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Website Support

Website Tutorials

These tutorials are provided for support. If you would like to attend one of our live training sessions, please contact Denise Kaduri. You can expand each video below to view them full screen. We have also provided a transcript and link for more information about each topic on the Omni CMS support website.

Logging In

Video Length: 55 seconds

This video will show you how to log in to the Omni CMS to make changes to your website.

The DirectEdit link is on every page of your website. In this example, we will navigate to the History page and scroll down to the footer to log in to edit the page.

The DirectEdit link is located in the copyright symbol in the footer of every page. Click on the symbol, Enter your username and password and click Sign in.

When you log in with the DirectEdit link, you immediately see the edit mode of the web page you logged in from.

If your account is locked, fill out the website content support form located in the footer under website feedback.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

The CMS interface

Video Length: 1:52 seconds

In this video, we will be going over the content management system interface.

Starting with the dashboard: you can see your checked out content, activity, and your inbox. You can access the dashboard by clicking on either the Omni CMS Logo or Dashboard in the main menu. It is a good idea to get into the habit of going to the dashboard before logging out to make sure you don’t have any checked out pages.

The Main menu is where you will Access most of your Omni CMS content and functions from this menu. This includes your dashboard, the content menu (including pages, assets, components, snippets, RSS feeds, the find and replace tool, and the recycle bin), reports, and add-ons (which includes the calendar and alerts). The only area that you will need to access is pages. Depending on your access level, you might not even see many of these options.

Global search: Search your Omni CMS account for content, users and more.

Help menu: Search the Omni CMS Support site

File navigation sidebar: Expand to see and interact with the file structure of your website.

Gadgets sidebar: Expand to see available gadgets.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Interface: Pages

Video Length: 53 seconds

Let’s dive deeper into each one of these areas. Starting with the Content Menu.

Pages: In this drop down, you can access pages. This is where you can see the backend structure of the website. Yellow folders are for sections, and blue PCF files are the web pages. You can click into the yellow folders to go deeper into the site structure. Once you are inside a folder, you can see that the breadcrumb area at the top of the page has changed to show where you are in the site. You can use that breadcrumb to navigate back a level or to the home section.

Depending on your user group or level of access, you may not have access to certain folders, or even see certain tools.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Interface: Page Status

Video Length: 1:23 seconds

In this video we will discuss page status. Files that are checked out to you have a lit lightbulb icon. Check out a page to prevent others from entering conflicting changes while you are working. Click the lightbulb icon to check a file in or out.

Files that are checked out to another user have a lock icon. If a file is locked to someone else, you can't edit it. The exception is for administrators, who can forcibly check the file back in. If you check in a file someone else is working on, their unsaved changes will be lost.

Files that are scheduled to publish have a calendar icon.

Files that are scheduled to expire have a "No" icon.

Files that are pending approval as part of a workflow have a silhouette icon.

Files that have never been published have an "Unpublished" status.

Files that have been saved after the most recent publish date have an "Unpublished Changes" status.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Interface: Filtering & Actions

Video Length: 1:11 seconds

This video will cover filtering pages and the more actions menu.

Filter: Type in the "Filter" field to search through the pages. Filtering searches file names.

More Actions: Click a file's More Actions menu indicated by the three dots to see the following dropdown menus:

  • Edit: File, Properties*, Reminders
  • Review: Preview, Page Check*, Save Version*, Versions*, Log
  • Publish: Publish, Schedule, Submit for Approval*, Expire
  • File: Rename, Move, Copy, Move to Recycle Bin
    *Only available if the page is checked out to you.

Some of these options may not be available or be slightly different depending on your user level, access settings, or file type.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Interface: Global Search

Video Length: 1:30 seconds

In this video, we will be discussing the global search in more detail.

Global Search: Search results are sorted by content type, with the first five results for each type displayed. The types can include text-based files, folders, assets, groups, and events, depending on the topic and the type of files it is associated with. Click on an item to see additional information like location, last published date, and last date modified.

Click Go To… to view the item.

To view more than the first five results for a given type, click Show All. Search through the content types to the left, or sort items by title, location, last modified date, or last published date. Click the name of an item to be taken to where that item is located.

Click the More Actions menu for an item and click Preview to view it or Go To to go to its location in Omni CMS.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Editing a Page: The Toolbar

Video Length: 3:33 seconds

In this video, we will discuss editing a page. Navigate to the page you want to edit by either going to the page on the live site and logging in via the copyright symbol in the footer, or if you are already logged in, you can use pages under the content drop down in the main menu, or the file navigation side bar.

Click on either the page name, or the more actions dots, edit > file.

