The content that displays on Finalsite's new mobile app flows dynamically from your CMS modules. As you update your CMS platform, your mobile app will display the most current information. Configuring the content that displays on your mobile app is a quick and easy process!
New Product
This article is for our new mobile app offering, which is currently available and in the early adopter phase. Additional information about how current clients can upgrade will be sent soon.
- Browse to find more documentation in the 2024 New Mobile App section.
- To manage existing mobile app configurations, check out our articles in the 2019 Mobile App section.
This article will show you how to manage the content that connects from your CMS into your new mobile app.
- Content Settings is where you will manage areas of your CMS that feed into your mobile app: Posts, Resources, Calendar Manager or New Calendars module, Constituent Manager, and Athletics Manager.
- + Add Custom Link is an area where you can add new links if the ones you would like to display aren't showing up in Content Settings.
- + Add More Menu Section is where you can organize the way that the rest of your buttons will display when clicking the More button in the toolbar.
In this Article
Each area of your Mobile App has settings that can be configured to customize your view. Manage your Mobile App details by clicking on Mobile Apps in your CMS module menu. Select the name of the mobile app you are working on in the left navigation toolbar to see its settings.
Next, scroll down to the Content Settings area. Each rectangle in this area represents an icon on the bottom toolbar of your mobile app, then any other content buttons will populate on the screen the visitor is directed to when clicking on the More button.
There are 5 buttons in the bottom toolbar:
- Home: returns the user to the home screen.
- 3 middle buttons: admin's choice to change icon and label.
- More: takes visitors to another screen where they can choose from your other buttons that fall in line next.
Configure your Content Settings
The Content Settings area is where you will manage your different areas of your mobile app. Here's how it works:
- Click the pencil to edit the settings for each area.
- Toggle a module off and on to control whether or not it will show as an icon on your app toolbar.
- Change the label and icon representing that area.
- Drag and drop to change the order these modules will appear in your toolbar.
Important Note
In your app implementation process, you may have renamed and changed labels for your icons in the bottom toolbar. For that reason, your Content Settings items may look different and/or be housed in a different order than the screenshots in this article.
Click the edit pencil next to each area to manage that area's Content Settings.
Your app's home screen has a section that pulls from the Posts (needs linked) module and an Upcoming events section pulling from your calendars in the CMS.
- Click the edit pencil to open up the Manage Content window.
- The Home icon is unique in that it is the only one that cannot be toggled off or removed from the Mobile App toolbar, which is why you notice the toggle is greyed out.
In the Manage Content window, you will configure what will display on the home screen of your Mobile App.
Configure Posts Settings on your home screen
You can display a collection and/or selected boards as a poster image or a list, for a maximum of 10 posts showing at a time. Choose which details to show inside of each post that displays on your home screen, such as:
- Author's name
- Publish date
- Summary
- Resource galleries
Best Practice: Mobile App Posts home screen
For school districts, it’s a good idea to select only the main district news and announcement boards to make sure everyone is aware of important communications. Individual school boards are better pulled into the Posts tab, where they can be filtered.
For independent, charter, and parochial schools, select the board(s) your school uses to communicate the most important news or announcement content on your site. These may be the boards you are pulling into your homepage to display news or your parent portal to display announcements.
Configure Event Settings on your home screen
Select which calendars are visible on your home screen Events section. Manage your calendars in Calendar Manager or New Calendars module. Not sure which one you have? Check out the article, "New Calendars module and Calendar Manager compared."
Manage buttons
- Add a button: Edit a current button differently by clicking the pencil next to an item in Content Settings, or click the green + Add Custom Link button to add a new button.
- Reorganize buttons: Drag and drop the rectangle items in Content Settings to change your order. Click Update in the bottom right corner and refresh your app to see the changes.
-
Remove a button: to remove a button, remove the configurations for a specific item in its Content Settings and it will no longer display in the toolbar.
- For example: maybe you want to remove your "Athletics" button from the bottom toolbar during off season. Simply remove the content you've configured (e.g. deselect the Teams you're pulling) under the Athletics area to ensure that it will not display at all. Refresh and see that the Athletics icon is no longer visible.
- Re-add a button: When the school year begins, easily add a button back by configuring its content in Content Settings.
Step 1: Configure Folder Location in Posts
Do you have multiple campuses or divisions? Set the Folder Location in Posts > Folder Settings so that your users can then filter which locations they see content from on their mobile app > Posts / News screen.
