Help Sheet 2

  Managing your website 
More Help Sheets  

Managing your website

This section takes you through the basic features of navigating and managing your website by changing colours, adding a logo or editing your organisation details.

Navigating your website

When you open your website you will see that the information you have entered in your application form has been used to form the pages of your site. To navigate around your website, use the links on the left-side of the page (1) or the Back and Forward buttons on the toolbar at the top of the screen.

There is also a set of standard commands at the top of every page (2). These are:

• Your account - click here to view or change your administrator details
• Who's Online - click here to see who else is online
• Logout (or Login) - click here to login or logout of the web site administration
• Leave this website - click here to return to the main essexinfo.net site

When you are logged in as the administrator, you will see some underlined words on pages of your website, such as ‘Manage Website' (3) and ‘Edit this page' (4) which you can click on (known as links). These links are for the administrator's use only and will not be seen by users of your site.

Managing your website

As the administrator of your website you can use the ‘Manage Website' link to carry out a range of functions including adding or deleting pages, changing your website details or altering the look and feel of your site.

To manage your website:

• Ensure you are logged in to your website
• Click on the ‘Manage Website' link (3) underneath the website title

You will see the following range of options:

Change organisation details
This page displays the information submitted on your application form. You can change any part of this information by clicking the ‘Edit' button at the bottom of the page. For information on how to add these details to your home page go to helpsheet 4 - Creating customised pages and see section 4 - Advanced - Displaying includelets on your website

Change directory keywords
This page displays the category information you submitted on your application form. The categories are used to make it easier for people to find your community in our directory. You can change any part of this information by clicking the ‘Edit' button at the bottom of the page.

Change colour schemes
This page allows you to choose another colour scheme for your website. Clicking ‘Select' next to an option automatically selects the chosen colour scheme. Your header and menu will immediately reflect the new design.  You may need to 'Refresh' (icon in browser toolbar or F5) on return to the Homepage

Add or change logo
You can also upload a group logo from your computer. It has to be in the right format (e.g. gif, jpeg or png) and the system will resize your logo to fit.

• Click ‘Browse' to find your logo from the files on your computer
• Select the logo and press ‘OK'.
• The logo will automatically appear beside the title of your website

Display Options
You can configure how your community pages are displayed in that you can choose whether or not to display your Community Name and the link 'Leave Feedback' 

Use standard pages
The ‘Use standard pages' command allows you to:

• Change which standard pages (e.g. events, discussions) are available on your website
• Change access to particular parts of your website
• Re-name your pages
• Edit the content of your pages

For more detail on using standard pages please refer to the helpsheet 3 on ‘Adding Optional Standard Pages'.

Use customised pages
This section allows you to add as many pages, sub-pages and news articles as you like to build up the content on your site and add items of interest for your visitors. If you are in this section and would like to return to your group website, click on ‘Back to homepage' in the top left hand corner of the screen.
For more detail on using the customised pages please refer to the helpsheet 4 on ‘Creating New Content'.

Reorder menu items
You can rearrange the order of the left hand navigation menu on your website.

• Select the page that you would like to move
• Click ‘Move up' or ‘Move down' to change the order.
• Click ‘Save changes' when you have finished moving pages.

Permissions and Sharing
You can set up how your visitors see an use your pages by ticking the appropriate boxes.

• Read - visitors can read your pages
• Edit - to edit these pages members have to be made administrators - see Members Admin below

For more guidance on using the 'Permissions and Sharing' facility see Help Sheet 2A Permissions and Sharing

Members admin
This option allows you to add and manage your members and other administrators.

• Use the ‘Invite' link to invite a new user. When inviting a new user the information entered allows the member to log on to your web site using their email address and password (can be changed)
• Use the links under ‘Action' to remove or modify the permissions for an individual person
• The table has a list of registered members.  If they don't appear they first have to be registered with the main site, essexinfo.net. 

Welcome email
This option allows you to create and edit a welcome email which is sent to members when they register with your website.

• Click ‘Edit'
• Select ‘Enable welcome email' and the message in the body will automatically be sent to all new members when they join your website
• You can edit the message and subject in the text boxes
• The terms in brackets in the message body will be automatically replaced with the correct information for that individual

Email members
This screen enables you to send an email to all members of your group. It is useful for such events as annual general meetings. The names of your members will automatically appear in place of the bracketed terms when you send the email (a mail merge).
Fill in the ‘Subject' and ‘Message' sections (do not write over the bracketed terms) and click ‘send'.

Use another website address
 If you already have an existing website and would like to use that site instead, you can redirect your essexinfo.net website address to your previous website address.

• Type in your existing URL (or website address)
• Select ‘Yes'
• Click ‘OK' Users that select your website from the A-Z or type in www.essexinfo.net/name will now automatically go to the specified website

Broken links report
If any hyperlink in the system points to a non-existent page, an error will be reported here. Check this page periodically to ensure that all external links on the website are up-to-date.

Site statistics
This page will show you information automatically collected about your website such as site usage - see helpsheet 18 for the range of statistics available and an explantion of what they all mean.

You can reach the Help Desk on: 01245 436559 or via email support@essexinfo.net

Top   |   More Help Sheets