News

Overview - News

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Schoolbox contains a full school news management system that allows users to read, create, and moderate news articles. These articles are sent directly to the user’s dashboard and to their dedicated news page. Simultaneously, news relating to a group or class can appear in a homepage component. This means users who are able to view the group or class page, but who aren’t members of the group or class, can browse the news if they wish.

News can also send notifications to tell users they have news waiting for them. Please check the Notifications Help Guide to understand how notifications are sent to users.

On this page, you will find the following information:

Accessing News

Adding the News Component

Using the News Component

News Feature Images

News Overview (video)

Creating News

News statistics

Multiple News Audiences

Accessing the News Archive

Creating Priority News

Implications of the News Audience and News moderation options

Service permissions for News

News moderation

News Administration Settings

Accessing News

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Your personalised News Feed can be accessed by following the steps below:

1. Navigate to your Top Menu.

2. Select the 'News' tab.

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You can also access your News by adding /news to the end of your URL.

Adding the News Component

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1. To add the component to your page, select the '+' button at the top of your page.

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2. Select the 'Information' tab.

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3. Drag and drop the component to the desired location.

Using the News Component

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1. Navigate to the News component.

2. Select 'Post a news article'.

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If you wish to view prior news, select 'view the news archive'.

3. Add a title for your article.

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4. Add the content of your article in the 'Body' field.

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5. Use the drop-down menu to add a blurb if required.

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6. Attach a feature image if required. 

This will be displayed on the dashboard news component, news feed and archive, and email notifications. If no image is utilised it will default to fallback image (No image, School Logo, Author Portrait).

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7. Attach files if required. 

These can be any file that is permitted within your instance. Multiple image files will be displayed within the news item as an image gallery.

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8. Adjust the audience if required. 

If you are on a class page or group page, the audience will automatically be selected. If you require additional audience to be added, select 'Browse' or type directly into the audience field.

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9. Assign a topic for your news article if required.

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10. Set publish and expiry dates.

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11. Select 'Preview' to view how your news will appear to your audience, or 'Publish' if you are ready to publish.

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NOTE: If you have altered your audience to extend to a global audience, you may need to submit your article for moderation, rather than being able to select 'publish'.

News Feature Images

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When creating News Items it is possible to add a custom image which will display as a thumbnail when visible in the News Headlines. 

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The same image will then populate at the top of the News Article when opened.

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Images uploaded to news are recommended to be landscape and a minimum of 750 x 500 pixels for a favourable viewing experience image. The preferred file types for feature images are either jpeg or png. If a larger image is applied it will be equally larger when the article is opened. 

To apply a Feature follow the following process:

1. Create a News item.

2. Upload or drag and drop the feature image.

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Feature images will either appear on the left, right or as a postcard format when viewed inside the News Component. This will depend upon the layout selected by your school.

Superusers can modify the layout by following the instructions below:

1. Navigate to Admin > News

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2. Select the preferred layout from the drop down selection.

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Creating News

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1. Navigate to the News Feed or to a News component on a homepage.

2. Select the '+' button at the top of the News Feed page. 

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Or select 'Post a news article' on a News component.

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3. Give your News a title.

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4. Type the body of your article.

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5. Add a blurb which will be visible on the Dashboard News component and in the notification for the article. 

If you choose not to include a blurb, the first 300 characters of your article will show. 

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6. Add a feature image if required.

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7. Select your audience. 

You can type the audience if you know who you are targeting, or you can select browse.

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8. Selecting 'Select Audience' will open up variables for audiencing. 

The simple audience will allow you to choose a campuses, classes, groups, roles, houses or year levels. This will target the entire group of people in the selection.

The composite audience will allow you to further refine your audience to select subgroups of users, for example all Year 9 students in a specific House.

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9. Assign a topic if required.

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10. Set the publish and expiry dates and times.

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11. If you have permission to post news, you will be able to select to preview or publish your news.

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If you do not have permissions to post news, you will be able to select to preview or submit your news for moderation.

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News Statistics

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As the author of an article, a Superuser, or a user with News Moderation permission, access to the statistics for an article is available. To access the statistics, open the News article and select the 3-dot menu and 'Statistics'.

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The News statistics displays the following:

Summary

The summary displays the first open date, the number of times the news has been opened, the number of comments that have been made on the article, and the number of times the article has been saved.

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Opens vs Time

The opens vs time graph provides insight into what role opened the article and when it was opened. You can view the graph in hours, days or months, and remove roles to show only specific statistics per role.  

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Origin of News Access

The origin of news access shows how the users accessed the news, and shows the number of times this access took place.

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View who has Opened the Article

This view will show you who has opened your article, and display the time they last viewed the article.

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Multiple News Audiences

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It is possible to select more than once audience when creating a News Item. Once you have selected an audience, a box with a description of that audience will appear. The steps below demonstrate how to add additional audiences.

1. Browse or search again to select another audience.

A second audience 'box' will appear. It is possible to continue to add multiple audiences in the same manner.

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NOTE: Parents of Students can be added to each of the Audience Groups.

 

Composite Audience

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The composite audience allows you to send more targeted news. You can target any combination of campus, class, group, role, house or year level.

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NOTE: Groups with muted folder settings will not receive News notifications. 

Accessing the News Archive

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Each News Item has a published period, this is usually a week. Once the News Item has reached the end of its published period it will move into the News Archive. The News Archive stores all News Items chronologically by year and month. To access the News Archive follow the steps below:

1.  Navigate to your News Feed.

2. Select 'News Archive' on the right hand side.

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3. Filter by year and by month.

