endis training

Foundation Course – Day 1 of 8 www.endis.com

Foundation Course - Day 1

Session 1: Introduction

Session 2: Web Office Introduction

Session 3: Publishing Articles

Session 4: Forms and Adverts

Session 5: Calendar

Session 6: Contact Management Introduction

Session 7: Web Office Permissions

Session 8: Mailing


Session 1: Introduction

Not a publication about your organisation: but a vibrant expression of the life of your community.

• Communicate to your Members - Information easily updated by many people, website

becomes central hub of communication to members.

• Members communicate to each other - Users can contribute to the site. Develops ownership, encourages engagement, builds community.

Key Benefits

• Improve communication – helps easier, quick communication.

• Strengthen community – Communication between members during the week, helps people belong. e.g. Request for Prayer.

• Reduce administration costs – Less need to print information, save time e.g. users can update own contact information, easy to email everyone about an event, delegation to group leaders.

• Reach out to others - A vibrant expression of the life of your community, open - builds trust, draws people in.

OVERVIEW OF INSIGHT SYSTEM AND ARCHITECTURE

Content Management Organisation Management E-commerce

Content Management

Enables non-technical administrators/users to update content on the website, producing a constantly evolving and up-to-date website.

Features include:

• Articles, adverts, polls, forms. Publisher facilities for allowing users to submit their own content.

• Audio/Video – audio/video repository for streamed and downloadable content.

• Calendar – dynamic calendar with maps.

• Forums – for community discussion and chat. Also Chatter for live chat.

• Address Book – secure updatable membership directory.

Organisation Management

Several features that use the database of users for Administration purposes.

Features include:

• Mailing – automatic mailing method selection, simple group selection, filtering, html mail templates, dynamic content elements, bad email tracking.

• Membership Queries – run queries with different criteria to gain a specific group of people.

• Reports – various exportable/printable Reports.

• Rotas – linked to events with automatic e-mail reminders.

• Attendance tracking – register membership attendance at any event.

• Resource Booking – manage internal booking of resources.


E-commerce

Several features that enable you to take payments online to generate revenue through your website:

• Your Catalogue – sell own products, complete shop browse & search facilities. Related product links, reviews, comments and related purchases.

• Syndicated Catalogues range – generate funds for your own organisation (ChurchInsight sites only) without holding stock.

• Payment groups – conference booking, online donations, premium content subscriptions.

• Digital delivery – online audio sales.

WEB SITE TOUR

Frontpage – draws the user into the latest content on the website.

Navigation – menu structure fully customisable, keyword search available.

Login Automatically – logs you in automatically via a cookie (file stored on your machine).

My Area – logged in users personal information

• My Details – Site Members can update their contact information and change their password

• My Involvement – The user’s involvement in the website. Users can apply to be members of user groups, change mailing preferences and check their rota commitments etc.

• My Profile options can be removed through the layout drop-down menu component.

Shortcut- url/groupname e.g. www.endis.com/contact.

Session 2: Web Office Introduction

WEB OFFICE TOUR

Shortcut- url/admin e.g. www.endis.com/admin.

Navigation

Task Pane – Site Manager, Query, Mailing, Resources, Reports, Settings, Help.

Navigation Pane – Additional Navigation for task you are performing.

Work Pane – Work area. Tasks always listed at bottom below content.

Task Pane

Site Manager – management of site content and database/groups

Query – extract users who match specified criteria for exporting, mailing etc.

Mailing – send mailings to groups

Reports – Web site usage and management reporting e.g. Demographic report

Settings – Organisation details, Address Book Policy, site email content


SITE MANAGER

Contact Database

Main database – Place to add and update users’ details, process registrations for site membership.

Users must be added to this group before they can be added to sub-groups.

What are Groups?

Website Navigation – Groups appear as options on the menu.

Members – Can contain user records. Groups should reflect the groups/activities within your

organisation.

Developing your Group Structure – List the activities within your organisation and then categorise

then into a logical structure.

Group Types

User – can contain members and should reflect the groups/activities within your organisation.

Brochure – used for content for the first-time visitor. Doesn’t contain members. Only Documents

and Media content can be added.

Features – used for other information, e.g. Feature articles, Fun and Games, that don’t relate to

a specific group. Like Brochure groups it that they can only contain Documents and Media content but unlike Brochure groups do allow feedback on articles.

Creating Groups

Groups are created in the Summary tab under Advanced options.

Access/Security permissions – enables groups to be only visible to certain people. e.g. Staff group.

Reasons why a created Group doesn’t appear in the menu?

• Must contain published article to appear on the website.

• Check you meet the security permission criteria on the group.

• Check display in user-side menus option is checked.

If you make a change that means you fulfil the criteria to access the group i.e. the criteria above, you still must logout and login to refresh menus.

Tree Structure – Expands to display tasks. User filter options to display certain tasks or group types only.

Quickfind can be used to quickly find a specific group.


Session 3: Publishing Articles

Articles can be created in 2 different ways:

Through the My Documents area of the web site (submit article for approval i.e. can’t publish)

Through the Web Office to the groups where the user has the ‘Documents & Media’ permission.

Publishing Documents

New submissions awaiting publication appear with symbol by appropriate group.

Publish document by selecting from Intray and changing status to ‘Published’

Deleting Articles

Click on symbol to remove from site

If publish date has expired, automatically removed to recycle bin.

Documents in Recycle bin can be restored.

Creating a New Article

Select Group folder where article is to be created

Select Documents Tab

Select Start a new document task

Select Article

Articles

Click on Content area to enable toolbar options.

Preview – see how a document will really look like on your site before you publish.

Properties

Summary and thumbnail image appear under group pages and homepage.

Security – visible to public, members, group members only

Frontpage option – check to make appear on homepage (only applies if you have an Article list

component on your frontpage – see Themes and Layouts).

Tags – label content. Useful for linking similar content.

Group Homepage

Designates the article content to appear when group accessed on website. Group homepage article

should contain introduction to group. Links to other articles will normally appear below the group

homepage (number and format depends on layout in ‘Themes and Layouts’).

Images

Web Image types

• Photos should be saved as jpegs

• Flat images e.g. logos/maps – gifs or PNG


Resizing Images

� Ideally size correctly before upload in image editor software

� Resizing can be done within Insight system using the edit image function

� Dragging proportions in editor and changing size in image properties, only changes dimensions in

the HTML and not the image itself. This results in slower download and poorer quality image so

should only be used for small modifications.

Session 4: Forms and Adverts

Article Forms

Create just like an article but use the form fields e.g. text box. Can be used for gathering information,

taking bookings that don’t involve payment.

Adverts

Appear on the Frontpage only.

Can be created in 2 ways:

• Advert editor

• Graphics software - create advert graphic in graphic software e.g. Photoshop, save as jpeg

and upload as image to insert into advert.

Viewing History – displays number of times viewed and clicks to follow.

Session 5: Calendar

Calendar

Displays in 2 main ways on user-side:

� Components containing relevant upcoming events

� Monthly calendar including Printable version

Adding Events

Events can be added in 2 ways:

• Add button

• Import calendar information from a file task, export from Outlook.

Important to add to appropriate group because:

• Appears under Events of group on website

• Security Access to Group Members only means users will only see relevant information.


Session 6: Contact Management Introduction

Advantages of having your membership database online:

• Users can update their own contact information (My Area/My Profile)

• Easily accessible from anywhere in the world

• Can display information to restricted groups of people e.g. Church members only

CREATING USER RECORDS

New members can be added under Members through:

• Import records from file task (automatically assigns members with same postcode and

surname to same family). CSV file can be exported from Excel and Outlook.

