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Newsroom Guide

The Newsroom portlet allows you to easily create and publish news stories across your district. To manage the newsroom and create newsroom stories, you must assign users who manage the newsrooms across your entire district and users who can create newsroom stories for site-specific feeds.

Each Newsroom can be set up to work with one or more news feeds which allows you to include both district-wide and school-specific news.

In order to enable the newsroom for your site or district, please contact SchoolMessenger Support; they will add the Newsroom portlet to your site(s).

An Overview of Newsroom

With the Newsroom module you can create stories that are pushed to a single site or to multiple sites. Users can be assigned permission to manage the newsroom feeds or to publish stories to one or more of the feeds. We will go into each of these elements in more detail later in the guide, but this section will give a brief description of important elements of the newsroom and how these elements work together.

Newsroom Feeds

Newsroom Feeds are used to control where news stories are displayed. Each newsroom can subscribe to one or more Newsroom Feeds. Each news story is published to a feed. If a newsroom is subscribed to a feed that a story is published to, then the newsroom will display that story.

It is possible to have a feed specifically for your district, specifically for each school site and a feed that is used for the entire district. Each feed can be configured so news stories can be published to or subscribed to a particular site. A Feed should be named after the site(s) that it is available to be published to or subscribed to.

For example, the Baker Lake School District and Schools feed could be set up so that the stories are created at the district but can be viewed at each school site. Alternatively, the feed could be configured so news stories could be published from any of the sites in the district (and viewed from each site). Meanwhile, your school specific feeds can be set up so that they can be created from the district site as well as the specific school site, or from just the school site (or even from just the district site).

Newsroom Categories

Newsroom Categories allow you to apply district-wide categorization to each story that is published to a Newsroom Feed. When a story is properly categorized, it makes it easier for users to find it. As Newsroom Categories are shared across your entire district, it is recommended to create broad categories to label your stories. These can then be paired with more narrowly defined tags.

For example, you may have a category for Sports that could be applied to any news story dealing with athletics while you may have another category called Arts that could be applied to any news story dealing with the arts. An individual newsroom can be set to only show stories that include a particular category (or categories) by default, or a user can apply a filter to look for stories with a particular category or categories. When filtering, categories and tags can be combined.

Because the Newsroom Categories are district-wide, only Newsroom Super Admins can create, manage or delete categories. Newsroom Authors can choose which categories to apply to the story.

Newsroom Tags

Newsroom Tags are another way to label the content of news stories. While Newsroom Categories are shared across the entire district, Newsroom Tags are specific to each individual Newsroom Feed. This allows you to create more narrow and specific labels that may be relevant only to a particular site or school.

For example, in the Newsroom Categories overview, we gave Sports as an example category. If one of your schools was Cascade Ridge Middle School and the Cascade Ridge Dolphins won a local basketball tournament, you may publish a story to the Cascade Ridge Middle School feed that uses the Sports category and a Cascade Ridge Dolphins tag.

An individual newsroom can be set to only show stories that include a particular tag (or tags) by default, or a user can apply a filter to look for stories with a particular tag or tags. When filtering, categories and tags can be combined.

Newsroom Portlets

Newsroom Portlets can be configured to display the stories from one or more Newsroom Feeds that have been made available to the current site.

At the Cascade Ridge Middle School site, you could, for example, have a Newsroom portlet that shows only stories that were published to the Cascade Ridge Middle School feed. Or it could show stories that were published to the Baker Lake School District feed or to the Cascade Ridge Middle School feed.

Newsroom Roles and Permissions

Because the newsroom allows news stories (or posts) to be created, edited and displayed across your entire district, it includes some unique roles that control which users can make different kinds of changes across all your sites. In order to configure and use the Newsroom module, you will need to be sure to assign the proper roles to the right users.

Newsroom Super Admins

Newsroom Super Admins can create and manage Newsroom Feeds that can be used on the district and school sites. They are also able to create and manage Newsroom Categories. Newsroom Super Admins also have the ability to publish news stories like a Newsroom Author. In order to be a Newsroom Super Admin, the user must have an account at the district site.

