Posts for Teacher Pages Step 3: Create groups and bulk create boards

Now that you have completed Step 2: Create details page for Teacher Pages template, it’s time to configure your groups of teachers and create boards for those users in bulk.

Create groups for teachers

To start, open Group Manager from the People menu in the left navigation. Use the “Add Group” button to make a top-level group called Teacher Pages, then click the “Create Group” button in the bottom right to save.

This will establish a dedicated space for you to make unique groups of teachers. Within this section, create a new group for each Teacher Page template that you plan to use. For example, if you have an Elementary School template and a Middle School template, you would need an Elementary School Teachers group and a Middle School Teachers group. If you plan to use the same template for all of your teachers, you can create just one group.

Once you have created the group(s), group members can be added individually or in bulk using dynamic filters.

Add members dynamically

To add teachers to a group in bulk, click the “Add dynamic filters” option within the Settings tab.

Next, use the filter options to pull in the appropriate teachers for the group. For additional information about dynamic filters in group, refer to Create groups using Dynamic Filters. Once the dynamic filters have been saved, click on the Members tab to view the teachers who have now been added to your group.

If it isn’t possible to create a set of dynamic filters that pulls in only the teachers who need a teacher page, you may want to start with a wider dynamic filter and then select specific members from the Members tab. Click on the star icon next to each of the teachers you would like to have a teacher page. Once you’ve completed that process, return to the Settings tab and remove the dynamic filter that you added before. Doing so will leave only the teachers you selected.

Add members individually

Alternatively, you can add members to a group individually. After creating your group, click on the Members tab and click the “Select More Members” button in the top-right corner. Within the popup menu, choose the Faculty & Staff group from the dropdown menu, then click the appropriate user.

Bulk create boards

Once you have your groups configured, you can then bulk create your boards in Posts. To start, click into Posts from the Module menu in the left navigation. Within the Boards section, use the “+ Folder” option to create a new folder for each of your unique Teacher Page groups. Hover over the folder, click the three-dot menu, then select the “+ Bulk Create Boards” option.

Within the popup settings, click “Select Group” to find the group you created in Group Manager. You can only select one group, which is why you need a unique folder for each group. Use the “Select Page” option to choose your main Teacher Page Template page--not the details page. Important Note: if you have not created your Teacher Page Template for your group, you will need to do that before completing this step. Finally, you have privacy options to determine who can see the Post content on your website. Most Teacher Pages are public, which is why the privacy setting default is “Everyone.” You can, however, make all of the boards only be viewable by users of certain roles or by admins only.

After you click “Create Boards” and confirm, you will see a report for the creation of your boards. This report shows you how many boards have been created and how many have failed. (Failures only take place if the user already has a board within that exact folder, and this typically only happens when updating the boards later on. To learn more about this, please review the article Adding teachers to existing Posts for Teacher Pages.)

Conclusion

Congrats! You have now created boards for all of the teachers within your group. Each board name will be “[User First Name] + [User Last Name] + Board,” and that user will automatically be an admin of the board.

Repeat this process for each of the groups you have created, using the appropriate template page to match.

In order to best visualize what your teacher pages will look like, we highly recommend taking a moment to create two test posts within one of the boards (you can always delete them later!). To help you see each of the elements in action, create one post with a “Featured Until” date and one post without a “Featured Until” date. Be sure to publish both posts with a “Start” date that has already passed, to ensure that you can view the posts on the page.

With the boards set up, you can move on to Step 4: Link Teacher Page template to boards.