• Create a new record task on Members tab

• Processing applications created by user Registration.

Importing user records

• On the Members tab select Import users from a CSV file task

• Once imported Send login details to unused accounts task

Processing Applications

• symbol indicates new application

• Click on applicants’ name

• Review details then choose how to process e.g. Duplicate records

EDITING USER RECORDS

Editing user contact information requires Edit Members’ Details permission in Contact Database

folder e.g. Root group.

Contacts found under the Members tab. Click on username to edit details or use QuickFind to locate

them.

Session 7: Web Office Permissions

Flexible Web office permissions enables delegation of the management of different areas of the web

site e.g. Your creche leader could manage their group within the site.

Golden Rules of Permissions

• Permissions cascade down the tree. e.g. events on church life means you have events

permission throughout, even on Independent groups. Advantage is you can give

administrator permission at root and then have permission throughout site.

• Can assign a permission to someone else that you have for a particular group.


Grey Tabs mean you don’t have the relevant permission or not available (can hover over tab to check

available or not). For example ‘Brochure’ groups only have the ‘Documents and Media’ and ‘Group

Structure’ permission.

Greyed out checkboxes means the permission has been added at a higher level so needs to be

removed there.

Areas with Permissions

The following areas have their own permissions:

• Site Manager

• Resources

• Settings

• Shop Settings

Session 8: Mailing

Advantages of mailing through web office:

• Each mailing you send will be to an accurate list of people, based on group memberships.

• Every mailing will automatically use the address information which is given by the

individual through their web site profile.

• Everyone will receive information by the method they prefer, for people who aren’t online a

letter version is generated.

• You can drastically reduce printing and postage costs by being able to rely on email

distribution to those who prefer it.

Creating a New Mailing

To create a mailing:

• Click Create New Mail to enter the mailing wizard and follow instructions to send a mail.

• Select the group and which format you want to send the mailing as e.g. e-mail, post

• Mail Merge allows you to send personal emails, whereas none mail merge allows users to reply

to all other users who received the email. None mail merge option is limited to 20 users.

Mailing to over 100 users will display a different interface.

Foundation Course – Day 2 Page 1 of 11 www.endis.com

Foundation Course - Day 2

Session 1: Insight Databases/Address Books

Session 2: Editing your User Database

Session 3: Advanced Mailing

Session 4: Rotas

Session 5: Publishing Media

Session 6: Interactive Content Types

Session 7: Themes and Layouts Introduction

Session 8: Support Resources


Session 1: Insight Databases

MAIN DATABASE

The Members tab on the organisatio nname (root) group displays all the people added to your

database. These people can then be displayed on the user-side in an Address Book.

ADDRESS BOOK

Searchable Address book displaying user contact details:

• Online version accessible to logged in users who meet the Address Book Policy Criteria

• Each Independent group has own address book

• Group Printable Version obtainable from Members tab of any group

Address Book Policy

The Address Book policy sets the level of Involvement/Membership your users require to have

access to the user side address book. The Address Book Policy is set under Settings/Address Book

Policy. This enables you to have users on the system who, can login but, don’t appear in the Address

Book and therefore won’t have access to it. Note you can only set one address book policy across all

groups.

Users who appear in Blue will appear in the Address Book and those in Red don’t. Former Members

appear in Grey and will appear in your address book only if Former Members are included in the

Address Book Policy

GROUP MEMBERSHIP MANAGEMENT

Users can be added to group in 3 ways:

� My Membership - User registers for a group through the My membership area within the My

Involvement section and the administrator approves the application.

� Task on Members tab - Administrator can add several users to a group through the ‘Add

another person to the group’ task

� Involvement tab on user record – If you are applying group memberships for one user do

so through the ‘Involvement’ tab on the User Record

MULTIPLE DATABASES

The Insight system can contain multiple databases of the following type:

• Main User Database on root group.

• Additional User databases added through Independent groups e.g. Each Congregation, Football

Team. Created by checking the ‘independent’ option under the Summary/Advanced options settings.

Enables restricted access to the web site i.e. can’t see items only made visible to the main database

members.

• Mailing Lists –For correspondence only.

• Directories – Store details about organisations and staff members. When creating a group select the

‘Directory’ option from the ‘Group Type’ drop-down. Note, you can’t create a directory from the

‘Brochure’ or ‘Features’ group types.


Session 2: Editing your User Database

EDITING USER RECORDS

Editing user contact information requires Edit Members’ Details permission in Contact Database

folder e.g. Root group.

Contacts found under the Members tab of the churchname (root) group. Click on username to edit

details or use QuickFind to locate them.

Contact Information

Individual Details

• website login access separate from membership

• Membership – Organisation membership i.e. Current, Former or None

• Involvement Level – Filter by level of involvement in organisation. Can effect whether they

have access to the address book.

• Privacy settings – determine who can see your contact information i.e. public users, site

members

Additional Information (Rotas, Involvement, Mail History, Group Notes)

Family information – link at top to Family details.

CUSTOMISING YOUR DATABASE

Custom Fields can be added to the system through Group-Notes.

Group Note Types

Global Group Notes – For information that is applicable to all users in the database e.g. Nationality.

Displays under ‘Other Information’ on user record.

Non-Global Group Notes – For use on specific groups. e.g. On the students group, what college they attend.

Creating Group-Notes

Create a group-note as follows:

• Choose the appropriate group you wish to apply the group-note to. For example a field to capture ‘Nationality’ would be added to the root Database group as it applies to everyone whereas a field recording what ‘college’ a student attends would be applied perhaps just on

the ‘Students’ group.

• Select the ‘Members’ tab and then ‘Change the structure of group-notes …’ task (‘Database Manager’ permission required)

• Follow the instructions on-screen to check the field hasn’t already been added to the site. If it hasn’t select ‘The data is not already present..’ option. If it has then share it with your group or contact the relevant person to ask them to share it with your group.

• Fill in the field properties which are as follows:

• Field Name – display name

• Description – explanation of the field

• Field user type – ‘User’ group notes are used on people records and ‘Organisation’ notes are

used in ‘Directories’

• Field Data Type – choose the appropriate data type. Once created data type can’t be changed.


• Sensitive field – only user’s with ‘Sensitive’ permission can view and edit these notes.

• Appears in 'My Profile' – allows the field to be edited by the user e.g. Nationality. Also appears

on the site registration form.

• Mandatory on user-side – user must fill in this field.

• Visible via address book – appears in the user’s contact details.

• Global field – a Global field will be applied to all databases across the site. A Global field can

only be applied at the root group.


Email Templates

Templates allow you to create a standard layout for your mailings e.g. add your signature, You can

setup plain text or HTML e-mails, HTML e-mails enable you to add formatting, links etc. Note some

users won’t be able to read HTML mailings.

Some additional features of HTML mailings:

• Articles and Events auto-generated listings

• Click Tracking - track how many people have followed the link and even who they were

(individuals recorded only if logged in).

Mailing Channels/Mailing Preferences

• Introduced because unsubscribing from a mailing list either meant unsubscribing from all site

emails or unsubscribing from a group.

• Each user can set their Mailing Preference for each mailing channel.

• Add a new mailing channel when you have a mailing list and you require your users to be able

to subscribe/unsubscribe just from that mailing list – rather than all mailing on the site e.g.

monthly newsletter.

Bad Mail

Helps you keep email contact information up-to-date. Mail reporting features include:

� Emails that are unsuccessfully undelivered are recorded and the reason for the failure can be

viewed.

� Mails that fail 3 times consecutively over a period of more than 10 days will be marked as Bad.