Each page has several green Edit buttons. The main content button is the one that you will be using. Once you click the edit main content button, the page will be automatically checked out to you. You will notice that the lightbulb icon turns yellow, and the editor window opens.

Using the WYSIWYG editor: The WYSIWYG window stands for what you see is what you get. It is a standard tool bar like the interface in Word. The tools include:

The first row includes: Save and Exit, Exit without saving, Restore last draft, Cut, copy, Paste, Paste as text, search, undo, redo, spell check, clear formatting, Bold, Italic, Underline, Strikethrough, Unordered list, Ordered list, indent, outdent, blockquote, superscript, subscript, left align text, center align text, right align text, justify text, link, unlink, email link, anchor link, and a helper tool that lists and describes all of these tools.

The second row includes: Fonts, font sizes, text styles, text color, highlight color, insert image, insert video, horizontal rule, insert line break, special characters, show blocks, source code view, snippets, assets, components, tables, expand editing window.

The main tools an average user will utilize are, save, close, copy, paste, undo, bold, italic, lists, block quotes, and links. Some of these tools are not available to all user levels.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Inserting/editing Images

Video Length: 5:29 seconds

In this video, we are going to discuss images.

Omni CMS supports the upload of many image file types. Add images to your site by uploading them. Once an image has been uploaded, you can add it to pages. Like pages, images must be published before they can be seen on your website. Images share most of the same behaviors as pages. For example, you must check out an image to edit it. They also have the same file, review, and publish options.

Inserting images:

To add an image to a page:

  1. While editing an editable region, click the "Insert/Edit Image" icon in the toolbar.
  2. In the "Source" field, click the file chooser .
  3. Navigate through folders in your site using the dropdown.
  4. If the image you want isn't available, you can upload it.
  5. Click your image file.
  6. Click Insert.
  7. In the "Image Description" field, enter alternate text to describe the image if the image cannot be displayed.
  8. This is important to meet accessibility compliance standards.
  9. In the "Image Title" field, enter text to appear when hovering over the image.
  10. Enter new values in the "Width" and "Height" fields to modify the dimensions of the image.
  11. Click the lock icon to constrain proportions.
  12. Click Save.

Editing Images:

Edit images directly, as follows:

  1. Click the image that you want to edit in the editor window.
  2. In the "Source" field, click the file chooser.
  3. Click Edit > Image.
  4. From the Tools menu, specify the following:
    • This tool doesn't change the image, it zooms in and out to make it easier for you to edit.
    • Resize: Width and/or height, in pixels. Select the "Preserve Ratio" checkbox to keep the original proportions of the image. Click Resize.
    • Crop: Drag the dotted outlines around the image to define the cropped area. You can choose an aspect ratio for the crop; use "Custom" for the ratio to be unrestricted. Click Apply Crop.
    • Rotate: Click to rotate your image 90º to the right.
    • Zoom: Click + and - magnifying glasses, or type in a percentage, to zoom in and out on the image. Original returns the picture to its actual size. Zoom to Fit scales the image to fit the editing window.
    • Undo: Click to undo your last change.
    • Redo: Click to redo the undone change.
  5. Click save as to save a new image.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Adding Links

Video Length: 2:16 seconds

In this video we will show you how to add links to a page.

  1. While editing an editable region, select the text or image to display as a link.
  2. Click Insert/Edit Link  in the toolbar to open the "Insert/Edit Link" box.
  3. In the "URL" field click the file chooser.
  4. When linking to a page or file in your website, it's important to use the file chooser rather than pasting in the URL. Doing this keeps the link from breaking if the page is moved or renamed.
  5. From file chooser, navigate through folders in your site.
  6. Click the file to link.
  7. Click Insert.
  8. You can also set the "Open link in..." field to Current Window or New Window, using the dropdown. Only use the external option for links that exist outside of the website.
  9. Click Save.
  10. To link to a document, it is the same process, but you will choose the document instead of the web page. If the document does not currently exist on the server, you can upload it.
  11. Select the text to display as a link, click the insert link icon in the toolbar, click the file chooser next to the URL field, navigate to the folder where you want your document to live, then click upload, click add, select your file from your computer, click start upload, click insert and save. Just like images, if you upload a document, you will need to publish the page for that document to show.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Tables

Video Length: 1:51 seconds

In this video we will show you how to add and edit tables.

To add a table:

  1. While in the editor window, click the Snippets icon in the tool bar. There is a table icon, but we have already created a table that is styled and accessibility compliant for you to use.
  2. From the list, choose responsive striped table with header, if you have a hard time finding it, type table in the filter by name area.
  3. Select insert.
  4. Now you have a table that you can edit.

