News and Announcements
The News and Announcements (or School News) section of the Home page can be used to broadcast such things as important events or congratulatory comments. Announcements can be simple, text-only articles, or you can add pictures or links to them. You can also set up an alert to track any changes to an announcement. For more information, see Alerts.
Create a New Announcement
To add an announcement:
- Under the News & Announcements (School News) heading on the page, click the New Announcement easy button or the + beside it to display the New Item pop-up.
- In the Title field, enter a title for the announcement that will display on the home page.
- Enter your announcement text in the Body section.
When you click in the Body text area, the Formatting Ribbon changes to include an INSERT tab, so you can insert a picture or link and upload any associated files. To add a picture, see below. For more information on the Formatting Ribbon, see Add or Edit Site Content for more information.
- Choose (or enter) an expiry date for the announcement in the Expires field to have the announcement no longer display after its expiry date.
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To sync an announcement from a District site to a school site, use the Sync field. For detailed instructions, see District Sync to Schools, below.
- To display the announcement on your public web site, select the Sync To Web field. Note: This field only displays on School or District sites where you have Administrative access.
- Click the Save button to create the new announcement.
The title of your new announcement displays on the home page linked to the new announcement page. The reader can click on the title to read the full story.
Insert a Picture into an Announcement
To add a picture to an announcement:
- While you are creating the announcement (or editing it), click within the Body text area. The INSERT tab displays on the Formatting Ribbon.
- Click on the INSERT tab.
- Click the Picture button in the Formatting Ribbon to access the Upload Image wizard for you to choose a picture and upload it.
- Click the Choose File button and select which picture you would like to display.
- Enter a title for this image in the Title field.
- Enter any Keywords, Comments, Date Taken, Author, and Copyright information in the fields provided.
- Click the Save button to save the new image.
- Continue editing or creating your announcement and click the Save button when you are done.
District Sync to Schools
Districts with Portals can push certain District News items to the School Portal for announcement that apply to all schools. It is more efficient for an announcement to be entered once for all schools than having someone at each school do this work.
You can sync an event either at the time of creating the news item (shown below), or you can edit the announcement later on.
To sync an announcement:
- From within the District site, access the news item or announcement that you wish to sync to a school site, either by creating a new event (see Create a New Announcement above) or editing one.
- Click on the address book to the far right of the Sync To field.
- Click on the site the News item is to sync to. Then click the Select button.
The name of the school that the announcement will sync to displays.
- Click the OK button for your changes to take effect.
Note
You must be on the District Portal and have Administrator access in order to use this feature.
Edit an Announcement
To edit an announcement:
- Click on the title of the announcement you wish to edit to go to its page.
- Click the Edit Item button on the announcement page.
- In the News & Announcements - <Page Name> - <School Name> pop-up window:
- Edit the Title field to change the title.
- Edit your announcement text in the Body section.
- To change the expiry date, select a new date in the Expires field.
- Click the Save button to save your changes
Delete a News Item
To delete an announcement:
- Under News & Announcements, click the Edit Items easy button or the + beside it to display the News & Announcements page.
- Click on the title of the announcement you wish to delete.
- In the News & Announcements - <Page Name> pop-up window, click the Delete button. Note: A Delete button is also available from within the Edit Items pop-up window.
- Click the OK button to confirm the deletion.
Full Editing of Items
You can edit all announcements, even expired ones, on the News and Announcements page.
To edit an announcement:
- Under News & Announcements (or School News), click the Edit Items easy button or the + beside it to display the News and Announcements page.
- Click the All Items link to see the full list of News Items even expired ones.
- Click on the elipsis (...) beside an item to be edited, and a drop down menu will display for further editing.
- Click Edit Item to edit the item.
- Once you have performed an edit, click the OK button to save any changes.