� A Bad email address won’t be sent to until it is unmarked. A Bad email address can be unmarked

by the user by following the validation prompt when they next login or by an administrator

sending a re-validation message.


Session 4: Rotas

Advantages of rotas online:

• Easy to make changes and re-publish.

• Email Reminders – helps Members’ remember their duties.

• Helps avoid rota clashes.

Creating Rotas

• Instructions on Rota homepage

• Click icon to reproduce same team of people at multiple events quickly

• email reminders – the number of days the reminders are sent depends on the user’s personal e-

mail reminder setting.

• Send copies of the rota – e-mail or print letters with rota

• Publish the rota by clicking the icon.

SIGN-UP SHEETS

Can be used for time based Rota activities. e.g. 24-7 Prayer. See http://www.londonprayer.net

Creating Sign-up sheets

• Select the tab to view all rotas and sign-up sheets in the group.

• Click the ‘add a new sign-up sheet to the groupname group’ task.

• Add the sign-up sheet details as follows:

o Sign-up Sheet name – subject people are signing up for e.g. 24-7 prayer 12th–19th Sept.

o Description – full description of the sign-up subject; appears above the sign-up sheet on the

web site.

o Sign-up Period – set the entire the start and end time of your activity. The repeats

indefinitely option allows you to run your sign-up on a continual basis e.g. ongoing weekly

prayer rota. To repeat indefinitely you would therefore set the start and end times to the

period of the first week of prayer and then check the repeats indefinitely option.

o Sign-up for blocks of – select the smallest period of time that you wish people to sign-up

for (15 minutes to 1 day).

o Visible to - the users that can see the sign-up sheet on the web site.

o Who may sign up - restrict who can sign-up to logged in site users or group members

only.

o Allow Day view – enables selection of a particular day on the sign-up sheet so you can view

who is signed up at what times.

o Plot sign-ups on map – enables those signing up to select a location on an uploaded map.

• Click Save to generate the sign-up sheet.

• Your sign-up sheet will appear in the Editing area of rotas. To publish the sign-up sheet to the

web site click the appropriate graphic, just like with rotas.



UPLOADING DOCUMENT FILES

• Documents files can be uploaded under Media using the ‘Add a document file…’ task.

• Document types include Word documents, pdfs, Powerpoint Presentations, Excel

Spreadsheets.

• Link from an article to the document to make it accessible or use the Media List

Component.

UPLOADING AUDIO/VIDEO FILES

• Save the edited file in a loss-less (i.e. uncompressed) format such as WAV. This will become your

master file to create other compressed versions, and will be useful if you ever want to produce CDs

of your audio.

• Use an encoding program to compress the master audio file to your chosen format. MP3 formats

can be used by Windows, Linux PCs, Macs and personal audio players, so they represent a good

universal choice.

• Upload the file using the ‘Add an Audio/Video file’ task found on the ‘Media’ tab of the appropriate

group.

• Once uploaded publish the file by going to the ‘Add File to Recording’ tab.

Session 6: Interactive Content

POLLS

Add to the appropriate group you want the Poll to display in e.g. Root group to appear on the

frontpage.

FORUMS

Forums suitable for ongoing debates, announcements etc

Forums are most interactive feature; can be used for news flashes, debates, fun, prayer requests,

community needs, selling/giving away items (Trader).

Builds Community – people make connections with people they otherwise wouldn’t.

How they work

• Forums are a broad subjects that contain discussion topics, which are specific

questions/comments. Messages are responses to the topic.

• Create Topics before launch and during early weeks to stimulate conversation

• Requires ‘Forums & Chatter’ Permission on relevant group

• Review existing Forums and rename/edit as appropriate. Note Security permission.

• When creating forums make sure you are on the relevant group e.g. youth forum in youth

group

• Topics and messages posted by anyone who has write permission on the forum


Managing Forums

• Acceptable Use Policy – can be rewritten under Settings/Policy

• Abusive messages - anyone who is logged in can topic/message

• icon appears on group where message marked as abusive

Session 7: Themes and Layouts Introduction

Themes and Layouts

• Layouts are used to place Components of information on the pages. Separate layouts for

Group Homepage and Article pages.

• Themes are used to create the visual look of the web site.

• Both Themes and Layouts can be applied at a group level and are by default inherited in all

groups below.

Layouts

Create/Edit Layouts as follows:

• Navigate to the group you wish to create/edit the layout for.

• If the group doesn’t have a layout, click the Select/Edit button and select an appropriate

layout. If a layout already exists select icon on the row of the selected layout and modify

the layout.

• Click on icon on any component you wish to edit.

• Component Settings common to all components. Can display component to logged in or

non-logged in only.

• Change Show criteria to view for logged in or as none-logged in user.

• Use Preview to check what it looks like before you save.

Key Points about Layouts

• Try to minimise the number of layouts - Change the content of the pages in the

homepage/current article rather than creating a new layout for every group. This will reduce the

number of layouts used and so will make maintaining the site easier.

• Layouts can be used on more than one group

• Layouts can be applied to the group homepages and articles within a group. The Group

Homepage is the page that appears when a group is selected from the menu. Articles are the

other documents in the group.

• Copying Layouts – When making significant modifications to a layout select ‘Add a New Layout’

and copy your layout you wish to modify. Then even if you save changes you can still revert to the

original layout.


Adding Components to Articles

Components display different site content on the pages e.g. Calendar component can display the upcoming events. They can be added directly in an article rather than adding to a layout through the

Themes and Layouts area.

To add a component to an article select the ‘Add a Component’ button and select the component type you wish to add. Components should be added to the article if they apply only to that article e.g. Poll, Map.

Current List of Components:

‘Content Components’

Adverts Displays banner adverts. If this component is added to the web site home

page it will display adverts from all groups in rotation. If this component is

added to a group home page it will still display all adverts added to the site

i.e.not only adverts in that group. The advert component must be the same

size for all groups on your web site. Only one advert component can be added

to each layout.

Article Displays the contents of a single article. This may be the group homepage

article, another article on the site or add raw HTML code.

Directory Displays the a list of organisations or a specific organisations details. Can also

plot the organisations on a map and a find my nearest search.

Image/Flash Displays a static image, a random image from a collection, or a Macromedia

‘Flash’ movie file.

Map Plots locations on a map. Useful for plotting the Sunday meeting location.

Polls Displays voting polls located in the current group.

Signup Sheet Displays a graphical link to a signup sheet rota.

‘LISTS AND FEEDS’ COMPONENTS

Articles List A component displaying the latest published articles. If this component is

added to the web site home page it will display the most recent articles with

the “Feature on web site front page” option checked by default. If this

component is added to a group home page it will display the most recent

articles published in that group. These options can be changed however.

Blog Displays a list of articles in a Blog format. Therefore similar to the article list

but displays in a format more appropriate for a Blog. The article entries will

display in full rather than a link to the full article, as in the article list.


Calendar

Displays upcoming events. If this component is added to the web site home

page it will display, by default, upcoming events in all groups which are

visible to the user.

Forums

A component containing recent posts in forums. If this component is added

to the web site home page it will display the most recent additions to all

forums visible to the user. If this component is added to the a group home

page it will display recent additions to forums located in the group.

Media List Displays a list of recent published recordings or/and the most recent

published document files e.g. PDF, Word, Spreadsheet files.

RSS Reader Enables you to feature content from a variety of other websites. Select from a

range of inbuilt RSS feeds e.g. BBC News, or add your own RSS source to a

scrolling or static display.

Rotas Displays the users next Rota task and on a group homepage will display links

to any Rotas in that Group.

