MyPostings 2.0

MyPostings is a database that contains news, events and other content types that are displayed on the USD News Center as well as pages throughout the USD website. This is a web-based application accessible at the following location: 

https://www.sandiego.edu/manage20/mypostings/

Please note that in order to post items to your website’s home page, you must have web feeds on your landing page for News, Events or any of the post types offered by MyPostings. Please see the School of Engineering website for an example.

Getting Help

You can reach out to mypostings@sandiego.edu for help with questions, issues or requests with the MyPostings system. This is a shared list between the University Communications and Web Services teams in order to help with functional, design or content needs.

Logging In

In your browser, go to https://www.sandiego.edu/manage20/mypostings/. You can log into the system using your MySanDiego username and password.

The Dashboard

Immediately after logging in you will see a dashboard where you can begin adding your new post. This document will provide some general information that applies to the majority of post types.

Categories

Select the type of post you’d like to make. The following categories are available, the most common being News or Events.

• News: Recent news articles and media mentions about the university and its community.

• Events: Upcoming occurrence that includes all relevant information for prospective attendees.

• Blogs: An informal, first-hand account on a particular topic of interest.

• Photo Essay: A visual story told through a curated series of photographs with brief captions or narrative text.

• Podcast: An audio-based story or conversation that explores a wide range of topics.

• Profiles: A feature about a specific individual, often written in a news format.

• Video: A visual story or conversation expressed in video format.

• In the News (only available to Media Relations): Recent news articles and media mentions about the university and its community.

• Press Release (only available to Media Relations): A university-issued brief intended to reach the external media for the purpose of creating awareness and growing interest around the USD brand.

The Edit Tab

From the MyPostings dashboard select the category of your post to begin adding content. Note the editor pane will always be on the left and the live preview will be on the right. This Edit tab of the form captures the content of your post. The fields will vary according to the post type selected. In general, posts will include the following.

Title

Give your post a short, but descriptive, title. This is what will be displayed as the headline on the website. This field is required.

Example news title: "USD Maintains No. 2 Study Abroad Ranking"

Subtitle

Use this if your post has a subtitle (2nd title). 

Example news subtitle, goes with above example title: "Study abroad program continues success" 

Teaser

You can include a teaser or introduction to your item. It is recommended you limit this to one or two sentences or 140 characters or less. 

This is the content that will display in the feed view, giving users a snippet of your post before they click into it.

Preparing Your Content

We recommend working on your content before putting it in MyPostings, for example writing your post in a Google Doc where you can flesh out all aspects of the post, rather than updating the content multiple times via the MyPostings system. To get started, download this template.

Adding Content

This is where the bulk of your content will be placed. By clicking on +Add Item, you will be presented with a menu of component options. You can reorder components within your post at any time by dragging and dropping. A complete list is as follows.

Text

The text component contains the copy of post. You can add as many text components to your post as needed, possibly mixing them with other components for visual reasons. Click on +Add Item to add text items to your post.

The text component has the following fields:

• Label

• Title

• Content (required)

Accordion

The accordion component can be used for grouping sections of similar content, such as panel presentation information or FAQs. The title field is used as the heading of a particular sub-section of your accordion. The content field is a normal text editor field. Anything entered within the editor will be the expandable content for its respective accordion title.

The accordion component has the following fields:

• Before the accordion

  • Label

  • Title

  • Content

• Accordion items

  • Title (required)

  • Content (required)

Affiliations (Internal)

The affiliation component is used to highlight internal USD collaborators for an event. You can select a collaborator from the drop-down menu. To have affiliations added for your area, contact mypostings@sandiego.edu.

Billboard

The billboard component lets you highlight messaging, provide a call to action and/or divide a section of content. It can be placed anywhere on the page. This is meant to feature calls to action such as “Apply Now“ or “Become a Torero Today” in a visual way.

The billboard component has the following fields:

• Content

• Buttons

• Layout

• Background color

• Highlight first button

• Display Background image

Container

The container component allows you to change the background color of a portion of the body of your article. Within this, you can add components that will inherit this background color.

The container component has the following fields:

• Content (add as many items as desired)

• Content width

• Background color

• Display background image

Highlights

The highlights component adds a background color and outline to content, allowing it to stand out on the page.

The highlights component has the following fields:

• Title

• Content

• Button

• Background color

Media

The media component is used to post image or video content; images can be posted directly via the system, whereas videos will require an external link from YouTube, Vimeo or similar. Please crop images before posting and do not place images directly from a digital camera, which can be quite a large file size.

