its settings into General, Gallery Items, Features, Analytics & Data, Card Design, Appearance, and Advanced tabs, with Save changes and Remove Campaign at the bottom. Full instructions for reconfiguring an existing gallery are covered in a separate article, How to Edit a Gallery.
Best practices for setting up a Gallery
Leave the gallery in Draft while you finish Card Design and Features & Moderation, then switch to Live once you've checked how it looks
Choose a source stage that only contains submissions you're ready to make public — moving a submission back out of that stage doesn't automatically remove its gallery item
Turn on Pending Review moderation for open calls where you want a final check before an item appears publicly
Decide Max Votes Per Voter and Allow voting before sign in before going Live — changing voting rules after voting has started can confuse returning voters
Use Match the submission form unless the gallery is meant to be a stand-alone public destination with its own look