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Creating Priority News

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Superusers and users with News Moderation service permissions will be able to create Priority News. 

To create priority news, toggle the setting to 'ON'.

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Once published, this news will be set to the top of the News Feed for the selected audience and will show who the article was pinned by. It will remain at the top of the feed, unless another priority news item is created. Other news items will nest below the 'Priority News'. All active users in the selected audience will be notified of the news, on all notification channels, regardless of their personalised notification settings. 

Implications of the News Audience and News Moderation Options

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Using the audience and the moderation toggles together can create a number of different options for news in your school. The table below outlines the implications of combining the toggles in different ways.

 

Allow staff to post to global audience

Do not allow staff to post to global audiences

Global Moderation

  • All staff can write for any audience.
  • All news for global audiences requires moderation.
  • All news for homepages posts without moderation.
  • Most staff can only post to homepages where they have write access.
  • Staff with “write” user permission can write for global audiences, but the news must be moderated.
  • Staff with “moderate” user permission can post anywhere and moderate all news.

No Global Moderation

  • All staff can post to any audience.
  • No advanced user permission is required.
  • Most staff can only post to homepages.
  • Staff with “write” user permissions can post to global audiences.
  • “Moderate” user permission is not required.

Key Terms

Global Audience: Campus, House, Year Level, Role, Individuals.

Homepages: Class pages, Group pages, any other page in your instance with a News component.

Service Permissions for News

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Service permissions can be given to individual users, allocating them additional permissions to write or moderate global news.

News 'Write' Permission

This permission allows a user to write news for any audience in your instance. This includes groups, classes or pages where the users group or role permissions do not normally allow them to write to the page. It also includes global news, audienced to campus, role, house, year level, or to individuals.

News 'Moderate' Permission

This permission gives a user the same abilities as a user with 'Write' permission, with the additional ability to moderate news if Global Moderation is enabled. Individuals with News Moderator permissions will publish all of their items without moderation.

For more information, see Grant access levels.

NOTE: Superusers will also publish their articles without moderation.

News Moderation

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If moderation is enabled in your instance, news items that are aimed at audiences beyond a user’s normal write access will require moderation. 

How to moderate articles

1. Navigate to your News Feed by selecting the 'News' tab in your top menu. 

You can also add /news to the end of your URL from the dashboard.

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2. Select 'Awaiting Moderation'.

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3. Select the title of the article you are moderating.

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4. To edit the article, audience, blurb or publish date, select the 3-dot menu and choose 'Modify'.

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Alternatively, you can reject or publish the article.

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If you reject the article, you will be provided the opportunity to provide feedback.

News Administration Settings

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All of the administration settings to control the way News behaves in your instance are available to a Superuser at your school. These settings give you a lot of options to create and distribute News in your instance. Please read the following guide carefully to understand the implications of these settings.

NOTE: The following settings can only be accessed by a Superuser.

Access the Administration > News tab to set up the options for News in your school.

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From this page you can set the following options:

Moderator list

There is a list of news moderators available at the top of the page.

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If no moderators are set, a Superuser can assign moderation permissions by searching for a user in the Administration > User tab, then modifying their permissions on the User Detail page.

 

Allow staff to post to global audiences

If you have this switched to off, staff will only be able to post news to pages or folders where they have write access. If that page or folder has a group or class attached, the news will appear on a news component on the page, however it will also appear in the dashboard news of all the members of the group or class.

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Enable Moderation

If this feature is turned on in your instance, some news articles will need to be reviewed by a moderator prior to publication. The news that will enter moderation is that which is targeted at an audience from one of the following segments:

  • Campus
  • Roles
  • Houses
  • Year Level

NOTE: If you have group pages that are aimed at the above segments, the author must choose the audience segment, not the group page in order to allow moderation.

Staff with “moderate” news permissions will have the ability to modify, publish, delete, or reject news that enters moderation. Even if moderation is enabled, staff will be able to post news to a class or group without moderation if they have write access to that class or group page.

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Enable Comments

If this is enabled, the author of an article can choose to enable comments on the article. 
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Default News Archiving Period

News will initially have their default expiry date set to the current datetime plus this value. A user creating news will be able to set a different expiry date, if they wish.

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Default Publishing Period

News will initially have their default publish date set to the current datetime plus this value. The user creating the news will be able to set a different publish date, if they wish.

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Read More

If you want to prompt your audience to read beyond the blurb and view news articles in full, you can add a read more link, which will display if a news article is truncated. Whatever you enter in this field will become the link text for this function. If you leave this field blank, there will be no prompt on the truncated article.

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Saving Articles

If this toggled to on, users will be able to add an article to their saved list.

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Select the Layout of your News

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Use the drop-down arrow to select if you wish to have the news as a:

  • List - with the images on the left
  • List - with the images on the right
  • Card - displaying three articles side-by-side

Select if you wish to have a 'Fallback Image'

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If the author of the article does not select a feature image, the default for a feature image for that article can be selected. Use the drop-down arrow to select:

  • No image
  • The school logo
  • The portrait of the author

Save

Ensure you click the Save button after you make any changes to this area.

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News Topics

You can view the available News Topics as a list on this page.

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NOTE: If you select ‘Modify List’ you will be taken to the Administration > Lists > News Topics area, where you can modify the available news topics.

NOTE: News notifications will not be sent to groups with muted folder settings.