Only users who are Administrators of the district site are able assign users the Newsroom Super Admin role. The Newsroom Super Admin role is NOT available for school sites unless it is a standalone site (a single school site that is not linked to a parent district site).

Newsroom Authors

A Newsroom Author can control what feeds a Newsroom Portlet displays in a Newsroom Portlet on the current site. Newsroom Authors are able to publish, manage and edit news stories for any feeds that have been given permission to publish to from the current site.

A Newsroom Author must have a user account on the site they are working from. With school sites that could be an account that was created at the district and pushed to the school or one that was created directly at the school site level.

Only users who are Administrators of the current site are able assign users the Newsroom Author role.

Administrators

As an Administrator you are able to assign users to Newsroom Author role. If you are an Administrator on the district site, you will also be able to assign users to the Newsroom Super Admin role. If you wish to act as a Newsroom Super Admin or Newsroom Author on a site, you will have to first be assigned the role.

Page Editors

In order to add a Newsroom portlet to a page, or to change which feeds are being displayed on a given Newsroom portlet, you will need to have editing permission on the page you are working with. This permission can be assigned if you have been given the Edit permission on the page, have been assigned Full Control to the page or if you are an Administrator of the site.

Note: In order to create or manage Newsroom feeds, you will need to be on the district. You will need to have permission to edit the page you are, and you will need to be assigned to the Newsroom Super Admin role.

User Role and Permission Granted

The following table illustrates what permission(s) will allow you to perform specific actions for the Newsroom.

Action

Administrator

Page Editor

Newsroom Super Admin

Newsroom Author

All Users

Assign Newsroom Roles for the current site

X

Add a Newsroom Portlet to a Page

X

X

Choose Feeds to Display on a Newsroom Portlet

X

X

Create or Manage Newsroom Feeds

X (must also have Administrator or Page Editor permission)

Add a Story

X

X

Edit a Story

X

X

Archive a Story

X

X

Create and Manage Categories

X

Select Categories for a Post

X

X

Create Tags for a Post

X

X

Update Portlet Settings

X

X

View Archived Stories

X

X

View RSS Feed

X

X

X

X

X

Filter Stories

X

X

X

X

X

Search Stories

X

X

X

X

X

Read Unreleased Stories

X

X

Read Released Stories

X

X

X

X

X

Giving Users the Ability to Use Newsroom

The only users who are able to create or manage newsroom stories are users that have been added as Newsroom Super Admins or Newsroom Authors. Before news stories can be created, an Administrator will need to assign one or more users to the appropriate roles.

To add a user to a Newsroom role:

  1. Log in as a member of the Administrators group.

  2. Go to the System Administration page.

  3. Under General Administration section, click Server Settings.

  4. Click on the Roles tab.

  5. Click the Roles dropdown and choose NewsroomAuthors or NewsroomSuperAdmins.

  6. Click Add Members.

  7. In the User Picker window, find the user(s) you wish to authorize and click Add.

  8. Once you have added all the users you wish to include in the role, click OK.

Adding a Newsroom Portlet

The process for adding a Newsroom portlet to a page is the same process as for adding any other portlet to a page. You will need to have Edit permission on the current page to add a Newsroom portlet to the page.

  1. Set Design Mode to On.

  2. Find the region where you wish to display your tabs portlet. In the Portlet Library, click on the Basic category.

  3. Drag and drop the Newsroom portlet on to the page.

Newsroom Feeds

A Newsroom portlet can subscribe to, or publish stories to, one or more Newsroom Feeds. Newsroom Authors and Newsroom Super Admins can publish stories to a feed and choose which feeds are used for a particular Newsroom portlet. Only Newsroom Super Admin users are able to create and manage Newsroom Feeds.

Before creating Newsroom Feeds, it is a good idea to think about how you want to handle creating and distributing your news stories. Some common feeds you may want to consider are:

  • District News Feed: A feed of news stories that are published on your district site and are intended to only appear on your district site.

  • District and Schools News Feed: A feed of news stories that are published on your district site but are intended to be displayed on your district and school sites.

  • School Specific Feeds: Feeds for news stories that are published on individual school sites and are only intended to be displayed on the individual school sites.