‘NAVIGATION’ COMPONENTS

Breadcrumbs Displays a trail of the groups navigated through to reach the current one – a

kind of ‘where am I’. Not applicable to the home page layout but useful on

group layouts to help users locate where they currently are in the site

structure.

Drop down

menus

A component containing the drop-down menus found at the top of most pages

to allow you to navigate around the site.

Group

Navigation

The group navigation module displays the title of the current group with links

to any sub-groups beneath. This component will not be visible on the web

site home page.

Search

A component which allows users to search for keywords across your web site

or across the internet (using one of a range of popular search engines). A

bible search also allows users to search for a passage or keyword in one of a

wide selection of different bible translations.

Social

Bookmarking

Adding this component makes it easy for your visitors to bookmark and share

content on your site with others. e.g. Facebook, Digg etc.


‘USER ACCOUNT’ COMPONENTS

Join Group Adds links to Join or leave the current group.

Login Box Explicit logn box e.g.customerfutures.com

Status Bar A component found at the top of most web pages allowing visitors to log in

and containing links to the web office for administrators.

Footer bar The footer bar appears at the bottom of most web pages and contains

copyright notices as well as links to ‘terms and conditions’ documents. This

cannot be removed, although it does contain options to hide certain links.

Themes

• Can apply a different Theme to any group, although most sites will use one Theme for a

consistent look.

• Mozilla Firefox Browser updates quicker than IE so is best for editing themes. Firefox can

be downloaded from http://www.mozilla.com. Should check site design in Firefox and

Internet Explorer to make sure it looks ok in the 2 major browsers.

• Use Palette to change colour throughout your site.

• Use Capture clicks to find the area to modify.


Session 8: Support Resources

Implementation Support Resources

Web Site – shareinsight.info.

• Implementation Guide – Site Implementation area of support section on web site has guide

which lists what tasks need to be done and they in turn link to articles that have advice on how to

implement the tasks.

• Searchable help area - User Guides/common questions

• Support Forums – good for ‘How to Questions’

• Support Request Form

Training Others

• Train Key Staff – Train staff and point them in direction of web site resources for additional

help.

• Train group leaders (tips on implementation guide how this can be done).

• Publicise – Publicise to your membership before and at launch. Keep publicising, through

mailings etc. Emails with links to website will encourage use of the site.

What makes a successful implementation

• Up-to-date content – Fresh, good quality content (articles, church calendar) – reason to return,

homepage displays latest content.

• Database – Becomes your membership database, encourage users to update their own details.

• User Participation – Encourage user participation e.g. Add Forums, Polls.

• Publicise – Big launch, continually promote

• Delegate – Train/encourage group leaders to manage their areas and promote to groups.

Foundation Course – Exercises Page 1 of 4

www.endis.com

Foundation Training Day 1 Exercises

Session 1: Updating your user Profile

1. Login to the website.

2. Once logged in update your user profile.

Session 2: Creating Groups

1. Create a “user” group that can contain members. Give it an original name, for example you

could title it ‘yourname’ group. You can use this area to work in.

2. Think about the group structure of your site and begin to implement it.

Session 3: Creating Articles

1. Create an article on your site in the group you created. First add some text and experiment

with formatting the text e.g. Headings, bold etc. Add an image (you could download an

image from another site if you haven’t got an image on your computer) and create a link to

another article.

2. Publish the article so it appears on the homepage to site members only – check you can

access it when logged in but then can’t when logged out.

3. Experiment with making the article a group homepage article. Make sure you understand

what a group homepage article is.

Session 4: Creating Forms and Adverts

1. Create a booking form on your site. View your document on the website, and submit an

application. Review the responses, changing their status once reviewed.

2. Create an Advert that links to the booking form you created.

Session 5: Add Events

1. Add an event to your website.

2. Create a link from the event to the booking form you created previously.

3. Practise plotting the specific location of the event on a map.

4. Create a recurring event.


www.endis.com

Session 6: Adding User Records

1. In the Web Office create a new user (this could be a member of your family or just invent

someone).

2. Exit the Web Office and logout of the site. Register on your site (create an imaginary name

and email address). Now login to the Web Office and process the application giving the user

login access to your site.

3. Try registering on the site again with the same name. When you approve the registration

make sure it overwrites the duplicate record.

4. Try using the Quickfind to search for users.

Session 7: Assigning Permissions

Review the current permissions on your site and edit appropriately.

Session 8: Mailing

1. Practice sending a simple mailing. Remember it’ll actually email people so make sure you

deselect everyone apart from yourself.


www.endis.com

Foundation Training Day 2 Exercises

Session 1: Insight Databases

1. Login and apply for membership of several groups. Approve your applications in the Web

Office.

2. Give several users membership of a specific group. See how they are made automatically

members of the parent groups in that branch of the tree.

3. Create an Independent group.

Session 2: Creating Group-Notes

1. Review the current group-notes on your site.

2. Create an appropriate Global group note on your site

3. Create a non-global group note on your site.


1. Create a HTML mailing template.

2. Send a mailing using this template adding links to content on your site. Also try adding click

tracking to your links.

Session 4: Rotas

1. Create a Rota and add some events. Give it a suitable title and tasks.

2. Add yourself to the Rota so you can view the Rota on the web site when you have finished.

3. Add some comments to the Rota, publish it and send a copy to the participants in the

appropriate format.

4. View the Rota on your web site and through your reminders.

5. Try creating a master Rota and include columns from your other Rota.


1. Upload a document file e.g. PDF and display it on the website.

2. Upload an audio/video file and publish the recording.


www.endis.com

Session 6: Interactive Content Types

1. Create a Poll and view it on your website.

2. Create a Forum in your group. Practise posting new topics and messages into your forum.

Flag a posting as inappropriate and moderate it.

3. Review the Forums you currently have on your site and modify them appropriately.

Session 7 : Themes and Layouts

1. Add a layout to your site and then experiment with modifying this layout.

2. Practice adding Components to an article.

Justin Ruffell-Ward Page 1 of 12 www.endis.com

E-commerce Training

SHOP SETUP

Session 1: E-Commerce Setup

Session 2: Shop Catalogue Setup 1

Session 3: Shop Catalogue Setup 2

Session 4: Processing Orders

Session 5: Shop Themes and Layouts

PAYMENT GROUPS

Session 6: Creating a Payment group

Session 7: Advanced Payment group Setup

Session 8: Processing Registrations

Session 9: Amending Registrations


SESSION 1: E-COMMERCE SETUP

INTRODUCTION

Several features that enable you to take payments online to generate revenue through your website:

• Your Catalogue – Sell own products, complete shop browse & search facilities. Related product links, reviews, comments and related purchases.

• Syndicated Catalogues range – Generate funds for your own organisation without holding stock. Select from various Christian Publishers Catalogues. Around 12% of sales will be debited off your monthly bill.

• Payment groups – Conference booking, online donations, premium content subscriptions. Around 4% of subscriptions come to us for using this service.

• Digital delivery – Online electronic sales e.g.Mp3 files. Around 18% of an order comes to Endis for using this service and to cover the card transaction fees. Can be sold through your own payment processor or ChurchInsights.

SHOP SETUP

The E-Commerce option located under Settings tab should be used to setup how your shop behaves.

This includes delivery pricing, terms & conditions, Tax etc. Below is a description of the key areas:

Payment Processing

Setup payment processing accounts. Paypal or Protx. Paypal can be used on the shop but not Payment groups. Protx costs around £20 a month. If using Protx setup in ‘test mode’ to test.

Shop Settings

• Shop Status – set to administrators whilst setting up your shop.

• Set the Payment processor account to be used here on your shop. The payment processor accounts must be setup under Payment Processing first (see below). This only sets the payment processor account for Physical items in the Shop.