To edit a table:

  1. Click inside an existing table where you want to edit the text.
  2. You can highlight the table header and change the text.
  3. You can also highlight and change the text in the areas below.
  4. To change the number of rows or columns, right click in the table.
  5. To remove a column, right click anywhere in the column you want to remove then select column and delete column. You can also insert columns before or after the column that you have clicked.
  6. To remove a row, right click on the row that you want to remove, click row, delete row, or if you want to add a row, click insert row before or after.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Uploading Documents

Video Length: 2:18 seconds

In this video, we will discuss uploading documents.

In this example, we will upload a PDF.  The first way to upload a document is to upload files while in Content > Pages list. Navigate to the location where you'd like to upload new files. There should already be a documents folder in most sections where you can upload new documents. If you don’t have a documents folder, please reach out to request one using the website support link in the footer.

  1. Once you are inside the documents folder, click upload.
  2. In the "Upload" box, Click Add to browse for files from your computer.
  3. Files to be uploaded appear in a list. You can upload more than one file at once. From this list, you can rename them before starting the upload. In this example, we will lowercase the text to be in line with our naming conventions.
  4. Click Start Upload.

Publish the uploaded file for it to appear on your live website. You can see that any file that has yet to be published will say unpublished. There are two ways to publish the file, click the check box to the left and click publish in the menu above, or click the more actions menu indicated by the three dots, then the publish drop down and publish.

The other way to upload files is while editing the page. This is the best way to upload images because it will automatically add your images to the correct images folder. You can see the specifics of how to do this in the video for inserting images.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Publishing & Submitting Pages

Video Length: 4:08 seconds

In this video, we will discuss publishing and submitting pages.

You must publish your pages for changes to appear on your live website. By default, all users can publish content unless it is checked out to another user. Administrators can restrict this by requiring users to submit pages for approval.

To publish a page, while on the page click Publish.

Or you can publish a page while viewing the list of pages by using the more actions menu, click the Publish dropdown and then Publish.

If you don't have permission to publish pages, you see the option to Submit.

Now we will discuss Publish Options

Clicking Publish opens the "Publish" box, containing the following tabs and options:

Final Check

Final check reviews your page. 

  • Spelling: Select a language and click to check the spelling on the page.
  • Version Description: Enter a description of changes for the version history.

Schedule a page to publish instead of publishing it immediately.

You can schedule a file to publish at a later date. This can be useful for preparing content in advance of a specific date or deadline.

Schedule Options

From the "Schedule" tab choose the following options:

  • Date: The day you want the file to publish.
  • Time: The time you want the file to publish.
  • Repeat Every: Schedule the page to republish at the interval you set.
  • Notification: Create a notification of the scheduled publish, as appropriate. Select the "Send Copy to Email" checkbox to receive an email notification in addition to the message in your Omni CMS inbox.

You cannot schedule multiple files simultaneously. To edit or immediately publish a scheduled file, first remove the scheduled publish. 

Removing a Scheduled Publish

A scheduled publish can only be removed by the user who set it or by level 9 and 10 users. To remove a scheduled, publish Remove Scheduled Publish.

Workflow Publish

You can (or may be required to) submit pages and files to other users for approval and subsequent publication using the workflow system. 

  1. After clicking submit
  2. Write a subject for your message.
  3. Write a message, as appropriate.
  4. Choose to send an email to the user along with the Omni CMS message.
  5. Click Submit. 
  6. The file is now locked to the approver. 

Approving to Publish

If you are the one approving the files, you can view files submitted to you for approval in Dashboard Workflow. There are four approval actions you can take on a submitted file, as follows:

  • Publish a file submitted to you for approval the same way you would normally publish a file.
  • Schedule a file to publish later.
  • Reassign the file.
  • Decline the file to reject the publish.
  • The file is checked in and available for additional edits. 
  • Select the "Revert to Previous Version" checkbox to discard edits since the last saved version.

You can also send a message with the page. These messages are visible for each file in Dashboard > Workflow.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Versions

Video Length: 2:49 seconds

In this video, we will discuss versions.

Omni CMS stores a version of a page every time it is published. You can also manually save a version any time you want. Compare page versions to see when changes were made or revert a page to a previous version.

There are two ways to view page versions:

  • Navigate to Content > Pages, click the More Actions menu , click Review > Versions.
  • While viewing a checked-out page, click Versions in the page actions toolbar.

The version of the page that is live on your website is highlighted.

Save

To save a new version, click the More Actions menu in the page actions toolbar, click Save Version. In the "Save Version" box, enter a version description, as appropriate. Click Save Version.

Revert

Click the More Actions menu next to the version you want, click Revert. In the "Revert" window, click on the revision number to preview the version you're reverting to. Click Revert. Publish your page for the changes to be visible on the live website.  