There are other Newsroom Feed configurations possible, such as a feed for high schools, a feed for middle schools, etc. It is up to you to decide which approach works best for your school district.

Managing Newsroom Feeds

To manage Newsroom Feeds, you will need to have Edit permission on the current page. Your account will also have to been added to the Newsroom Super Admin role.

  1. Set Design Mode to On.

  2. Click the pencil icon in the corner of the Newsroom portlet.

  3. Click Manage Feeds.

Creating a Feed

  1. Within Manage Feeds click Add Feed to create a new feed.

  2. In the Feed Name field add a name for your field.

  3. You will see a list of your district and school sites listed under Server Name. For each site you want to be able to publish news stories for the feed from check the Publish box. If you want Newsroom Authors to be able to publish to this feed from all your sites, click All.

  4. For each of your sites you can choose whether or not the Newsroom portlets on that site will be able to display stories from your new feed. For any site that you wish to grant the ability to see the stories check the Subscribe box. If you want editors to be able to subscribe to this feed from all of your sites, click All.

  5. Click OK.

Note: If you check the Publish permissions option for a site, the Subscribe option for that site will also be automatically checked.

Editing a Feed

  1. Within Manage Feeds, click the feed you wish to edit and then click Edit Feed.

  2. You will see the list of your district and school sites listed under Server Name. For each site you want to be change the ability to publish news stories for the feed from check or uncheck the Publish box.

  3. For any site that you want to change the ability for editors to add the feed to a Newsroom portlet, check or uncheck the Subscribe box.

  4. Click OK.

Note: If you check the Publish permissions option for a site, the Subscribe option for that site will also be automatically checked.

Deleting a Feed

To delete a feed:

  1. From within Manage Feeds, click the feed you wish to delete and click Remove Feed.

  2. Click OK to confirm your deletion.

Warning: If you delete a feed all news stories that were created for that feed will be removed from ALL Newsroom portlets on ALL of your sites.

Selecting Newsroom Feeds

As a Newsroom Author or a Newsroom Super Admin you can choose which feeds should be included.

  1. Click the pencil icon in the corner of the Newsroom portlet.

  2. In the Feeds dropdown choose the feed(s) you wish to include in your newsroom.

  3. Click Save.

After selecting the feeds, all active news stories for those feeds will be visible in your Newsroom portlet.

Newsroom Settings

As Newsroom Author or Newsroom Super Admin you can configure the settings for your newsroom. To configure, click the Settings button.

Post Layout Style

Choose one of the following styles for your newsroom to determine how your news stories are displayed:

  • Template: Choose a template to control how the stories are displayed.

  • Grid: Display news stories in a grid.

  • List: Display a list of news stories.

News Summary Layout Template

If you chose Template for the Post Layout Style you will be able to choose a site render template to control how the layout for news story summaries appears. By default, there is only one site render template available, Default News Summary Template.

News Detail Layout Template

If you chose Template for the Post Layout Style you will be able to choose a site render template to control how the layout for the news stories appear when you click a story from the newsroom. By default, there is only one site render template available, Default News Summary Template.

Maximum Number of Posts to Show per Page

The Maximum Number of Posts to Show Per Page field lets you determine how many news stories should be displayed per page. If you have more stories in your newsroom than the maximum number of posts to show per page, then pagination links will appear at the bottom of the newsroom.

Don't show posts created before

The Don’t Show Posts Created Before field allows you to hide any stories created before a particular date from the newsroom. You can use this if you want your newsroom to only feature more recent stories (such as from the past month, or from the current school year).

Show Author

If you want to display the name of the user who created each news story, check the Show Author checkbox.

Show Feed Name

If you want to display the name of the feed that each story in your newsroom is from, check the Show Feed Name checkbox.

Show Recent Posts Sidebar in Article Detail View

If you want to feature recent news stories in the sidebar when viewing a news story, check the Show Recent Posts Sidebar checkbox.

Default Filter Settings

With the Default Filter Settings you can choose to enable filters to automatically apply when people first view the newsroom. You can enable any combination of a Search term, one or more Categories and one or more Tags. Only stories that fit with each element you have selected will be displayed.

