Stories
Stories are a news or blog article format where you can share a timely story about your office or department. They are also sometimes referred to as “feature stories.” Examples of this content include student profiles and new faculty/staff hirings where visual content is especially useful. Stories require a lead image (at the top of the story) and a preview image (that appears in a feed). A story preview can be added to any landing page or secondary page on your site.
Updates are a newer type of story that does not require the use of an image. They are an excellent way to share short, timely information about your office or department, and can be added to any landing page or secondary page, just like stories. Examples of this content include ongoing construction updates or parking lot closures.
If you have already created a Story or Update, learn more about Connecting to a Page and Deleting, Moving, & Renaming this content.
Creating a Story or Update
Stories and Updates are created and stored in Cascade under the _stories site. (Request access in SpiderTechNet.) Once inside the _stories site, navigate to the hermes folder, followed by your site’s specific folder. Content inside your site’s folder is typically organized by story type and then by date (usually by year and then month). Navigate to the appropriate subfolder and click Add Content. Then, select Create a Story Page or Create an Updates Page from the selection menu.
Editing a Story or Update
There are many options within this Edit screen, some of which are pertinent only to University Communications. The following fields on the Edit screen are important to review when publishing a story or an update to your website:
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Page Name: This is not the headline. This is the file name of this page within Cascade. Page Names must be lowercase with spaces replaced by hyphens.
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Placement Folder: If you have already created your story or update within a specific folder, this field will be automatically selected.
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Page Status: Select Active when you are ready to publish your story or update. If it is still being drafted or if it needs to be removed, select Inactive. Please note that feedable content cannot be deleted from Cascade.
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Story Type: This should remain set to Features for stories or Updates for updates.
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Display Date: Select the date and time for your story or update. This is the date that will appear under the headline.
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Title: Insert the headline here.
Preview
The preview section controls the image and text for a story or update when it appears in a feedable row. Stories require both Preview Text and Preview Images. The Preview Text may be a line directly lifted from your story, or new verbiage explaining your story or update succinctly, typically in 1 or 2 sentences. To edit the Preview:
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Scroll down and click to expand the Preview section.
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Insert your Preview Text.
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Click to expand the Preview Image section. Connect Hero, Promo and Thumbnail images to the appropriate field using image files already stored in _cdncontent. If you have not already uploaded images to _cdncontent, follow our Lead Media image guidance.
Lead Media
The Lead Media section controls the image that appears at the top of the story page itself. This field is optional for updates. To edit:
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Expand the Lead Media section.
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Connect the hero, promo, and thumbnail images to the appropriate fields. If you have not already uploaded images to _cdncontent, follow our Lead Media image guidance.
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To use the optional image caption feature, add copy to the Caption region.
Main Content Row
This section is where you will add the body copy for your story or update. Editing a Main Content Row works much like a editing a webpage. Images can be floated and various content types can be utilized. Follow our Editing Pages guidance for more information on editing these content types.
Display Groups
Display Groups have been created for different websites and topics so that a story or update can be displayed in multiple places. To add display groups:
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Scroll down to Display Groups and click to expand this section.
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Click to open the first display group and select a Site Name from the dropdown menu. Typically, this is your site name.
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Add additional Display Groups by selecting the green plus sign.
To publish, simply submit and publish your story or update.
Once your story or update is ready, review our guidelines for Connecting to a Page and Deleting, Moving, and Renaming.