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Creating and managing a news article or announcement

Overview

A news article or announcement can be:

About news articles and announcements

A news article is a type of news item whose purpose is to provide news about a particular topic to other Workplace users. A news article is synonymous with articles on a news website, or articles in a newspaper or magazine, etc., and consists of:

  • a News headline,

  • an Image file upload feature,

  • a Summary and Body, as well as

  • various other selectable categories of information (e.g. Article topics and AUDIENCE details) that can be specified for the news item.

An announcement is a type of news item whose purpose is to distribute important information about a particular subject to other Workplace users. Unlike a news article, the relevancy of an announcement is typically shorter than that of a news article. Like a news article, an announcement consists of:

  • a News headline,

  • an Image file upload feature,

  • a Summary and Body, as well as

  • various other selectable categories of information (e.g. Article topics and AUDIENCE details) that can be specified for the announcement item.

Creating a news article or announcement

Any logged in Workplace user can create a news article or announcement.

To create a news article or announcement:

  1. Ensure you have accessed the News and Events page.

  2. On the right of the News and Events page, click the add news item button Add news item button, followed by the appropriate News article or Announcement option (based on their descriptions in the Overview).
    Note that the plus icon changes to an 'x' icon when clicked.
    The Create a news article or Create an announcement page opens to the first of three stages - ADD CONTENT.

  3. In the first stage - ADD CONTENT, add/specify initial content for your new news article/announcement, some of which may be mandatory:

    • Add a headline or summary for your news item in the News/Announcement headline field.

      The headline should be brief and consist of no more than a single sentence.

    • Choose one or more predefined topics for your news item from the TOPICS section.

    • Add an Image for your news item (which is the main image in the news item’s content, and the image used in the news item’s tile on the News and Events page and LATEST section of the Workplace home page), by clicking the pencil icon in the lower-right corner of the image area to open the Upload file dialog box.

      1. Choose the image by either:

        • Dragging and dropping a image from your file system into the central area of the Upload file dialog box.

        • Clicking Select image and choosing the image from your computer’s file system.

      2. Use the 'Drag to reposition' and Resize image features on this dialog box (available after choosing your image) to adjust the news item’s image.

        The cropping box is set to a fixed rectangular configuration, since this configuration captures the image in its entirety for the news item’s tile on the News and Events page and Workplace home page.

      3. Click Upload to upload the image to Workplace and set the news item’s image, or Replace to choose a different image instead.

    • Write a brief description/summary about your news item (to appear in your news item’s tile on the News and Events page and Workplace home page) in the Summary field, using the guidelines provided.

      This description/summary only appears on the news item’s tile if you are given the option to promote your news item (during the last PUBLISH stage of this news item creation process), and you choose the option to make your news item prominent.

    • Enter the main written content for your news item in the Body editing box.

      • The text formatting features available when editing page comments are also available in this content editing box. Learn more about these features in Social collaboration.

  4. Upon completing this ADD CONTENT stage, click the Next button.

  5. In the next stage - SELECT AN AUDIENCE, choose the people who will see your news article/announcement on the News and Events page and LATEST section of the Workplace home page.

    • To allow every Workplace user to see your news item on these pages, leave the Everyone toggle on.

    • To choose which subset of Workplace users who will see the news item on their News and Events and Workplace home pages, switch the Everyone toggle off. Upon doing so, the content preference categories become available, including the default location options (available through the Locations tab).

      • If the Locations tab is available, click it to choose the location options that determine which Workplace users will see your news item on their News and Events and Workplace home pages, based on these users' own location options (chosen through a user’s My Account page in Content Preferences  Location).

      • If you have additional content preference categories available, these appear as additional tabs (below the default Locations tab). Like the Locations tab, click these tabs to choose their options, and further target which Workplace users will see your news item on their News and Events and Workplace home pages.

      • If there are too many content preference options to choose from, you can search for specific options using the Search categories field.

  6. Upon completing this SELECT AN AUDIENCE stage, click the Next button.

  7. In the last stage - PUBLISH, choose whether or not you want to promote your news article/announcement on the Workplace home page, as well as the time (i.e. schedule) when the news item will be published.