The media component will check the file size and cropped size of a picture and not let you continue if it is too large. If you do not have Photoshop, you can crop your thumbnail or image before uploading using one of the free web tools: http://pixlr.com/editor or http://www.picmonkey.com/.

The media component has the following fields:

• Before the media item

  • Label

  • Title

  • Content

• Media items

  • Type

  • Image/Video

  • Alt text

  • Alt as caption

• Shape

• Display

Quote

A quote component is used to format a section of content that is cited from another source. This can be applied to testimonials or pull quotes.

The quote component has the following fields:

• Quote

• Author

• Author title

• Display author image

Profile

The profile component highlights an individual (student, alumni, faculty, employee, etc) and is written in a third person point of view. This can be used for content such as a speaker panel at an event or a list of committee members who worked on a project that is being announced in your post.

The profile component has the following fields:

• Before the profile

  • Label

  • Title

  • Content

• Profile items

  • Image

  • Name

  • Content

  • URL

  • Target

• Display

• Align

Quick Links

You can choose to provide supplementary material for your item by adding quick links.

The quick links component has the following fields:

• Title

• Quick links item

  • Text

  • URL

  • Target

• Layout

• Links per column

Sponsors (External)

The sponsors component can be used to highlight external USD sponsors for an event. This is meant to be a visual feature using the logos of the external partners and collaborators.

The sponsors component has the following fields:

• Logos

• Display

• Mobile layout

Links

Click +Add Link to add related links for your post. These calls to action can be website URLs, attachments or email addresses.

These URL is meant to provide additional information about the post, whether it’s a related article or an additional website with more details.

If you choose to use email addresses instead of URLs, the link generated in a post's detail page in a website for that particular item will open an email compose window when clicked by an end user.

Thumbnail

The thumbnail is used on the main news/events pages for the USD News Center and any website pages that have a feed. Below are specific sizing requirements depending on the nature of your post.

Thumbnail in Feeds

If your post is simply going to display in a feed on the News Center or on your department website, the recommended dimensions of the thumbnail are 640 pixels wide by 480 pixels high (640x480) or 480x640 for portrait images. 

You must provide a short description of what your thumbnail is a picture of. This is a requirement to meet ADA (accessibility of information) standards.

Thumbnail in Features

If your post is going to display in a featured area of the News Center, the recommended dimensions of the thumbnail are 1440 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high (1440x1080). This allows for a higher-resolution image considering the visibility and larger sizing of the featured area. You must provide a short description of what your thumbnail is a picture of. This is a requirement to meet ADA (accessibility of information) standards.

Hero

The hero image (or page banner) is displayed at the top of the article itself. Dimensions are flexible but there is a minimum width (1024px) and maximum width (2100px) that your image must stay within. You must provide a short description of what your thumbnail is a picture of. This is a requirement to meet ADA (accessibility of information) standards.

If you opt to turn the hero on, you will also be able to select sizing and priority attributes. The priority option allows you specify whether the image or the headline should be the priority.

Boilerplate

A boilerplate is a standardized piece of text, usually a paragraph or two, that describes the institution, person or project. It is meant to be "set it and forget it" content that gets tacked onto the end of various documents.

The boilerplate is the part at the very bottom of an article that starts with "About the University of San Diego” or your specific department or school name.

Post Contact

We recommend that posts have public contact information. This should be the name, email and phone number of an employee or representative that the general public can call for more information about the post. Alternatively, you can select a department. This information will display at the bottom of the article. From the list, select the person or department you would like to be the main contact for your item.

Author Byline

The author byline is different from the post contact and lets you add a byline crediting the article writer, if desired. If you turn this option on, a line reading “By + Your Name” will appear at the top of the article, with Your Name being the name of the user who is logged in and posting the item.

Display Related Posts

You can opt to display posts related to the article you are creating. The default is set to no. If you opt to turn this option on, you will be presented with a destinations drop-down. Select the destination that would have posts similar or related to the content you are submitting in this new post. You can remove the selected destination at any time by clicking the trash can to the right.

On the right in the live preview you will see the Related Posts that will display at the bottom of the article once it is posted and approved.

The Tags Tab

The Tags tab is where you can select relevant tags and/or audiences for your post. These are used to categorize your post in the Filter By Tags drop-down on the USD News Center. A visual of this is available on the right.

Tags

The tags filter will allow website viewers to filter items by the subject, or general tag, of posts. The tags listed are general categories only. Multiple tags can be used simultaneously. Likewise, please do not select any if your post doesn’t fit with any of the subjects.