Compare

You can also compare two versions of a page to see what's been changed between them. You can compare the current state of the page to a previous version or to what is on your live website. 

Version Compare

  1. Click Compare.
  2. Select Page.
  3. View the marked changes on the page. 
  4. Strikethrough (red) shows content that was removed.
  5. Underline (green) shows content that was added.
  6. Wavy underline (blue) shows formatting changes.

Compare to Live

  1. You can also compare to the live site
  2. Click Compare to Live in the upper right.
  3. View the marked changes on the page. 
  4. Strikethrough (red) shows content that was removed.
  5. Underline (green) shows content that was added.
  6. Wavy underline (blue) shows formatting changes.

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Reminders

Video Length: 1:24 seconds

In this video, we will discuss reminders.

Set stale and scheduled reminders on pages and files to send a message to you or an Omni CMS group.

There are two ways to set or edit a reminder:

  1. Under Pages. Click the More Actions menu.
  2. Click Edit > Reminders.
  3. In the "Reminders" box, select the scheduled or stale reminder checkbox, as appropriate.
  4. Enter the date, time, number of days, and notification.
  5. Click Save.

or

  1. While viewing a page, click Properties in the page actions toolbar
  2. Click Reminders.
  3. Select the scheduled or stale reminder checkbox, as appropriate.
  4. Enter the date, time, number of days, and notification.
  5. Click Save.

To clear a reminder from a page, deselect the checkbox for that reminder.

Scheduled Reminder

Scheduled reminders send a notification about a page at a specific date and time. For example, set a reminder to update tuition pages on the last day of the previous semester.

You can set the reminder to repeat periodically, starting from the scheduled date.  

Stale Reminder

Stale reminders send a notification about a page if it hasn't published within the amount of time you set. Use stale reminders to ensure content on a page is being updated periodically.

Stale reminders send notifications at the set interval until the page has been published again (for example, if a page is stale after one week, Omni CMS sends a stale reminder every week after the initial reminder). The stale reminder checks from the last published date and time, not when the reminder was set. 

You can find more information about this topic on the Omni CMS Support website.

Submitting an Event to the Calendar

If you have an upcoming event and want to promote it, please fill out the submit an event form and your event will appear on the NVC calendar. Once you submit your event, website administrators will approve it.

Instructions on Submitting an Event

  1. Fill out the contact information section. This is so that we can contact you with any questions about your event. This information will not show on the calendar.
  2. Fill out the event details section. Please be specific in both the title and event description. 
  3. Select your event dates. 
  4. Add tags to your event. Separate them by commas. Example includes: academics, athletics, basketball
  5. Add your event location information. 
  6. Add a link to more information and the text that will go with that link. It will display as a button.
  7. Add the event organizer information. This information will be displayed on the calendar.
  8. Add Ticket or Cost information. Any ticket links need to be 3rd-party like eventbright. The calendar does not take registrations or payments.
  9. Add any special instructions to the event approver. For example, your event runs over multiple days.
  10. If you have a thumbnail image (should be sized to 500px by 500px) or an image to insert into the description area, please email it to websupport@napavalley.edu.

Best Practices

Images

If you are uploading an image, make sure that the image has been optimized for the web. You should make sure that the image is only as large as it needs to be for viewing purposes. If you don’t have software like photoshop to do this, you can always use a free online tool like picresize.com

You can upload your image, crop it, resize it, and save it. You can also use a tool like imagecompressor.com to compress the size of images to make the file sizes smaller without losing quality. Any image within the content area of a page should be no larger than 1320px wide and generally image sizes should not exceed 1MB. Most images will be much smaller than that. They should also only be .jpg or .png files, with most photos being .jpg files.

You can do much of the cropping and resizing in the CMS, but it’s advised that, in order to save on storage, you optimize your images before uploading them.


Links/URLs

When linking to a page or file in your website, it's important to use the file chooser rather than pasting in the URL. Doing this keeps the link from breaking if the page is moved or renamed. Only use the open in a new window option for links that exist outside of the Napa Valley College website.

Styling Text

  • Please don’t center align and bold most or all text. These should be used sparingly.
  • Please don’t use colors to highlight text.
  • Please don’t underline text that is not a link.
  • Maintain constency with phone numbers and time formats.

Naming Conventions

It’s a best practice to name images or documents in a way that describes what they represent. Use all lowercase letters and a dash in between words. This is the same naming convention as the web page file names.


PDF Files

Only add PDF files if it is necessary. Many times a PDF is used, it isn't needed. It can be added as content within the website. If you do have to create a PDF, check that it is accessible before uploading. View the Adobe Acrobat article on making accessible PDFs.. Or watch a video on how to make a PDF accessible

If you are having issues with access or logging in, please fill out the website support form.

 

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