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Contact Information plugin available!
Following the CMS updates on 10/27/10, the Contact Information plugin is available for all CMS sites. The following is the FAQ section of the post from 10/27:
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What is the Contact plugin?
The Contact plugin is a user interface that allows you to enter the contact information for your site once, and have it appear on all of the pages of the site. It includes areas for email, phone, fax, and two customizable information areas. In addition, you can show links to your social media areas at the bottom, as icons.
- http://cms.skidmore.edu/career/ — Career Services
- http://cms.skidmore.edu/admissions/ — Admissions
- http://cms.skidmore.edu/advising/ — Academic Advising
- http://cms.skidmore.edu/ocse/ — Off-Campus Studies & Exchanges
What are the features of the Contact plugin?
With the Contact plugin, you will only be putting in the contact information once, and will have it displayed on every page of your site. This saves a great deal of time when information needs to be changed! From user feedback, a few features due to be added are a Preview button, and the ability to re-sort the order of the information blocks. The plugin includes standard icons for the social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) so that users don’t have to create their own. You can also have a different address display for different folders in your website, if you have folders for different individual programs/offerings.
The contact information will appear on every page of your site (or subsite). Updates are not instant – it will take a few hours for your changes to process through the server, due to resource caching. You may only show one link per social media type (1 Facebook profile, etc.)
I like this! How do I get the Contact plugin?
You will need to contact fill out the web contact form (https://cms.skidmore.edu/help/contact.cfm) to ask for a place in the schedule for having the script installed. Once it is installed, you will be able to edit the information in your Contact area yourself.
What if I don’t like the way the Contact plugin looks?
No one is required to use the Contact plugin, it’s a tool provided for your convenience. You can choose to continue editing your Contact Information blocks manually.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Web team.
Jenn Crewell
Web Development Coordinator
x8117
CMS template updates on 10/27/10
Dear CMS Editors:
On Wednesday, October 27, the Web Team will be applying some updates to all CMS templates. These updates will pave the way for a new Contact plugin, which you can see in use on the OCSE and Career Services websites.
What does this change involve?
The left column of the templates will be standardized across all sites using that template (Academic – yellow, Administration – green), in order to allow for consistent placement of the Contact plugin.
What does this mean?
If your template was not set up in a way that easily accommodates the change, any site-specific information in your left column may be lost. This is particularly likely in the Administration (green) templates.
What should I do?
If you are concerned that information in your left column area may be lost in the transition, you should take a screen shot of your page, or print it out, and label it with appropriate links and so forth. This way, the information will be available after the update, in order to rebuild the page properly.
What if my information is lost in the transition?
Please send fill out the web contact form (https://cms.skidmore.edu/help/contact.cfm). Include the URL of the pages on which information was lost, and a copy of the relevant information. We will assist you in rebuilding the information.
*********************
What is the Contact plugin?
The Contact plugin is a user interface that allows you to enter the contact information for your site once, and have it appear on all of the pages of the site. It includes areas for email, phone, fax, and two customizable information areas. In addition, you can show links to your social media areas at the bottom, as icons.
http://cms.skidmore.edu/career/ — Career Services example
What are the features of the Contact plugin?
With the Contact plugin, you will only be putting in the contact information once, and will have it displayed on every page of your site. This saves a great deal of time when information needs to be changed! From user feedback, a few features due to be added are a Preview button, and the ability to re-sort the order of the information blocks. The plugin includes standard icons for the social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) so that users don’t have to create their own. You can also have a different address display for different folders in your website, if you have folders for special programs.
The contact information will appear on every page of your site (or subsite). Updates are not instant – it will take a few hours for your changes to process through the server, due to resource caching. You may only show one link per social media type (1 Facebook profile, etc.)
I like this! How do I get the Contact plugin?
You will need to contact fill out the web contact form (https://cms.skidmore.edu/help/contact.cfm) to ask for a place in the schedule for having the script installed. Once it is installed, you will be able to edit the information in your Contact area yourself.
What if I don’t like the way the Contact plugin looks?
You can opt out of the Contact plugin, but you will have to edit your pages manually in order to put in contact information, and you will have to edit each one manually every time change is necessary.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Web team.
Jenn Crewell
Web Development Coordinator
x8117