You can create an individual news post within the Govstack content management system (CMS) and assign it to one or more established News Categories.
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Create a news post
To create a news post, follow these steps:
- Navigate to and expand your 'News' node in the Content tree in Govstack's back office. Note that each home node in your back office can have a separate News node.
- Select 'Posts'
- Select 'Create News Post' at the top left of the content pane, and choose a post template from the dropdown
- Name the post. The name field at the top of the page will contain either 'Enter a name...' or the name of the template selected when you begin
- Save the post. Do not publish until you have completed the remainder of the settings and content as this may create an outgoing subscriber notification
This will add a new news post to your website. You are now ready to write the content for the post, assign any news categories or authors and configure the settings. When you are satisfied with your News Post, select 'Save and publish'.
Configure the news post settings
Under the 'Settings' tab, enter the following details:
- Optional. In the 'Original Post date' field, enter the date you would like associated with your news post. This date will allow your news post to fit chronologically with your other posts (so you may set the date before or after previous posts). This date does not schedule your post to publish. If this field is left blank your post will be labeled with the date of you first 'Save'
- Add one or more News Categories you would like to associate with your post by selecting 'Add', then selecting one or multiple categories from the slide-out panel. Select 'Submit' when you are finished
- Optional. Enter the Author(s) of the post by selecting 'Add' in the 'Author' field. You may select more than one author for a single post. Select your Author(s) in the slide-out panel that appears and select 'Submit' when you are finished.
- Optional. Enter the Tags for the post by selecting 'Add' in the 'Tags' field. You may select multiple tags for a single post. Note that you may need to open additional folders to locate tags. Select your Tags in the slide-out panel that appears and select 'Submit' when you are finished. This is an optional feature so if no tags are available for selection you may not have Tags enabled on your site
- Set the 'Send Subscriber Notification' toggle to 'Yes' if you would like to send an automated email notification to anyone who subscribes to the news category associated with this post
- Optional. Enter an custom message that will appear at the beginning of the email notification sent to subscribers. You can review the default message content and the email template under the 'Subscription Messaging' node
Note that if you are adding links to the custom message do not use the search function in the link dialogue to add the URL. This will create a relative link that will not work from the recipients email.
Instead copy the full URL for the document or webpage and paste it into the link's URL. If these links are part of the news post the URL can be accessed by doing a 'Save and preview', then opening the link from the preview.
The address bar in the browser tab will show the full address and will start with the target link's website domain.
Warning
Your outgoing notification messages are automated emails and can often be intercepted by spam filters. To avoid this keep the content of your 'Notification Message' field as short and concise as possible and avoid including images.
Add your news post's Summary information
Under the 'Summary' tab, enter the information you would like to appear with this News Post on the news landing page and when previewed in a News Feed or on the News Category listing:
- Optional. Enter the title of your news post in the 'Heading' field. This field can be left blank if you would like the title of your news post to match its page name
- Optional. Enter a secondary heading in the 'Secondary heading' field
- Enter the preview text/description for your news post in the 'Text' field. This is often the first few sentences of the post's content
- Optional. Use the 'Image' field to add an image that will display beside the News Post when it appears on the News page, in the News Category listing and in News Feeds
Add content to the news post
To add content to your news post, select the 'Content' tab located at the top of the page. From here you can add content the same way you would add content to a standard web page.
Select the 'Add content' button at the bottom of the page to get access to all of the content components so you can customize the look and feel of the news post.
Additional settings
You can also add any considerations and information under the 'Extra Content', 'Navigation', 'SEO and Share' and 'Advanced' tabs. Options are the same as when building a regular web page.
Schedule a news post
If you would like to schedule your news post to publish at a later date, follow these steps:
- Select the arrow beside 'Save and publish' when editing your news post
- Select 'Schedule', then select 'Set date' under 'Publish'
- Choose the date and time you'd like to publish the post
- You can also set your News Post to be unpublished at a future date and time.
- Select 'Schedule' when finished
Edit an existing news post
To edit an existing news post, navigate to the news post you'd like to edit and select the name of the news post. This will open the news post details. When you are satisfied with your edits, select 'Save and publish'.
If the "Send Subscriber Notification" property is set to 'Yes', an additional news subscription email will be sent.
The original post date can be updated after making edits so that the post appears higher up in the news. If this is not edited the post will display in news feeds and on the news page based on its original date.
Unpublish a news post
To unpublish a news post, navigate to the 'Posts' folder under the News node and select the post you would like to unpublish by clicking anywhere on its entry other than its name (do not click the post name or it will open for editing). Once the post is highlighted, select 'Unpublish' in the menu bar that appears above your news posts list. Select 'Unpublish' again when prompted.
Delete a news post
To delete a news post, navigate to the 'Posts' folder under the News node and select the post you would like to delete by clicking anywhere on its entry other than its name (do not click the post name or it will open for editing). Once the post is highlighted, select 'Delete' in the menu bar that appears above the news posts list. Select 'Yes, delete' when prompted to complete the process.
Reminder!
When unpublishing or deleting, make sure to double check that you are unpublishing the News post, and not the News node. Unpublishing the News node may lead to bulk email notifications for past news posts going to subscribers.
You can learn more about controlling who has access to the News node on our Users and Permissions page.