From Jon's Desk

News You Can Use

Best Practices

Teacher's Corner

Did You Know?

Another month has passed and school is now under way. The bottom of your inbox is still out of sight and your kids are starting to settle in.  Well kind of….  

In the last newsletter we talked about becoming more transparent. One of the ways we are doing that is through a collaborative environment called CommunityVoice. All finalsite site admins can post ideas, questions, or issues. You can also rate others’ ideas, reply to posts, and more. finalsite staff are also active on CommunityVoice: responding to issues, offering help, and taking note of great ideas.

We want your honest comments and questions.  Here are just a few examples:

“I love the new Media Manager! I published my first video yesterday and I've been getting complaints because viewers with only the latest version of Flash can watch it. Is it possible to publish in a way that includes older versions of Flash?”

 “Just wanted to let you all know how WONDERFUL the PagePops are! We lost power on campus last Sunday until yesterday at 5:00 pm and needed to communicate with our 600+ camp families as well as Holton staff and the PagePops were amazingly effective.”

 “Forums for parent networking: Are any schools using the forums page to connect parents for such things as carpooling, recommendations for services, for sale items, etc. If so, how is it set up and how is it working for you?”

We’ve already seen strong activity on CommunityVoice but it’s not complete without your involvement. Become an advocate, product evangelist, and voice of change today: join the conversation.

News You Can Use  

New! finalsite WebTech Events Coming To Your Town

Network with colleagues. Get answers to your web questions. Keep pace with the latest web trends and much more. finalsite Web Tech Events (formerly On-the-Road Bootcamps) are coming to your town! These regional one-day sessions are free and open to both current clients and anyone interested in web trends and strategies. Here are just a few of the events coming this year; look for more Web Tech Events in upcoming issues of this newsletter!

October 12, 2010 The Horace Mann School, New York City, NY

October 26, 2010 St. George’s Independent School, Collierville, TN (Memphis)

November 2, 2010 St. Paul’s Independent Day School, Brooklandville, MD (Washington, DC)

December 7, 2010 The Lamplighter School, Dallas, TX

January 11, 2011 The Whitfield School, St. Louis, MO

February 15, 2011 The Out-of-Door Academy, Sarasota, FL

March 8, 2011 Greenwich Country Day, Greenwich, CT

March 8, 2011 Portland Jewish Academy, Portland, OR

March 15, 2011 LaSalle College High School, Philadelphia, PA

March 21, 2011 Lower Canada College, Montreal, Canada

Keep Up-to-Date with finalsite’s Software Updates Blog

From bug fixes to enhancements to upgrades and more. finalsite’s Software Updates Blog – found on the Admin Dashboard – is filled with current information relevant to you and your school. Don’t want to miss the next post? Sign up for the RSS feed or an email or text alert!

finalsite, Safe Harbor, TRUSTe, and Data Privacy

 finalsite’s website is certified to Safe Harbor by the U.S. Department of Commerce. This certification confirms that the site is compliant to the U.S. – EU Safe Harbor Framework, a bridge that provides continuity between the differing data privacy approaches of the United States and the European Union. finalsite has qualified for this Safe Harbor designation, which provides assurance to EU clients that finalsite’s personal data privacy practices conform to the EU’s Data Protection Directive. In addition, finalsite has also received the TRUSTe privacy seal, which it qualified for after third party privacy experts completed a rigorous and objective review of finalsite’s website and privacy policies. As always, data security is important to finalsite.

From Trends to Tech, Webinars Offer Info When You Need It

This fall, finalsite is hosting many new and informative webinars. These are both product demonstrations designed for the current client and big picture presentations that share the “why” not just the “how” of web success. Sign up today for the webinar(s) of your choice and get inspired!

Get Noticed with PagePops and Crisis Mode
9/9/10 - 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Learn about PagePops and Crisis Mode Module.
Register Now

Change
9/14/10 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
New Media Literacies, Then and Now, and Leadership Strategies
that can move your institution into the "Good to Great" 21st Century Model.
Register Now

From Start to Finish: A First-Hand Look at finalsite Deployment
9/21/10 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Ever wonder what launching  or relaunching a website would really be like?
Register Now

See a full list of upcoming webinars.

Jon Moser, Clive Ungless Write Book Chapter on Social Media and School Websites

Recently, finalsite President and founder Jon Moser and Director of International Operations, Clive Ungless collaborated on a chapter entitled “Tell Your Story: Web and Social Media” in the book Effective Marketing, Communications and Development. The publication was part of the Effective International School Series and was co-edited by David Willows, Director of External Relations at the International School of Brussels, a finalsite school.

Best Practices

“The online store is another important marketing tool to advertise the school and build brand loyalty!”