Here's how it works:
- Navigate to the Posts module
- Click on the 3-dot menu to open Folder Settings.
- Set your Folder Location.
- Once the Folder Location is set, the boards in that folder will show up in the Posts / News screen filter. The user can toggle on the boards on their mobile app.
Step 2: Configure Posts Content Settings in Mobile Apps module
To manage your posts or news content that displays when a user clicks on the icon in the bottom toolbar, click on the pencil next to Posts to open up the Manage Content window.
When app visitors click on the Posts icon, they will see post content that is separate from what is displayed on the home screen. Configure the following details that will display as a part of each post:
- Label: This determines what word displays with the icon on the bottom toolbar.
- Boards: Select Board(s) whose posts will display.
- Post Details Information: Check the box next to the details you'd like to display within each post that is viewed (Author Name, Publish Date, Summary, Resource Galleries).
- Menu Icon: Choose the icon that will display in the bottom toolbar for visitors to click on to go to the area of their choice.
To manage your Resources content, click on the pencil next to Resources to open up the Manage Content window.
- Label: This determines what word displays with the icon on the bottom toolbar.
- Galleries: Select Galleries that will display in this area. Choose from both public and private galleries.
- Menu Icon: Choose the icon that will display in the bottom toolbar for visitors to click on to go to the area of their choice.
Gallery best practices
- Confirm permissions of any children pictured in a gallery. Make use of tags in Resources to ensure you are not posting photos of children without proper consent. For more information on whether you have rights to publish certain images, see Legal guidelines for using photos.
- Galleries can also include documents and other media, not just images!
- Galleries should be well organized and appropriately named, ready to be public-facing. Any galleries you do not want to be available to all app users, create private galleries and configure privacy settings, not to be confused with Folder permissions which only control which users can and cannot see this folder while managing media in the Resources module as an admin user.
To manage your calendar content, click on the pencil next to Events to open up the Manage Content window.
Configure the following details for your Events area:
- Label: This determines what word displays with the icon on the bottom toolbar (e.g. Calendar, Events).
- Calendars: Select Calendar(s) whose events will display and be options available for visitors to select or deselect in the calendar filters to control which calendars display on individual apps.
- Menu Icon: Choose the icon that will display in the bottom toolbar for visitors to click on to go to the area of their choice.
To manage your Directory content, click on the pencil next to Directory to open up the Manage Content window.
Configure the following details for your Directory area:
- Label: This determines what word displays with the icon on the bottom toolbar.
-
Role Visibility: Select the Roles who can view the directory information on the mobile app. Narrow down your role visibility even further at "Only constituents in" so that only that role can see another role.
- For example, checking the box next to Faculty & Staff makes this role visible to either: Everyone or Only constituents in the Parent role. Maybe you'd like your Parent directory information to be visible to Only constituents in your Faculty & Staff role and not everyone who downloads your app. This allows you to customize who can see which directory.
- Menu Icon: Choose the icon that will display in the bottom toolbar for visitors to click on to go to the area of their choice.
The Athletics section pulls from Athletics Manager. To manage your Athletics content, click on the pencil next to Athletics to open up the Manage Content window.
Configure the following details for your Athletics area:
- Label: This determines what word displays with the icon on the bottom toolbar.
- Teams: Select the Teams whose events will display on the Athletics screen of your mobile app.
- Menu Icon: Choose the icon that will display in the bottom toolbar for visitors to click on to go to the area of their choice.
Configure + Add Custom Link
You can add buttons that don't already exist, for example for Social Media or other links that you'd like to make available and easy for your community to find. Scroll all the way down past all of your links until you see the green + Add Custom Link button, click to configure your link.
For each new link enter:
- Label: This determines what word displays with the icon on the bottom toolbar.
- URL: enter the full URL (including https://) for where your visitors will be directed when clicking here
- Menu Icon: Choose the icon that will display in the bottom toolbar for visitors to click on to go to the area of their choice.
Once you add more links, you can learn how to section your links together to make it more easy to navigate. Learn how in the next section!
Configure + Add More Menu Section
Once you start adding buttons, you can organize the buttons on your More screen so that they are categorized and easy to navigate.
To configure this area, click + Add More Menu Section in Content Settings. There you can create sections and get organized!
Comments
Please Sign in to leave a comment if you don't see the comment box below.