• Partial Payments – allow for payment to be taken on part of an order. This enables orders that have a combination of digital and physical media.

• Gift Aid – enable if you may wish to gift aid donations through the shop.

• Grant credit – allow trusted users to pay by invoice up to credit limit set.

• Request voucher codes – enable if you wish voucher codes to be entered to obtain discounts.

• Wishlists – enable users to save items they are interested in for future reference.

• Draft Orders – enable users to save an order.

Catalogues

• Your own catalogue and catalogues of other Christian publishers will appear. Select the catalogues you wish to sell from.

Item Types

List of default types available. Add your own item types. Item types can be used to filter the shop catalogue or within delivery pricings e.g. CD’s have own delivery price matrix.

Delivery


• First create your delivery regions.

• Next add your delivery methods to your region e.g. Next Day Delivery, Super Saver Delivery.

• If several delivery methods are available it’ll select the cheapest method by default.

• You can add a specific price matrix for a particular item type.

Tax

Enables you to setup different TAX bands for different products. Can then be used to display VAT charge on products or to report on Sales exc VAT.

Terms & Conditions

Update your own Terms and Conditions and then enable.

PERMISSIONS

Permissions->Shop permissions.

• Full manager can access everything including Shop Settings.

• Order Management permission gives access only to the order processing facility.

• Order Notes permission allows the owner to enter additional text as they place orders. This can be useful, for example, for sales staff.


SESSION 2: SHOP CATALOGUE SETUP 1

The Shop item on the Web Office Task navigation pane takes you to the shop area of the site where

your catalogue can be edited. See the E-commerce guide for detailed information on adding shop items

etc.

CREATING NEW CATEGORIES

First create your catalogue categories as follows:

• Select the category you wish to create a sub-category within.

• Go to the Advanced tab.

• Select ‘Create a new category …’ task.

ITEMS

Creating new items

Create new items in the shop as follows:

• Select the category you wish to add an item to.

• Select the ‘Items’ tab.

• Select ‘Add a new item to the …’ task and add appropriate details

• Priority Setting determines the order in the listing of the item. The highest priority will appear at the top of the list.

• Full Description – what is displayed in the individual item display.

Item Listing

The item listing will display items by title by default but other columns can be clicked to be ordered by their properties.

Visibility of items can be set to be visible to logged in users only, or hidden if required.

Options

Add different options for an item e.g. green, red, blue. If the different options have different values then they need to be added as separate items.

Contents

This is where you can upload the digital files for download or for preview. This area will soon be titled contents listing and enable contents to be listed even if it doesn’t have an associated digital file. Digital previews will be able to set a start and end time so no longer does the preview have to start from the end of the file.

Item Notes

Custom fields of data you can setup and store for your items . Setup under E-commerce->Item Notes.

Related Items

Items added here will be displayed on the item display. The title of related items can be modified on the site.

Related Categories


This can be used to place the item in more than one category. e.g. item appears under teaching series and CD’s.

Reviews

Reviews can be posted on the site or through here.

SESSION 3: SHOP CATALOGUE SETUP 2

HOT PICKS

Featured products. Appear at the top of the item listing. Can also appear on the homepage.

OFFERS

• Cannot be used in conjunction with other offers –these offers are applied first according to the offer priority ordering. Can be used in conjunction offers are only applied if no ‘cannot be used in conjunction offers’ apply.

• These discounts are given on the items used to meet the criteria – e.g. if selected on a Buy 2 get 1 free it’ll turn it into buy 2 for the price of 1.

STOCK CONTROL

Applied at 2 levels:

• Category level – Different stock rules can be applied at each category level. A general stock rule can therefore be applied on your root category and then overwritten for a particular category.

• Item level – Each item can have its own rules. The stock level of the item is added to each particular item.

PERMISSIONS

Shop Managers would automatically have all the permissions below.

• Reviews – allows the user to access item reviews and comments and edit them if necessary.

• Features – allows the user to create and edit “hot picks” as well as set item promotion priorities.

• Exclusion – allows the user to change the visibility of items in the catalogue.

• Pricing – allows the user to change prices and create special offers.

• Product Editor – allows the user to change product descriptions.

• Advanced – allows the user to change the catalogue structure for groups below the current one.

ADVANCED

Category properties. Can create sub-categories or move or delete the current category from here.

SESSION 4: PROCESSING ORDERS

• Shop->Order click on Unshipped and select an order. If you’re looking for specific order use shop find.


• Take payment – full or partial.

• Update quantity shipped details – enter quantity of items shipped.

• Change order status – update order status to indicate to the customer to progress of their order. If required you can add your own text in the field. Appears to the user under My Orders.

• Print invoice if required.

• Click Save. If all the lines of the order have been shipped it’ll move automatically to fully shipped.

• Re-select the order and send conformation email.


SESSION 5: SHOP THEMES AND LAYOUTS

Shop Themes and layouts can be applied to the following shop areas:

• Own Shop Catalogue – Can be applied to the Category listing, items details page, Reviews page.

• Search Results

• My Orders

• My Draft Orders

• My Wishlist

• Checkout


SESSION 6: CREATING A PAYMENT GROUP

Payment groups can be described simply as a type of group within ChurchInsight where membership

requires a separate registration and has an associated cost. The applications for this type of group are

numerous - from setting up one-off or regular donation schemes, conference bookings, or ‘premium

content’ areas and ‘product of the month’ clubs.

PREREQUISITES

Payment groups requires you are able to process repeat credit card payments. For this you will need to

setup the following:

• To take payment online you need an Internet merchant account with a Bank. If you already have a merchant account then you will need to make sure it can receive online payments or if not then have it upgraded.

• Register for a Protx Payment Processor account

Protx (U.K. Customers Only)

Payment processing using the VSP Direct service. See

www.protx.com for further information.

Registering for Protx account will cost approximately £20 a month. If you take 1000’s of transactions a

month this may be more.

For further information on setting up a Protx account see the quick start guide e-commerce

implementation.

PAYMENT GROUP PERMISSIONS

• Before creating a Payment Group you’ll need the Payment Group Manager permission and the Group Structure permission. This is set under the Permissions tab under Site Manager.

CREATING A PAYMENT GROUP

• Select the group you wish to create your Payment group under.

• Create a group making sure you select the Payment group type.

Welcome tab

• A newly created payment group won’t be visible until you fill in the Welcome page article.

• Publish dates can be set here.

Registrations

• Choose if you wish to allow a registration to contain more than one user e.g. a Donation group would only contain one but a Conference type would normally allow users to register on behalf of others.

• Set the information you wish to collect about the booker and delegates.


Payment Schemes

Payment Schemes determine when a registration payment will be taken.

Choose when to take payment from:

• On Approval – e.g. when a conference registration is approved

• n days after approval – e.g. you make take the full balance for a registration at a later date

Membership:

• Subscription payments needs the recurring payments option checked

• Membership Expires – why do we need this? Say monthly for 12 payments. Expire – lose benefits?

• Continue payments until – when this has expired any benefits will be lost.

Options

Allows users to select from several predefined options.

• Each choice has a Selection type – Each option/choice has a checkbox next to it (mandatory option hides the option).

• Each option can affect the price paid or not.

• Additional Choices can be added e.g. For monthly donation.

Payment Details

• Configure Payment types you wish to allow i.e. card or Cash/Cheque

• Treat as offline payment bypass’ the credit card payment screen if the registration is free.

Confirmation

• Set whether registrations require approval

• When Allow changes to registration after completion is checked it will allow a user to edit their user record.

• Terms and Conditions can be set here.