Once you have configured your settings click Update.

Note: If you wish to have a newsroom dedicated to a particular topic or interest, such as Cascade Ridge Middle School Athletics, you can choose specific categories or tags that suit that topic.

Publishing Newsroom Stories

As a Newsroom Author or Newsroom Super Admin you are able to publish news stories. To publish a new story, click Add Post.

Note: You will only see the Add Post option if you are a Newsroom Author or Newsroom Super Admin and at least one of the Feeds that your newsroom is subscribed to has publishing permissions on the current site.

Titling Your Story

Fill in a Title for the story. This title must be 50 characters or less.

The Friendly URL will be generated automatically based on your title and the current date.

If you wish to change the friendly URL, you can do so by clicking the padlock icon. You can then change the URL.

Show or Hide Post Settings Sidebar

You can collapse the Post Settings sidebar by clicking the playback icon or expand it by clicking the reverse play icon.

Selecting an Image

If you wish you can add an image to your story:

  1. To add an image, click Add Feature Image.

  2. Select an image from your computer.

  3. You will be prompted to crop the image to fit the page.

  4. You can hover over the cropped box to move it, or you can click outside of the box to click and drag a cropped image area.

  5. Click Add at the bottom of the Add Image box to confirm the image area that will be displayed.

  6. If you have added an image, you must also fill in the Image Caption to describe the image for users accessing the story via a screen reader.

  7. Click the Click here to add caption… field and enter your description.

  8. If you wish to remove or replace your image, you can use the trash can icon in the top-right corner of the image.

Adding an Author

If the Show Author field has been enabled in Newsroom Settings, then the Author field will be displayed to anyone viewing the story from within that newsroom.

If you are creating a story then your name will be automatically populated into the Author field, however another name can be entered instead if necessary.

Creating Story Content

In the Content field you can enter the actual news story. This content field uses a rich text editor that has options that are similar to the editor you will see in other places within Presence, but it is not the same editor. Within the editor you will have the following editing options:

Icon

Description

Bold

Italics

Underline

Strikethrough

Subscript

Superscript

Remove Formatting: Removes any formatting from highlighted text.

Left Align

Center

Right Align

Justify

Indent Paragraph

Outdent Paragraph

Numbered List

Bullet List

Style: Choose a style for your text. Can be the default Paragraph formatting or you can choose one of the header styles.

Undo: Undo your last action in the editor.

Redo: Redo an action you have undone.

Insert Link: Create a hyperlink where your highlighted text is. You will be prompted to enter a Web Address and a Title. You can also choose to Open Link in a New Window.

Remove Link: Remove the currently selected hyperlink.

View HTML: View the raw HTML for the news story. You can make edits while viewing the HTML, but you will not be able to add tags not supported by the editor (such as script tags).

Add Image: Use the Image Manager to add an image within the main body of your news story.

Full Screen: Toggle between the editor being at its normal size and taking up the full browser window.

As you create the news story Content, the first 255 text characters (including spaces) will be automatically placed in the Summary field.

If you wish you can change this to create your own summary by clicking on the padlock icon.

Choosing How and Where Your Story Appears

If you want the story to show at the top of any newsrooms the feed is included in, even when newer stories have been published, check the Pin it to the Top checkbox.

Selecting a Feed

If your Newsroom portlet is set to only work with a single news feed, then that Feed will be selected by default. If the Newsroom portlet is linked to multiple feeds, then click the Feed dropdown to choose the feed for the story to be published to. Any Newsroom portlet that includes the feed that you selected will be able to display the news story.

Selecting Categories

To help users who may be looking for specific kinds of stories you can add a category or categories to the story. Categories are shared across the whole district and are created and managed by Newsroom Super Admins. Newsroom Authors cannot create or edit categories, but they are able to select any available category or categories to apply to a story.

Click the Category dropdown and choose the category or categories you wish to include.

Managing Categories

If you are a Newsroom Super Admin you will see an option to Manage Categories. If you want to create or change the available categories, click Manage Categories. Keep in mind that categories are shared across your entire district and so they should be relatively broad.