Colleen Adams, Director of Communications
Fairfield Preparatory School, Fairfield, CT

Show school spirit and make a little money in the process. That’s what Fairfield Prep did with its online store using finalsite’s Commerce Manager. In just six months, the store sold around $10,000 in merchandise and now lists 85 items online. finalsite’s Blake Eddins was instrumental in the initial set-up but now that it’s off the ground, things move like clockwork.

Word got out via the school home page, eNotices, and the school magazine. The store is a partnership between the school’s Communications Director, a part-time store manager, and the school’s Accounting Department. Want more information? See the finalsiteShare post Go Team! Fairfield Prep’s Online Store and the finalsite Commerce Manager.

Teacher’s Corner

Let’s share!

Often a teacher has multiple sections of a class (English 9 section A and English 9 section B, for example) and wants to duplicate (or share) content from one section’s teacher page to the other’s section. No problem, says finalsite’s Deployment team, who this month (and next) offers a few tips on sharing content between classes.

 On a teacher's page teachers can share bulletin board posts, calendar items, discussions, drop box assignments, and resources! This will help save time and disk space so that teachers aren't uploading the same content to multiple pages. They can also use this if they have archived classes from last year and want to share that content forward to this year.

This month, let’s take a look at bulletin board posts, calendar items, and discussions. In October, we’ll cover drop box assignments and resources.

Bulletin Board Posts:  (see figure 1)
Simply click “add to other classes” to share posts. Note that bulletin messages can only be shared within the classes that the teacher is an admin of, meaning he or she cannot share a bulletin message to any other teacher’s page.

Calendar items:
These can be shared in two ways - either attached to multiple calendars or cloned from one calendar to another. If the event is attached to multiple calendars the events are the SAME event. If you edit the event in one calendar it will automatically update in the second calendar. The times, notes, and description are the same for both classes. If you clone an event from one calendar to another they are technically two separate events so you can change the time of one without affecting the other or change the note and description without affecting the other class. Calendar events can only be cloned or shared between the classes that the teacher is an admin of, meaning they cannot share calendar events to any other teacher's pages.

Discussions:  (see figure 2)
Discussions can be shared with any other class (not just the classes that a single teacher has rights to). This allows other teachers of other classes to pull in the discussion into their classes and participate in the discussion. Teacher A would need to create the discussion and then enable that discussion to be shared with other classes. Then teacher B can browse for a shared discussion and select to take Teacher A's discussion and add it to his or her own class pages. If Teacher A shares the discussion he or she is also allowing teacher B to be an admin of the discussion meaning teacher B can edit any properties or settings for the discussion and it will affect all classes where this discussion appears. One example of this would be if a school wants all ninth graders to participate in a single discussion.

Did You Know?

Back-to-school time is crazy. Here are five tips from the finalsite Support team that can save you some valuable time. Every little bit counts!

1. Tired of copy/pasting HTML code to embed your YouTube videos?

Quickly embed third party videos in a page with just a URL by using the new "Insert/edit embedded media" film icon (to the right of the "Insert/edit image" tree icon) in the popup editor, as shown in this film clip (no sound). Select Flash for YouTube video, or choose the media type used by your favorite video site.

2. Adding a lot of headings?

Tired of clicking/selecting from the Format dropdown over and over? With the text highlighted, use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+1 for Heading 1, Ctrl+2 for Heading 2, etc. to assign a heading to it. Mac users use Command+1, etc.

3. Accidentally publish over some desired content?

Don't have time to wait for Support to restore it from backup? Try searching for the page in Google, either by entering your domain name plus the page name, or by entering your domain name plus the page ID number (hover on a link to the page or the page name in Page Manager and view the ID in lower left side of the browser). If Google turns up the page in the results with a "Cached" link, you're in luck! Just click the link and copy the content from the cached version.

4. Wish there was a quicker way to provide info or comment to a Support ticket?

Good news! You no longer have to click a link and log into the ticketing system to do so. Simply reply to the email with your information or comment, and it will automatically be logged into the correct ticket. Please note that this depends upon the #3870-xxxxxxx ticket number appearing in the Subject line, so be sure not to modify the subject line when you reply.

5. Need a fast way to check to see if your site is up in response to a user report that it is down?

Go to www.finalsitesupport.com and enter your domain name into the "Is my site up?" field. It will check your website from eight or more servers located around the world. If all say "OK," the user is likely having a local issue. If some say “OK,” but some say “Error,” there is likely a broader regional connectivity issue. If all say “Error,” your site is really down.

We'll stop there for now because that's probably all you have time for! Best of luck to everyone in the start of a new school year.

Got questions? Need answers?
Let us know how we can help you:

Anthony Tata
Client Success Manager
anthony.tata@finalsite.com

Lorrie Jackson
Communication Manager
lorrie.jackson@finalsite.com

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