Adobe’s termination of Flash on January 12, 2021 means that you will not be able to upload images in the News Tool. As a result, the UVM News Tool will go offline on January 12 and you can now add your news directly to Drupal. Please note that the UVM Web Team is currently building a replacement tool — more details about that coming early in the new year. When that tool rolls out, you will continue to add your stories through Drupal. So making this interim switch now will also be a good way to get comfortable in the new tool.

Read more about adding news to your site between January 12 and when the new tool comes online -- or -- go to Drupal and add your news.

Never worked in Drupal before? You might find it helpful to read up on how to upload images and make links.

News Tool users will now add news stories directly to Drupal.

How to create and publish a story

The Drupal interface is a bit different from what you’ve used in the News Tool, but you will be able to add and edit all your story content in one system without the importing delays you may be used to with Drupal (that's called a "silver lining").

Step 1: GET DRUPAL ACCESS

If you are not a member of the Drupal group that you are publishing news for, reach out to that group's administrator and request to be added.

Step 2: LOGIN TO DRUPAL

Step 3: ADD CONTENT THROUGH CONTENT TYPE "UVM NEWS STORY"

Add content > UVM News Story
 

 

Step 4: ADD GROUP INFORMATION

Groups Audience: Set this to the News Tool group that most accurately reflects the banner and menu you would want your news story associated with.

News Groups Approved to Display this Story: Any groups that are added here will automatically have this story appear in their feed upon publication. If you are unsure if this group would want this news story, you can ask them and add them later. Groups here are mapping to the legacy news tool group names. Begin typing and yours will appear. You can add more than one.

Step 5: ADD AUTHOR INFORMATION

Step 6: ADD YOUR STORY TEXT

This information will look familiar to users of the legacy News Tool. Format as normal.

Change in workflow for uploading inline images: When you upload an image in a text field, it is important to double-click on the image, then delete the pre-filled width and height so that the image will scale properly on mobile.

screenshot of width and height fields

Step 7: ADD RELATED LINKS

Step 8: TEMPLATE ELEMENTS

"Template elements" is the tab in the legacy News Tool where users added images and video. The same is true here. Image size is still 800x400. If you choose a featured video instead of a featured image, you can add this to the Featured Video field using this format if using YouTube (embed link https://youtu.be/yeS6PAqn2pU).

Step 9: PUBLISH YOUR STORY

This interim version of the news tool uses the toggle for "Moderate" when publishing. This will not be a new feature if you've ever published Drupal pages. Note that upon publishing, all groups listed in "News Groups Approved to Display this Story" will receive this story in their feed.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Moderate will be turned on on the morning of January 12. If you attempt to use this method of publishing news BEFORE January 12, your news will publish to the groups listed immediately upon saving.

If you'd like to test this before January 12 and publish something to your unit's news feed that you wish to get rid of, you simply change the "Primary News Group" field to "XXXXDeleteXXXX" group like you would normally in order to delete a Drupal page.

screen grab of assigning story to "Delete" group in order to delete.

 

How to see all of your group's news stories

Users will navigate to their Drupal Workbench in order to find the list of all stories related to their groups. Once you sort by content type, in this case "UVM News Story," you will receive a list of results by group (all groups in which you are a user). You can also search by name, or part of a story's name, to locate an individual story.

 

 

Shortcut: "All My Content" button in top menu, sort by content type:

screenshot of admin tool bar in Drupal -- "All My Content" added to top bar

 

How to "get" another group's story to appear in your feed

Similar to the "old" News Tool, you still have to ask the story owner to add your news group to their "News Groups Approved to Display this Story" field. The main difference here will be that you will get the story upon save and will not have to approve it in a separate step.

Get help!

We realize change can be tricky, especially when it changes your workflow. Please stick with us as we work toward improving your news experience. If you need help please drop by Web Help Hours for live assistance.