Completion

• Set the Confirmation message on-screen and by email.

• E-mail confirmation only sent when the registration is approved?

More detailed instructions on creating a payment group can be found in the Payment Group Quick Start

Guide.


SESSION 7: ADVANCED PAYMENT GROUP SETUP

ADVANCED OPTIONS

• Multiple Options can be added, each option can have multiple choices and each choice can have multiple sub-options and so on.

• Benefit Groups – membership of specified groups can be give based on the options selected e.g. you may make them a member of a group that gives them access to downloadable notes from the conference.

• A user must select between – used to force a user to select a certain amount of options or limit the amount they can select.

DISCOUNTS

The discounts area allows you to provide discounts on registration for people matching certain criteria.

• The options checked in your criteria selection must all be fulfilled in order to qualify for the discount.

• Discount is applied to every delegate

• Add further discounts using the Add discount button if you would like to offer another discount for other criteria. Only the greatest discount will be applied.

SESSION 8: PROCESSING REGISTRATIONS

TESTING A PAYMENT GROUP

Registrations can be made on the user side. To test a registration fully you’ll need to:

• Setup your Protx payment processor account in test mode. Note processing a payment with the test payment processor will stop adjustments being made on a payment scheme.

• Create a registration using a test payment card.

• Approve a registration under the Registrations tab.

• Check Payment has been received (see below).

RECEIVABLES

The receivables tab displays a list of any money pledged and whether it was received or not. Key items to

understand are:

• Payment status - ‘Not Received’, ‘Received’, partially received or ‘not due yet’ describe whether the payment has been taken.

• Payment Status icon - The colour of the icon describes how the receivable will be taken i.e. automatic or not:

o Green tick – Automatic collection of the outstanding balance was successfully attempted. Note this does not necessarily mean it was taken, the ‘received’ ‘not received’ text is still used to indicate this.

o Red Exclamation Mark – Automatic collection of the Receivable failed. Does not means the card failed but that the system failed to attempt the automatic collection. Shouldn’t see this much.

o Orange tick - Payment for the outstanding balance will be attempted automatically in the future.

o Grey cross - The payment must be taken manually. No automatic collection will be attempted.


• ‘Not Received’ payments – These could be cheque/cash payments or card payments that have failed. Need to be manually input using the ‘Take Payment’ task

• Change Filter button – can be used to view the receivables that are of interest to you.

SESSION 9: AMENDING REGISTRATIONS

OTHER PAYMENT GROUP PERMISSIONS

Other payment group permissions exist as follows:

• Payment Group: Add Receipts – enables a user to take payments

• Payment Group: Issue Refunds - enables a user to issue refunds

• Payment Group: Issue Write Offs - enables a user to say this money will never be received.

• Payment Group: Change Receivables – enables a user to amend the invoice amount

EDITING REGISTRATIONS

Registrations can be edited as follows:

• Administrators can always edit registrations by selecting the registration and the edit this registration task.

• Users can edit their own registrations if the ‘Allow changes to registration after completion’ task is selected under Settings->Confirmation. Users edit the registrations under My Accounts->My Payments.

Once edited each registration must normally be approved and any payment adjustments made.

• Registration changes must be approved just like approving new registrations

• Payments adjustments must be made manually if the value is affected e.g. if someone added another delegate to their registration or selected a more expensive option. This is done under the ‘History’ tab of the Registration.

SUSPENDING REGISTRATIONS

A registration can be suspended manually or automatically.

Manual Suspension

• Select registration and ‘Suspend this registration’ task.

• Suspended registrations will remove the user from any benefit groups and no more payments will automatically taken.

• Suspended registrations can be re-activated giving back their benefits and setting up automatic collection of payments.

Automatic Suspension

• Set on the payment scheme.

• Add for card failure or own custom suspension rules.

CANCELLING REGISTRATIONS

• A registration can be cancelled only manually by administrators or by users (if user edits are allowed).

• A cancelled registration cannot be reactivated.


• Cancelled registrations, like suspended registrations, will cancel all benefits and automatic collection of future payments immediately. This means future receivables will need to be manually dealt with unless default cancellation options have been setup (see below).

Default cancellation options can be setup to make cancellation of future receivables or issuing of refunds automatic.

• Default cancellation options are setup on the Payment Scheme

• Setup for 3 different types of receivables: For future receivables with no assignments, for future receivables with assignments, for the current receivable.

of 2

E-commerce Exercises

E-COMMERCE SETUP

1. Analyse your current ‘Shop Settings’ and change where applicable.

2. Select the ‘Catalogues’ you require.

3. Setup a delivery region and delivery option.

4. Setup the Tax bands required.

5. Review who has ‘Shop Manager’ permissions on your site.

SHOP CATALOGUE SETUP 1

1. Create a new category in your shop. You could call it ‘yourname’.

2. Create a new item in your category. View it on the website.

3. Add the item you created to another category so it appears in both your

category and another one.

4. Create an item note and edit it for your item.

SHOP CATALOGUE SETUP 2

1. Create a ‘Hotpick’ for your item.

2. Create a ‘Buy 1 get second half-price’ special offer on your item only. Add the

item twice to your basket to test the offer is applied correctly.

3. Create a new ‘stock rule’ at your category level that displays items that are

out of stock but doesn’t accept orders on out of stock items.

4. Assign the appropriate permissions to a user on your site so they can edit the details

of an item including it’s price.

PROCESSING ORDERS

1. Create a test order and process the order, taking payment.

2. Adjust the quantity dispatched, amend the status and send a confirmation email.

of 2

SHOP THEMES & LAYOUTS

1. Create a new category layout and apply it to your category.

2. Experiment with editing its appearance e.g. try adjusting the item thumbnail image

proportions.

CREATING A PAYMENT GROUP

1. Create a Donation payment group (call it ‘yourname donation’).

2. Setup the ‘donation’ payment group options so it allows donations to be made

Monthly, Annually and as a One-off payment.

ADVANCED PAYMENT GROUP SETUP

1. Create a payment group for a Conference.

2. Setup the options/choices for a conference that has 2 delegate types (Standard and

Concession) that are charged differently. The conference lasts 2 days and the booker

can choose if to attend the 1st day, 2nd day, or both days (each day will have its own

cost associated with it).

3. Make it so anyone signing up for the conference will become a member of a group on

your site for 3 months.

4. Setup a discount that gives money off for a booking made by someone who’s a

member of a particular group and is themselves a delegate of the conference.

AMENDING REGISTRATIONS

1. Setup your payment group so you can access it but no-one else can see it in the

structure.

2. On the site run a test booking using the card number ‘good’.

3. Approve the registration.

4. Check that the payment has been received.

5. Edit the booking, adding another delegate to the booking.

6. Process the amended registration and sort out the receivable amounts so they are

appropriate.

7. Investigate the auto suspension and cancellation options.

Themes & Layouts Training Notes Page 1 of 13

Themes & Layouts Training day outline

Session 1: Introduction to Themes and Layouts

• Insight system Overview

• Themes and Layouts overview

Session 2: Introduction to Layouts

• Adding/Editing a Layout

• Table and cell structure

• Adding Components

Session 3: Introduction to Themes

• Adding/Editing a Theme

• Modifying the Colour Scheme

• Modifying the Style Elements

Session 4: Cell widths, styles and article components

• Site and Cell widths

• Cell Styles

• Article components

Session 5: Applying Themes and Layouts

• Applying Layouts and Themes to Groups

• Group Layouts vs Article layouts

• Adding Components to Articles

• System pages

• Shop Themes and Layouts

Session 6: Case Studies

Session 7: Advanced Tools


Session 1: Introduction to Themes and Layouts

Insight system Overview

Not a publication about your organisation: but a vibrant expression of the life of your community.