To create a new category:

  1. Click Add Category.

  2. Fill in the Category Name.

  3. Click OK.

To rename an existing category;

  1. Click on the category in the list of categories.

  2. Click Edit Category.

  3. Make any desired change to the Category Name.

  4. Click OK.

To delete a category:

  1. Click on the category you wish to delete.

  2. Click Remove Category.

  3. Click OK.

Selecting Tags

Tags can be created by both Newsroom Super Admins and Newsroom Authors while they are adding or editing a newsroom story. Unlike categories, tags are limited to a specific feed and are not shared between other Newsroom Feeds. As such tags can be much more narrowly tailored to things that may be only relevant to the current feed.

To add specific tags relevant to your story, click the Tags field.

Type in the name of tags that suit your story. Press Enter or select the tag name from the dropdown to add it to the story.

Choosing When Your Story is Visible

  1. By default, your story will be scheduled to Release At the current time and the Expire At time will be set to 12/31/2099 11:59 AM. Effectively this means that the story will be posted immediately and will not expire.

  2. To change when the story will first be published in Newsrooms, click Release At.

  3. Type in your desired Date and Time or use the calendar icon to choose the Date and Time you want the story to first become visible to users viewing newsrooms that are subscribed to one of the feeds the story is being pushed to.

  4. If you want the story to no longer be visible to users after a particular date and time, click Expire At.

  5. Type in your desired Date and Time or use the calendar icon to choose the Date and Time you want the story to no longer be available. The Expire At date and time must be after the Release At date and time.

  6. To publish your news story, click Publish at the top of the column.

  7. If you want to make changes to the story, click the Post Content tab. If you wish to discard the story, click Cancel.

Notes:

  • You cannot choose a date and time that is earlier than the time the story was first created.

  • Prior to the Release At time and after the Expire At time the story will not be visible to guests or other users viewing any Newsroom portlets that are subscribed to a feed the story is part of. However, Newsroom Authors and Newsroom Super Admins will still be able to see the story when viewing the Newsroom.

  • Even if a news story is active based on its Release At and Expire At time, it may not be visible in a specific newsroom if that newsroom is set to not show stories that are older than when your story was first created.

Managing Newsroom Stories

As a Newsroom Author or a Newsroom Super Admin, you are able to edit or archive posts when viewing a Newsroom.

Editing Newsroom Stories

To edit an existing news story, find the story you wish to click the pencil icon.

You will have the same options as when creating a story. For more information see the Publishing Newsroom Stories section.

Archiving Newsroom Stories

As a Newsroom Author or Newsroom Super Admin you are able to archive a news story from a newsroom. Once a story has been archived, it will only be visible to Newsroom Authors and Newsroom Super Admins.

To archive a story:

  1. Click the box icon.

  2. Click OK to confirm that you wish to archive the story.

Viewing Archived Newsroom Stories

To view stories that have already been archived:

  1. Click Show Archived.

  2. You will now see all the archived stories, if any, for the Newsroom Feed(s) that the newsroom is using.

Note: When viewing archived news, you will only see archived news stories. To go back to the live news stories, click Hide Archived.

Restoring Archived Newsroom Stories

To unarchive a news story:

  1. Click Show Archived.

  2. For a story you wish to restore, click the play icon.

  3. Click OK to make the story visible again to users.

Deleting Archived Newsroom Stories

To permanently delete an archived news story:

  1. Click the trash can icon.

  2. Click OK to permanently remove the story.

Note: As archived stories are not visible to regular users, there is no need to delete archived news stories.

Viewing the Newsroom

All users who have permission to view the page with your Newsroom portlet (not just Newsroom Authors and Newsroom Super Admins) can view any news stories.

You can access any visible story by clicking on the story title or by clicking Read more.

Note: If you are a Newsroom Author or Newsroom Super Admin, stories that have not yet been released or that have already expired will still be visible to you along with the released news stories. If you are not a Newsroom Author or a Newsroom Super Admin, these unreleased or expired stories will not appear when viewing the newsroom.

When viewing a news story, you can easily share the story to Facebook or Twitter by clicking the Share button.

