Blog Post

Create

1. Log in to Sitefinity
2. Select Content > Blog
3. Select desired blog
   • Edit an Existing Blog Post
     1. Search for a key word that exists in the title of the blog post
     2. From the results, Click desired blog post
   • Create a New Blog Post
     1. Click the Create a Post button
        
4. Enter the appropriate information into each field (see below)
5. Click the Save as Draft button to save your progress
6. To view your post, click the blue Preview link at the top (center)
7. Publishing:
   • Editor - When the post is complete and ready for review, click the Send for Approval button
     
   • Reviewer - When the post is ready for publishing, click the Send for Publishing button
     Note: Published posts are automatically synced to www the next morning, so only 'Send for Publish' articles that are ready to be live.

Fields

• Title - used for the title of the blog post; appears in the hero image; used as the basis of the URL when originally entered
• Content - content of the blog post when viewed on the website
  • When creating or copying content, be sure to use the Sitefinity "Page or content" linking to link to other pages or news articles on the site rather than just using a URL. This will tie the link to the internal tracking so if the page moves, gets renamed, etc., the link will automatically update.
  • There is no need to link the www.cedarville.edu at the end of the blog post.
• Categories - used to group blog posts by topic
  • Click Show all categories to view a searchable tree list for selecting items
  • Expand Blog Categories
  • Expand desired Blog
  • Select one or more appropriate items in the list
    Note: Only choose items listed under the name of the Blog you are working in.
  • Click the Use Selected button
• Tags - not in use at this time
  

• More Options group - leave unchanged

• Article Date - the date of the blog post
  • Date displays on the website below the blog title
    
• Old Url - old Sitecore paths; ignore for new articles
• Summary - summary of the blog post; displays in three locations: website blog page, email sent and RSS
  
• Article Image - not in use at this time
  
• Related blog posts - select any appropriate blog posts; linked blog post titles will display at the bottom of the blog post
  
• Social media fields - adjust if necessary

Add Widgets

Image:

• Click the image icon in the Rich Text Editor (RTE)
• Click the Upload an image from your computer button or drag an image over the grey drop icon
• Select your image and click the Open button
  
• Click the pencil for Store uploaded image to
• Type in the name of the blog post (e.g. Parentconnect) and select the resulting folder (should say "Under Parents > Parentconect")
• Enter alt text that describes the image. Do not skip this step.
• Click the Use this image button

Pull Quote: 

[ PQ]pull quote content --author name[/PQ]
(note: remove space before PQ if copying from this example)

Optional parameters (coming soon):

• AuthorAlign - Set to right or left. Defaults to right.
• QuoteText - Set to upper or mixed. Defaults to upper.

Ensemble Video:

[ ENSEMBLE videoid=""]
(note: remove space before ENSEMBLE if copying from this example)

• videoid is the short ID found in the blue info icon in Ensemble.

Optional parameters:

• ShowTitle - If true, shows the video title as set in Ensemble. Defaults to false.
• ShowDescription  - If true, shows the video description as set in Ensemble. Defaults to false. 
• DescriptionAboveVideo - If true (and ShowDescription is true), shows the Ensemble video description above the video; if false, shows it below the video. Defaults to true.
• ThumbnailWidth - Width of the thumbnail image. Defaults to 350.

YouTube (coming soon):

Troubleshooting

Database Error when trying to save

This often happens when the Summary field has too much text in it, likely from just duplicating whatever was entered into the Content field. Set the Summary text to something of a more reasonable length and try saving again.