Getting Started with Posts 2: Creating Folders and Boards

Posts is flexible enough to drive many different areas of your site, from blogs to news to course catalogs. It can even provide a place for teachers to post classroom information. All that sophistication can make it rather difficult to understand just what Posts is all about, though.

This is the second in a series of articles to help you learn about Posts from the ground up. If you missed Understanding Posts vocabulary, it’s recommended that you start there. In this article, we’ll go over setting up the Posts module, including creating a folder, board, and post.

The first thing you’ll see when you log into the Posts module as an admin user is the Dashboard - but that won’t make much sense until we have some content! (Read more about the Dashboard at the end of this article.)

Instead, we’ll open up the Boards menu to get started.

Step 1: Make a folder

Folders let you organize your boards by whatever organizational scheme makes sense for your school. Boards must be created within folders.

Click the green "New Folder" button to create a folder.

Add a name and description for the folder in the window that appears. Folders are strictly a back-end organizational tool, so the folder description does not appear on the live site. Later we'll create Boards within these folders, and individual posts will belong to those Boards.

To edit the folder name or add a folder description after you have created the folder, click on the three-dot Action Menu next to the folder name on the list and select "Settings."

Note: Only Site Admins who have administrative privileges for the Posts module itself have the ability to create new folders and boards. Regular Posts users with Admin rights to just an individual board cannot create new boards or folders.

Step 2: Make a board

Just as folders are collections of boards, a board is a collection of posts. Each post can only appear on one board. (That doesn't limit how it can be used, though. A post can still be displayed in many different places on the front end of the site through the use of tags and collections.)

To create a board, click on the three-dot Action Menu next to the folder name and select “+ Board.”

Give the board a name, and complete any of the other settings you want at this point (you can always go back and edit them later). These settings are described in detail in the article Edit board settings.

Note: You can change the name of a board or a folder after you have created it. If you do so, any direct links to a post that have been published will need to be updated or else they will be redirected to a 404 page. 

Board permissions

Once you have created a board, you’ll want to assign people who can post to or manage that board. Just like folders, Boards have their own three-dot Action Menu, and the items available there are different than those available in the folder menu. In the three-dot Action Menu for the board, select “Settings.”

Select the "Permissions" tab at the top of the Board Settings window.

Use the search field to find users in Constituent Manager (you don’t have to be an admin user to use Posts!) and click on their name to add them to the board. Then use the dropdown menu to select what level of access they should have.

Board permissions are explained further in Manage board permissions.

Make lots of boards

One common use of Posts is to make boards for teachers, and creating a board for each one individually would take way too much time. In this instance, you may want to use the Bulk Create Boards option to automatically create a board for each individual in a particular group in Group Manager.

Before you start, make sure there’s a group in Group Manager that contains all of the users who should have a board.

Create a new folder. In the three-dot Action Menu for the folder, select “+ Bulk Create Boards.”

In the dialogue window that appears, choose the group of users you want to create boards for. Set a default board post page if desired. (Learn more about default board post pages in Create a default post page.)

Click “OK,” and the boards will be created. Be patient - if there are many members of the group, creating boards for all of them may take a minute. Once the process is completed, the dialog box will indicate the number of boards created, and whether the board-creation process for any teachers failed.

The created boards will have the member’s name as default and the slug automatically populated, as well as the default board post page, if selected. The member will also be added as an Admin of the board.

Step 3: Make a post

Now that you have a folder and a board, it’s time to create your first post! Click on the green “+ New Post” button in the top-right corner of the board page, or select “+ Post” from the three-dot Action Menu next to the board.

For more information about how to create posts for your boards, refer to the next article in this series, Make a new Post.

Posts Dashboard

As an admin user, when you first go to Modules > Posts, you’ll see the Posts Dashboard. This will show the most recent posts from all boards. You can filter these posts using these selections in the dropdown menu. Click on a filter to show:

• All posts: This is the default view, starting with the most recent post.

• Expired: These posts are no longer visible on the front end of the website. For more information about expired posts, see Remove posts from display.

• Published: This view shows posts that are published to the live site and not expired.

• Scheduled: These posts have been scheduled for a specific publication time in the future (but are not yet visible on the site).

• Unscheduled: These posts are saved drafts that do not have a publication date set. For more information about scheduled and unscheduled posts, see Publish a Post.

• Pending Publish: Not all Posts users necessarily have rights to publish their work. These posts have been submitted for publication by a user without publish rights. For more information, see Manage board permissions.

From the Dashboard, click on “Boards” in the left-hand menu to access folders and boards.

Getting Started with Posts 3: Manage board permissions