It is that time of year that we see many new staff members being assigned the duty of updating/maintaining their district or school websites. For some, this may be their first exposure to managing a site. The district, along with SchoolMessenger (the company that supplies and hosts our portal software) provides many different options for help and training to get you what you need to be successful (in addition to this blog site). Some of these include the following:
Top-rate district web pages and school web sites are always being updated. And the people assigned to do the work to make the web pages valuable may need beginner training or advanced help on specific projects or issues.
An Introduction to your Web Site:
District Department Training videos
School Website Training videos
We are currently working with School Messenger on developing a ‘Mastering your Web Site’ on-line training session, one for district users in August and one for school users September. Some of the topics that we are looking at to include in these sessions are:
| Topic |
District Sites |
School Sites |
| Understand the Site Navigation and Page Hierarchy before adding a new page to a site. |
X |
X |
| Understanding when to use the different page types (+Page menu) |
X |
X |
| ADA Compliance – What are the issues (Alt-text vs links to other pages, tables of numbers for charts, color contrast concerns (4.5:1 Color contrast ratio), Closed Captioning in videos, other.) |
X |
X |
| Removing Word Formatting from Existing Pages |
X |
X |
| Working with restored older versions of content for portlets that support it. |
X |
X |
| Understanding Hide Section vs. Hide Selection vs. Archive of pages |
X |
X |
| Understanding File/Image management using folders for your department/school. How to manage updates to files and images – updating existing files vs add new files |
X |
X |
| Managing Calendar Events (importing and exporting from other calendars, syncing from an Outlook calendar) |
X |
X |
| Building and Using Forms, Form Versioning, Pulling response data into Excel |
X |
X |
| Managing Quick Links on department sites |
X |
|
| Managing Department Contacts (The Department Contact portlet vs a plain content portlet – where can each be used? Sub-departments? Projects?) |
X |
|
| Working with different page layouts for content (When and how to use multiple columns) |
X |
|
| Building mobile device friendly pages (what portlets resize and which do not, How to define images size using % rather than pixels) |
X |
|
| News / Archive News Section Pages |
X |
|
| News Content Pages (Emphasis on Publish, Release, Expiry Dates) |
X |
|
| News Archival – What can we do with Expired News (Hide, archive, Archival News section) |
X |
|
| Rotating Banner Images – Sizing Tricks, ADA issues, URL links to further detail pages |
X |
|
| Any New Features for upcoming releases (will there be one this summer?) |
X |
X |
For questions about working with the new School Messenger Portal,
SchoolMessenger support is: 1-800-920-3897.
SchoolMessenger live online chat is available 24/7 when logged in. Click “?” button in the header for help
Email support at: support@schoolmessenger.com Include the page URL with the problem, a description of the problem and an image/screen capture.
SchoolMessenger text resources are located at: http://resourcecentral.schoolmessenger.com/ and live training at: http://schoolmessenger.com/training/
Submit a help ticket directly to SchoolMessenger at: http://resourcecentral.schoolmessenger.com/tickets/
OCPS portal Tips/News can be found at the following page and its subpages: https://intranet.ocps.net/departments/chief_communications_office/web_and_technology_services/
Permission Request: Go to the following page and follow instructions: https://intranet.ocps.net/cms/One.aspx?portalId=125187&pageId=219493
Check out our blog at: https://wordpress.ocps.net/presenceblog/
Especially one of the more recent posts at: https://wordpress.ocps.net/presenceblog/school-web-site-main-page-audit/
Open labs are scheduled in CANVAS through December 2018: https://ocps.catalog.instructure.com/browse/all?query=schoolmessenger
Upcoming Open Lab dates include:
August 13th (Targeted to district users)
September 10th (Targeted to new school users)
Please tell us what you think about Open Labs using our Poll at: https://intranet.ocps.net/cms/One.aspx?portalId=125187&pageId=689963
For additional local support, submit your question to: Presence@ocps.net. Include the page URL where you have encountered the problem along with a screen capture.
And follow this blog.