Types of Content

• Articles - text and images that make up the main content of the pages.

• Adverts – Rotating graphics that link to a particular content you wish to promote.

• Polls – allow users to vote on a particular question.

• Audio/Video – audio/video repository for streamed and downloadable content.

• Calendar – dynamic calendar with maps

• Forums – for community discussion and chat. Also Chatter for live chat.

• Address Book – secure updatable membership directory

• Rotas – linked to events with automatic email reminders

Groups, Articles and Images

Groups are the areas of the site that make up it’s structure. Each group normally appears as an

option in the drop-down navigation menu. Create a group as follows:

• Login to Web Office

• Go to Site Manager

• Select a folder you wish to create you group beneath

• Go to Summary tab and Advanced options

• Select task to create a group.

Articles are the text and images that make up the main content of the pages. Create an article as

follows:

• Login to Web Office

• Go to Site Manager

• Select a folder you wish to create your article in.

• Select the Documents tab

• Select task to start a new document and select the article type.


Themes and Layouts overview

• Graphical Interface in the Web Office that allows you to change the appearance of your

website

• Accessed in the Web Office through Settings->Themes & Layouts

• To edit Themes & Layouts the user requires the Themes & Layouts permission set under

Settings->Permissions.

2 elements combine to change the site look and feel:

• Themes are the colours, fonts, and background images making up the style of your web

site. They change the stylesheet (css file).

• A layout is the arrangement of the various elements making up a web page. These elements

are called components within the Insight system.



Adding a Layout

Available and selected layouts are listed under the Layouts area.

Create a new layout as follows:

• Select the ‘Add a new Layout’ button

• Choose either a layout from the Insight Gallery (1st tab) or copy one of your existing layouts

(2nd tab). Note the Insight Gallery is paged.

Editing a layout

Click on the Edit button to display the layout editor.

The layout editor is divided into 3 areas:

• Header – the header area is displayed at the top of every page the layout is applied to – it’s

therefore usually largely the same throughout the whole site. In most cases this area will contain an

image component containing the logo of your church, the status bar component allowing members

to login, and the drop-down menus component allowing users to navigate around the web site.

• Contents – this area is used to display the selected content.

• Footer – as with the header section this area is usually consistent throughout all the oages on the

site. this area is displayed at the bottom of every page. You must include the footer bar component

in this area as it contains links to ‘terms and conditions’ documents.

Table and cell structure

To modify the structure of the page fisrt select the cell you wish to modify (red line will appear

around the selected cell) then use the MERGE, INSERT and SUBTABLE options (top left

navigation).

INSERT – adds columns and rows.

MERGE – merges 2 cells into one, up or down. Options only enabled that are possible e.g. A merge down may not always be possible because a cell doesn’t appear directly below the cell you have

selected.

SUBTABLE – Used to insert a table within a table. Useful to create cells that don’t match the width of the other cells in the same column.


Adding Components

Components place content on the page. They display all the various types of content that can be

added to the Insight system.

Adding Components

First you’ll need to decide which information you wish to display on the page. You can add

components as follows:

• Navigate to the COMPONENTS area on the left-hand side and select the appropriate component

you wish to add. The Components currently available are as follows:

‘Content Components’

Adverts Displays banner adverts. If this component is added to the web site home

page it will display adverts from all groups in rotation. If this component is

added to a group home page it will still display all adverts added to the site

i.e.not only adverts in that group. The advert component must be the same

size for all groups on your web site. Only one advert component can be

added to each layout.

Article Displays the contents of a single article. This may be the group homepage

article, another article on the site or add raw HTML code.

Directory Displays a list of organisations or a specific organisation’s details. Can also

plot the organisations on a map and add a find my nearest search.

Image/Flash Displays a static image, a random image from a collection, or a Macromedia

‘Flash’ movie file.

Map Plots locations on a map. Useful for plotting the Sunday meeting location.

Polls Displays voting polls located in the current group.

Signup Sheet Displays a graphical link to a signup sheet rota.

‘Lists and Feeds’ Components

Articles List A component displaying the latest published articles. If this component is

added to the web site home page it will display the most recent articles with

the “Feature on web site front page” option checked by default. If this

component is added to a group home page it will display the most recent

articles published in that group. These options can be changed however.

Blog Displays a list of articles in a Blog format. Therefore similar to the article list but

displays in a format more appropriate for a Blog. The article entries will display in

full, rather than a link to the article as in the article list component.

Calendar Displays upcoming events. If this component is added to the web site home

page it will display, by default, upcoming events in all groups which are

visible to the user.


Forums A component containing recent posts in forums. If this component is added

to the web site home page it will display the most recent additions to all

forums visible to the user. If this component is added to the a group home

page it will display recent additions to forums located in the group.

Media List Displays a list of recent published recordings or/and the most recent

published document files e.g. PDF, Word, Spreadsheet files.

RSS Reader Enables you to feature content from a variety of other websites. Select from

a range of inbuilt RSS feeds e.g. BBC News, or add your own RSS source to a

scrolling or static display.

Rotas Displays the users next Rota task and on a group homepage will display links

to any Rotas in that Group.

‘Navigation’ Components

Breadcrumbs Displays a trail of the groups navigated through to reach the current one – a

kind of ‘where am I’. Not applicable to the home page layout but useful on

group layouts to help users locate where they currently are in the site

structure.

Drop down

menus

A component containing the drop-down menus found at the top of most

pages to allow you to navigate around the site.

Group

Navigation

The group navigation module displays the title of the current group with links

to any sub-groups beneath. This component will not be visible on the web

site home page.

Search

A component which allows users to search for keywords across your web

site or across the internet (using one of a range of popular search engines).

A bible search also allows users to search for a passage or keyword in one of

a wide selection of different bible translations.

Social

Bookmarking

Adding this component makes it easy for your visitors to bookmark and share

content on your site with others. e.g. Facebook, Digg etc.

‘User Account’ Components

Profile Editor Can be used to allow new users to register for site membership or for users

to add extra information to their profile.

Join Group Adds links to Join or Leave the current group.

Login Box Explicit login area that can be added to your home page making it clearer how

members can login.e.g.customerfutures.com

Status Bar A component found at the top of most web pages allowing visitors to log in

and containing links to the web office for administrators.


Footer bar The footer bar appears on all our sites, usually at the bottom of the page. It

contains copyright notices as well as links to ‘terms and conditions’ documents.

This cannot be removed, although it does contain options to hide certain links.

Add the component you require as follows:

• In Internet Explorer left click on the component, keep the mouse button down and drag to

component into the required cell. The.position the component will be placed is indicated by the

red line, release the button to drop the component into that position in the layout.

• In Firefox left click on the cell you wish to add a component to. Next left click on the required

component and it’ll be added to that cell. You’ll then need to use the up and down arrows if you

wish to place to reorder the components in the cell

Editing Components

Each component has it’s own settings which can be adjusted to format the display of the information.

To edit a components settings double click the component or click once on the icon and the

component settings dialog box should be displayed (if it doesn’t display check that your pop-up

blocker hasn’t stopped it from opening).

Each component settings contains the following values:

• Title – Title of the component. Displays in the layout editor and possibly on the website (see

• Visible to – determines who can view this component. Can be used to create a different layout

for site visitors from those that are logged in.

• External Margin – sets the spacing outside the component. Check these values if your

components don’t align with each other.

• Fixed height – sets a specific height for the component. Note if the information to be displayed

does not fit in the height provided then it’ll be forced to be larger.