Click on Twitter or Facebook, and you can publish a link to the story on your social media account.

Searching for News

To search for a news story:

  1. Search for a story using the Search… bar. This will allow you to search for a story by Title and Content.

  2. Click in the Search… bar.

  3. Type in what you wish to search for. You can enter a partial or complete word or multiple words.

  4. If no articles match your search, you will see a message saying that There are no active news stories available.

Note: Please be aware that the search will look for the entire string so if you enter two words into search field those two words must be consecutive in the news story Title or Content in order for the story to be shown as matching your search.

Filtering News

Users are able to filter news stories by categories and/or tags. With the filter in place, only stories that match the categories or tags you have selected will be visible.

By default, the filter will be showing All Categories and All Tags (unless the filter has been changed in the Default Filter Settings). On the By Category and By Tag tabs, you can check one or more options that you want to show.

Note: Only categories that have been used by stories that are displayed in the current newsroom will be listed as options to select.

If you have a large number of categories or tags, you can use the Search… bar to find the specific item you are looking to select. If you choose one or more categories for your filter, and leave tags set to All Tags, you will see all stories that have at least one of the categories you have selected. Make your preferred filter choices and click Apply.

If you choose one or more tags for your filter, and leave categories set to All Categories, you will see all stories that have at least one of the tags you have selected.

However, if you select both categories and tags, you will only see stories that have at least one of your selected categories and at least one of your selected tags. For further filtering you can combine your filter with a term in the Search… bar.

RSS for News

Each newsroom has an RSS feed for any feeds that it displays. You can use this RSS feed to subscribe to the newsroom via an RSS Reader. To access, click RSS Feed.

Note: Modern browsers no longer support RSS feeds by default. To view the feed as rendered content inside your browser, you will need to install a browser extension.

Where to Add Newsroom Portlets

The Newsroom portlet can be configured to display the same feed in multiple locations on a site. You can also display multiple Newsroom Feeds on your site.

For instance, let us say that you have created a Newsroom Feed that is for news stories that you only want to display on the district site. And you have created another feed for stories that you want to have appear on the district and all of your school sites.

On your district site, you can set the Newsroom portlets to display both the district-wide feed and district-only feed. Then on your school sites you can set the Newsroom portlets to display the district-wide feed and the feed for the specific school the portlet is on.

You can also place the Newsroom portlet on multiple locations of your site, even if it is showing the same feed or feeds. For example, you may want to have your newsroom available on the homepage of your site. But you can also place a Newsroom Portlet on a page that is specifically intended for news.

As you can see from this example, you can use different settings for the two different newsrooms even though they are displaying the same stories from the same news feeds. This is just one example of how you may want to set up your newsrooms. Here are some other possibilities you may want to think about:

  • Creating Newsroom Feeds for all elementary, all middle and all high schools in your district.

  • Placing a newsroom for each school on dedicated pages at the district site.

  • Use the Settings button to choose default Categories and Tags for your portlet to create newsrooms for specific topics or areas of interest such as a School Board News or Athletics.

Newsroom on School Sites

If you have multiple sites (like a district site and several school sites), you will need to do some configuration from both the district site and the school site(s) in order to have your news stories appear in newsroom portlets at the schools. If you have a single standalone Presence site, this section does not apply to you.

Creating a Feed for a School

A feed specific to a school can only be created from the district site.

While logged into the district site as a user with the Newsroom Super Admin permission.

  1. Set Design Mode to ON.

  2. Click the pencil icon in the corner of the Newsroom portlet.

  3. Click Manage Feeds.

  4. Within Manage Feeds click Add Feed to create a new feed.

  5. In the Feed Name field add a name for your field. You will see a list of your district and school sites listed under Server Name.

  6. For each site you want to be able to publish news stories for the feed from check the Publish box.

Most likely you will want to use one of three scenarios for your school feed, however, feel free to use whichever configuration best suits your needs.

Create Stories from only the School

  1. If you wish stories for the school to be created only from the school site, check the Publish option for the school site. This will also automatically select the Subscribe option for the site as well.