    • If your Workplace instance supports promoting your news item on the Workplace home page, switch the Promote item on home page toggle on and do one or both of the following:

      • To pin your news item to the top of the top-left of the list of news item tiles, select the Pin to top of news check box.

      • To make your news item prominent, such that its tile appears four times larger than the other tiles at the top-left of the list, select the Make prominent check box.

        The Promote item on home page is a configurable feature that may not be available on your Workplace instance.

    • To schedule when your news item will be published, switch the Schedule publishing toggle on, and use the Date and Time picker options to respectively select the date and time when your news item will be published live.

      Leaving the Schedule publishing toggle off results in your news item being published upon completing this stage. You cannot schedule a news item to be published in the past.

  8. Upon completing this PUBLISH stage, click the Publish button.

If a workflow has been applied to the news, events and announcements feature, then your news item will not appear immediately in the LATEST section of the Workplace home or on the News and Events pages. Instead, a Workplace system administrator needs to set the status of your news item to Approve and Make Live, before it appears on these pages.

A Workplace system administrator can protect a news item from being edited (or from accidental deletion attempts), by granting the relevant Workplace users Read permissions to the news item (after you created it), and denying or removing the news item’s default Write permissions.

Editing a news article or announcement

Any logged in Workplace user can edit any existing news article or announcement.

If a workflow has been applied to the news, events and announcements feature, then you can only edit a news item in its safe edit status, since workflows are designed to prevent you from altering any live content without approval.

Editing a news item in its safe edit status allows you to edit and preview your changes to the news item. However, a Workplace system administrator needs to set the status of this news item to Approve and Make Live, for your news item’s status to change to live, which makes it visible to every other Workplace user on the system.

To edit a news article or announcement:

  1. Ensure you have accessed the news, events and announcements feature and are viewing the LATEST section of the Workplace home or the News and Events page.

  2. Click on the tile of the news article/announcement to open its page.

  3. On the news item’s page, click the Edit button to the top right of the page to open the news item in edit mode on the Content page/screen.

    If you do not see the Edit button available, then a Workplace system administrator has most likely granted you/your user group Read permissions to this news item, and has denied or removed the default Write permissions. This means that you cannot edit this news item and you cannot proceed any further. If you need to edit the news item, contact your Workplace system administrator to grant you permission to do so.

  4. If a workflow has been applied to the news, events and announcements feature, the news item’s status might already be live. If this is the case, click Switch to Safe Edit status near the top of the page to begin editing your news item’s content.

  5. To edit the summary (which appears in the news item’s tile) and/or body of the news item, update the existing text in the respective Summary and Body text boxes, using edit mode’s content editing features.

  6. To edit the headline or main image of the news item, access the Details page/screen, and edit its respective News Information  Headline and Related Image  Set Image fields. For the main image:

    • To find a different image asset already uploaded to Workplace, click the Select button in the Related Image section to open the Asset Finder, where you can choose a different image asset in Workplace.

    • To add a completely new image, click the New button at the top left to open the Asset Creation Wizard, where you can upload a new image asset to Workplace. You then use the Asset Finder (above) to change the main image to this newly uploaded image asset.

  7. To edit the topics or content preferences (e.g. locations) of the news item, access the Metadata page/screen, and change the relevant property values in the respective News Topic and Content Personalisation sections.

  8. To change the promoted state of the news item, on the Metadata page/screen, change the relevant Promote, Pin and Prominent property values in the News, Events and Announcements general  News section.

    The Promote option must be set to Yes for the other two Pin and Prominent options' values to take effect.

  9. Once you have completed editing the news item, click the Save button at the top right.

  10. To return to the news item’s page in Workplace, exit edit mode by clicking the 'user' button at the top right, followed by Exit Edit Mode in the resulting pop-up.

Deleting a news article or announcement

Deleting a news article or announcement prevents any other Workplace user from accessing this news item. This process initially involves changing the news item’s status to Archived and then moving the news item into Trash. However, if the Trash has not been purged, the news item can still be restored.

Only Workplace users who are Workplace system administrators can delete a news article or announcement.