Audience

Audience is used to specify the audience groups of the USD community that your post applies to. Multiple audiences can be used simultaneously. Likewise, please do not select any if your post doesn’t fit with any of the audiences.

Duration

You will need to select a start date (publish) and an ending date (expiration) for your post. The USD News Center and websites use this to determine when to begin and stop showing your item.

If you select the temporary option, your post will display beginning on your publish date and automatically come down on the expiration date you choose. If your post is an event, it will automatically come down after the event has passed. You can post-date news items as far into the future as you would like.

If you select the permanent option, your post will display beginning on your publish date and remain online indefinitely.

This field defaults to today’s date, but you can change the date by clicking in the field and utilizing the pop-up calendar that appears to select a different date in the future.

Destinations

Select the destinations where the post should appear. These are the web pages where you would like your post to display once approved. If you are not an approver, you will need to wait for an approval from these other areas prior to seeing your post in the requested location(s). This field is required, you must select a minimum of one.

Event Information

These options will only appear if you selected Event as your post type from the Manage Dashboard. If your post is not an event, you can skip this section.

Date & Time

Use the pop-up time tool, which appears when you click in either of the two time fields, to choose a starting and ending time. If it is an all-day event, you do not need to specify starting and ending times.

Single / Multi-Date

Use for events occurring on only a single date, or that span non-contiguous dates. E.g. Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Clicking the + Add Additional Date button will add additional date and time fields to stipulate non-contiguous dates.

Click the trash can icon to remove a section of fields if necessary.

Range

Use only for events that occur on more than one date, where all the dates on which it occurs are contiguous. E.g. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

Selecting the Range option will present only Start Date and End Date fields. All dates within this range will need to have the same Start Time and End Time for all dates within the specified range.

Location

You can select a location for your event.

If you choose on-campus, two additional fields will appear. One will be a dropdown containing the buildings and areas on campus. The second will be a field to enter a room number or space (such as “outside”). Please choose a campus building or area, but you can leave the room number/space blank if it does not apply.

If you choose off-campus, one new field will appear. Enter the address or details about the location of your off-campus event here.

If you choose virtual, you will see the option to add one or more links for connecting with your users in a virtual format for the event.

Choose the TBD option only if you are in the early planning stages of your event and you don’t have this information set at the time of posting.

Cost

If your post has an associated cost or fee for attendees, then specify it here. You can leave the free default selected if your event is free, otherwise selecting paid triggers a text box where you can type the event cost in US dollars.

Public or Private Event

You can specify if your event is private, open to the public or open only to students.

Olé Event

If your event is related to the Olé initiative, you can specify it here. Students can earn points via these Our Lived Experience events. If you select this option you will need to specify which Olé program is involved: Compass, Connect, or Passport.

Registration

Turning on the registration option will provide a means for the intended audience to register. This URL will provide a means for the intended audience to perform whatever action you need for your post. The button text is customizable and you can enter links for any number of applications such as Zoom, Google Meet or similar.

The Comments Tab

Notes or comments can be included with your post and will not be displayed on the website with your posting. Please address these to the poster or approver for any special requests or issues. 

Submitting Your Post

We recommend clicking Save Draft during the creation of your post to occasionally save your work. Once you have completed the form, please click Submit at the bottom of the page to send the information you have entered into the posting system. Once your post is successfully submitted you will receive a green confirmation on your screen. You will need to wait for your post to be approved by the owner(s) of the selected destination(s) before your post displays online.

Approval Process

If you are an approver, you will find posts for any destination(s) for which you have approval status on your MyPostings dashboard under the Review Posts section within the Pending tab.

Click the little document icon to edit the post. Once inside the post editor, click the Destinations tab on the top.

Once on the Destinations tab while editing a post (for which you have approval permissions for at least one of the destinations listed on that post), you'll see drop-downs for each destination card that post was sent to (for the ones you have permissions to edit).

Click those drop downs and set them to whatever your desired option is. The options are as follows:

• Pending

• Needs modification

• Not approved

• Unpublished

• Approved

In the second screenshot provided, you can see how there are two destinations on the post. Both of its dropdowns (assuming you have approval permissions for both destinations) would each have to be individually set.

Once all of your selections are made, click the Submit button to save your changes and to advance the workflow (this means, it notifies the author they need to make additional modifications if you set a destination to that status, or it posts the post if you approved it, etc.).