  2. Click OK.

With this configuration, you will be able to view and create stories from properly configured newsroom portlets on the school site, but you will not be able to view or create the stories at the district or any of the other school sites. This option is a good one to use if a school-specific person (or persons) will be primarily responsible for creating news stories for the school.

Note: A user from the district could still create stories in this situation, but only while logged into the school site, and only if their account has been designated as a Newsroom Author at the school site.

Create Stories from only the District

  1. If you wish stories for the school to be created only from the district site, check the Publish option for the district site. This will automatically select the Subscribe option for the site as well.

  2. Check the Subscribe option for the school site.

  3. Click OK.

With this configuration, you will be able to view and create stories for the school from properly configured Newsroom portlets on the district site, and you will be able to view (but not create) the stories from properly configured portlets on the school site. This option is a good one if a person at the district (or persons) will be creating all school-specific news stories.

Create Stories from District or School

  1. If you wish for stories for the school to be created from both the district and the school, check the Publish option for both the district and school sites. This will automatically select the Subscribe option for those sites as well.

  2. Click OK.

With this configuration, you will be able to view and create stories for the school from properly configured Newsroom portlets on the district or the school site. This option is a good one if there is a person (or persons) at the district that will be creating school-specific stories, but there is also a person (or persons) at the school that will be creating stories as well.

Subscribing to a Feed for a School

If you have editing permission on a page with the Newsroom portlet, you can choose which feeds should be used with that Newsroom portlet.

  1. Set Design Mode to ON.

  2. Click pencil icon in the corner of the Newsroom portlet.

  3. In the Feeds dropdown choose the feed(s) you wish to include in your newsroom. If you wish to include all feeds that are available for your school, you can choose All Feeds.

  4. Click Save.

After selecting the feeds, all active news stories for those feeds will be visible in your Newsroom portlet.

Setting a Newsroom Author for a School

If you have set up the feed to publish stories for the school’s feed only from the district site, then you will be able to use the newsroom roles you already set up via the Giving Users the Ability to Use Newsroom section.

If a user or users will be creating newsroom stories at the school level, you will need a user that is in an Administrator at the school site to designate user(s) as Newsroom Authors.

Note: The Newsroom Super Admin role is not available at school sites.

To add a user to the Newsroom Author role, on the school site go to the System Administration page.

  1. Under General Administration section, click Server Settings.

  2. Click on the Roles tab.

  3. Click the Roles dropdown and choose NewsroomAuthors.

  4. Click Add Members.

In the User Picker window, find the user(s) you wish to make into Newsroom Authors and click Add.

Once you have added all the users you wish to include in the role, click OK.

Creating News Stories at the School

If your account has been set as a Newsroom Author at a school site, and a Newsroom Feed (or Feeds) have granted the school site Publish permission, then your account will be able to create news stories from Newsroom Portlets on the school site.

To publish a new story on the school site, go to a page with a Newsroom portlet and click Add Post.

If your Newsroom portlet is set to only work with a single news feed, then that Feed will be selected by default. If the Newsroom portlet is linked to multiple feeds, then click the Feed dropdown to choose a feed you want to use for the story.

For more information on creating a news story, see the Publishing Newsroom Stories section.

Troubleshooting

If a user account does not have the Newsroom Super Admin or Newsroom Author permissions you expect it to have, please take the following steps. You will need to be an administrator on the site in order to perform these steps.

Check User Role

  1. Go to the System Administration page.

  2. Under General Administration section, click Server Settings.

  3. Click on the Roles tab.

  4. Click the Roles dropdown and choose NewsroomAuthors or NewsroomSuperAdmins.

  5. Ensure that the user is listed in the appropriate role. If they are not, click Add Members and add the user.

Regenerate User’s Authorization Key

  1. If your user was already in the appropriate role, they may need to have a new key generated. Go back to the System Administration page.

  2. Under the General Administration section, click Manage Authorization of Roles.

  3. From the Roles dropdown, choose your desired role (NewsroomAuthors or NewsroomSuperAdmins).

  4. Find the desired user.

  5. Click Re-Generate next to the user having the issue.

The user should now be able to act as a Newsroom Super Admin or Newsroom Author.

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