• Display Title – Displays the Title given above on the website in the header bar of the component.

• Display Footer Bar – Displays a footer at the bottom of the component. Can be used to apply a

style e.g. curved edges to the base of a component e.g.solentcc.org

• Transparent background – removes the background colour set for the component in the theme.

Various other options will also appear allowing you to select the type of content to display and

change the format that it’s displayed in.



Adding a Theme

The available themes are listed under the Themes area. The selected theme for the group you are

currently on is highlighted in blue.

Create a new theme as follows:

• Select the ‘Add a new Theme’ button

• Choose either a theme from the Insight Gallery (1st tab) or copy one of your existing

layouts (2nd tab). Note the Insight Gallery is paged.

Editing a Theme

Click on the button to display the theme editor (Firefox browser more reliable at updating

preview window)

Editing the Colours

• The first step to editing your theme is to change the colours used on your site. The colour

palette on the left-hand side of the screen shows the colours used by this theme:

• Click on a colour to display the colour selector; pick a new colour either by clicking on the

colour map, or by entering a colour value in the space provided.

• Once you have selected a new colour the preview pane will be updated accordingly.

• Repeat this process for the other colours in the palette if required.

Editing the Styles

Once you’ve edited the palette you will need to edit specific styles to change the colours of specific

elements of the pages or to change other aspects of a theme to customise the look of your web

site e.g. fonts.

Edit a style as follows:

• First select the specific style you wish to edit. In many cases you can locate a particular element

for editing by clicking on the item in the preview pane (you’ll need to make sure Capture Clicks

is on for this to work).

• Once the appropriate element is selected you’ll see a list of properties to the right-hand side

similar to the image below. Modifying these options will change the look of that element..


• You may wish to give the modified theme a different name before saving to help you

identify it in future.

• Below each element are often other elements as shown

with the ‘Text’ element here.

Properties for each of these elements are cascading; this

means that if you select, for example, the verdana font for

the text element all elements below will also use the

verdana font unless another font is specifically selected.


Session 4: Cell widths, styles and article components

Site and Cell Widths

• Site Width - set in the Theme under Page layout->Contents Region. Set either a pixel width

or a percentage. 750 is the default width if no value set. 960 pixels would be an appropriate

width that fits within the 1024X800 common resolution.

• Cell Widths – sets the dimension of the cell. This can be set to a pixel width or a percentage

value. Set in the layout under the APPEARANCE options

Cell Styles

Cell styles can be used to achieve particular styling on cells in your layouts. This can be used for

example to add a background image and colour to a cell.

Add a cell style as follows:

• Allocate a style code to a particular cell in your layout. Up to 9 different cell styles can be

applied (A-I)

• Set properties for all cells with that code (such as background image and colour) in the theme,

under Page layout->Contents region->Homepages->Layout editor cells.

Adding Components to Articles

Components can be added directly to an article rather than adding to a layout through the Themes

and Layouts area. You should add a component to an article rather than a layout if they apply only

to that specific article e.g. Poll, Map that relates to the article.

To add a component to an article select the ‘Add a Component’ button in the document editor

and select the component type you wish to add.



Applying Themes and layouts to Groups and Articles

The navigation pane on the left hand side of the window

shows where existing themes and layouts have been

applied.

The symbol indicates that this group has a theme

applied, the symbol indicates that a layout has been

applied.

Layouts and Themes are inherited by the groups below

unless they are overridden with a different Layout or

Theme. For example the ‘Baptism’ group will inherit the

layout from ‘Church Life’ but ‘Conference’ staff will use the

Women’s Conference layout. This inheritance rule is broken

only by the homepage (Root group) layout. As this is usually

very different it is never inherited by the groups below. If

they don’t have a layout applied they’ll use a standard 3

column layout.

You can create mini-sites with a different graphical style;

by applying a different theme and layout to an area of the

site.

Applying a new theme or layout

• To apply the theme to your web site click the button in the appropriate row.

• Layouts can be applied to a Group homepage and/or the Article pages. Group homepages

are the first pages that are reached when a user selects an option on the menu. Article pages

are used for any of the other articles in the group apart from the group homepage articles.

System Page layouts

Several pages exist within the Insight system whose layouts aren’t editable. The following are

examples of system pages:

• Forums

• Audio/Video

• Address book

• Calendar

• My Area pages

• Registration page

• Login/Logout pages

• Help page

Only the header and the footer of system page layouts can be modified. This is set under the folder

titled ‘System’ at the bottom of the group structure in the Themes and Layouts area. Whatever


you select in the contents area of the layout will have no effect on the page. If no system page is set

then the header and footer from the root group layout will be used.

A Theme can be applied to the system pages. All the system pages will use the same theme and

layout selected.

Themes & layouts in the Shop

If you have a shop then you can also select Themes and Layouts to be used on your Shop pages.

At the bottom of the group structure in the Themes and Layouts area, below the System area you’ll

see a Shop Products area. Below this there will be a folder for each category in your shop and

several shop system pages including the Checkout and Search Results.

A layout and theme can be applied to each of these folders. Instead of “Group” and “Article” layouts

though, on shop category layouts you’ll see the “Category”, “Items” and “Reviews” columns. This is

because a layout can be specified for each of these types of pages.

• The Category page determines the homepage listing of a category, normally a listing of items

for sale in that category.

• The Items page determines the display of the Item detail i.e. when an item has been selected.

• The Reviews page determines the layout of the Reviews comments left by customers.

Mini-Layouts

Mini-layouts enable a customisation of the layout of a particular component. Currently they can only

be added to the Shop “Item List” component and the “Article List” component.

Session 6: Case Studies

• citychurchcambridge.org.uk - Different homepages for logged in users from site visitors.

• dpmuk.org - Background image added to the theme for the banner so it displays behind the

menus and smaller file download.

• fusion.uk.com - Cell styles and graphics in layout combine to create rounded embossed

content frame. Images added to advert component to create rotating images.

• pecan.org.uk - Background image used in banner. Dynamically updatable rotating flash

movie.


Session 7: Advanced Tools

Flash animations can be embedded within your Insight website. SWISH Max is a simple flash creator

for less than £100.

Slideshow Pro is a Flash plug-in that can be combined with our Media XML feed to dynamically load

images into a flash movie. e.g.pecan.org.uk

Javascript Slideshow – Dynamically display images from a particular group or media folder on

your site by adding javascript and our Media API tool. Article explaining how to do this on the

shareinsight.info website.

Firefox add-ons

Many plug-ins can be installed for the Firefox browser (available from mozilla.com) that help work

with designing websites. Here a small selection of useful add-ons:

Colorzilla – helps select the colours used on area of websites

MeasureiT – measure the dimensions of a selected area of a page

Firebug - allows the debugging, editing, and monitoring of any website's CSS, HTML, DOM, and

JavaScript, and provides other web development tools

Themes & Layouts - Exercises Page 1 of 1

Themes & Layouts Training Day Exercises

Session 1: Insight Basics

1. Login to the website.

2. Once logged in update your user profile.

3. Create a group

4. Create an article in that group.


1. Create a new layout from an existing layout.

2. Modify your layout table and cell structure, merging columns etc.

3. Change the position of Components in your layout, try adding new ones, change the properties

of the components.


1. Create a new theme.

2. Modify the colour scheme of your theme.

3. Edit specific aspects of your theme e.g. menu bar colour.

Session 4: Cell Widths and Styles

1. Try changing the width of your site.

2. Experiment with changing the width of the columns in your layout

3. Add a cell style and set the style properties.


1. Create a group page layout and apply that to a group.

2. Create an Article layout and apply that to all articles across your site.

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