Before You Begin
Before you use this function, be aware that, for most schools, Posts are published (visible to the public and shown on the home page of your website) automatically when you do these three things:
- Add the mandatory fields (title and description)
- Define the "Share To" (identify which site the story should be published on)
- Click Save
This means that it's easy to create and publish a post, but there are two very important implications:
- Never create a post (or any other content) that shouldn't be public. Once it's out there, it's impossible to take it back, so don't hit Save if you're not sure.
- You need to "Share To" to make your post appear on your site. If you miss this step, your story will be adrift in a cloud of internet nothingness. You have to "Share To" to make your post appear on your site. You'll know you've done it when the paper airplane of sharing turns orange.
Overview
This video shows the basic steps needed to create a Post for your school. These steps, along with more options and tips, are outlined in more detail on this page.
How to Get Started
To create a news story, use the Post tool. You can access it through SiteGovern. To get there, use the SharePoint Settings (gear icon in the ribbon, at the top of your browser) > SiteGovern.
In the SiteGovern dashboard, click on the Post tile:
Title and Description (Required)
Enter the Title (this will be the headline and page title for the story) and then write or paste your story content into the “Add a Description” box of the wizard, as pictured here. If you're pasting in content that you have written in Word or another application, it's best to paste it into a text editor, like Notepad, first to get rid of any styles or formatting, and then copying from Notepad to paste into the website.
Your title will make the difference between people opening the story to read more and just passing by it. It should be clear, concise, and specific for the content of that story. It should also be more interesting than this one:
Don't Add Topics (Bad, Bad, Bad)
Our system doesn't use topics for grouping stories or managing search results, so there's no need to define any topics for your posts.
Add Images (Recommended)
If possible, every story should have at least one image with it. Images make your site feel more alive, and can play a big part in encouraging visitors to click on the story to read more. For more information about how to use images see Basic Editing: Images & Videos.
If you don’t have an image for your story, a default background image will automatically be used.
You can use your own images for your story, as well as images from the CBE photo library or graphics library on the Sample site or our favourite public (fully legal) image sites, Unsplash or Pixabay. If you're creating the story on a mobile device, you can use an image from your photo stream or take a new one to use.
Note: do not use other public (“I found it in Google!”) images, which may have copyright associated with them. If you choose to use other creative commons images, be extremely careful. We use Unsplash because it specifies that the rights to use its images are:
- Irrevocable
- Allowed for commercial purposes
- Granted without attribution or credit
No matter how great an image is, it’s not worth being sued for copyright infringement. Set a good example of digital citizenship and be disciplined in choosing the images you include on your site.
Working With Multiple Images
The first image in your list will be the one displayed on your home page; other images that you add will be displayed inside the story itself (in the right sidebar, like they would on a content page). If you’ve added multiple images to your story, you can change the order by dragging and dropping them in the desired order in the Add Picture wizard.
Image Sizes
All images in sample site library are pre-sized for the Spotlight story box on the top of the home page. If you use one of these images, you don’t need to crop or adjust it – just go ahead and use it.
If you’re using an image from another source:
- If they are larger than spotlight dimensions (808 x 390), they will be cropped automatically
- Vertical (portrait-orientation) images do not work well as the main image in a story: if you can find a horizontal (landscape-orientation) image to use, choose that instead, or crop to the correct orientation when you’re adding the image
- You can manually adjust the crop by clicking “edit” after uploading
- If your image is smaller than 808 x 390, you may see a warning that the image is smaller than recommended, but it can still be used. If it’s much smaller, though, it will be pixelated.
Add Links and Attachments
(Optional)
If your story has a document or other file related to it, you can add that document as an attachment. If there's a related file that's already online (in a CBE site, Alberta Ed, or any other website), then use a link to help your readers get to it, so they always get the most recent version.
If it's yours, attach it; if it's not, link to it
When using attachments, the file name will be displayed in the right sidebar as a link to open it, and can’t be edited manually. This means that if your science fair poster is named “document1-final final version”, that’s the link your users will see. So before adding attachments:
- Use a PDF (Word or PowerPoint are paid programs and not everyone purchases them) since it will work on almost any device).
- Name it clearly and concisely so the user knows what to expect. Include the topic and indicate what type of document it is (like a poster, form, or notice).
- Spaces in the filename will be removed, so use dashes to separate words in your file name before adding your attachment (thisisthefilename is much tougher to read than this-is-the-file-name, and This-Is-The-File-Name is even better).
Schedule Post (Optional)
You can use this function to set a start date and end date for your post to appear. Most posts won’t require an end date, unless they are about an event with a date after which the post shouldn’t appear. The default behaviour is for all stories to be published immediately and stay up indefinitely (until being archived at the end of each school year).
Be careful: if you use the Schedule Post function, you must specify both the start and end publication dates, or your post will not be displayed on your homepage.
Scheduling a post to not appear does not delete it from the site, but prevents it from showing on the home page.
Add a Video (Optional)
Use the video tool to attach a video (hosted in an external provider like YouTube or Vimeo) in the right sidebar of the page. This tool is found a little lower on the page (in the advanced functions section). If your school does not have a YouTube account, see the social media protocols in Staff Insite for more information about how to create an account.
If your post has a video attached to it, users will be able to play the video directly from the home page (without going into the story).
Share To Your Site (Required)
Even if you add content to your post and save it, it will never be visible on your website until you use the Share To function to define where your post should be published. Share To lets you choose:
- Which site (or sites) your story should be published on
- Where in the site it should show up (home page, news centre, or both)
Access the Share To wizard by clicking on the airplane icon in the Advanced section of the New Posting wizard:
You'll know you've done it when the paper airplane of sharing turns orange.
Save it Or Say Goodbye (Required)
Once you've made your changes and your Share To airplane is orange, click Create to save your work and publish your post.
It can take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes for your post to be published to your home page, and you'll need to refresh the page to see it.
Note: your Create button should be a dark, rich, blue like the one above, but sometimes looks more like this:
If that's how yours looks, you can try buying a new monitor, or make sure that the mandatory fields (Title and Description) are both filled. You won't be able to save your Post without them.
