Dynamic Committee Homepages

Getting Started with Dynamic Committee Homepages For ABA Members December 2005

Table of Contents Introduction Creating Your DCH Pages Edit Mode and Standard Mode Editing a Module Adding & Deleting Modules Modules Who We Are More About Us Leadership Message From the Chair Programs, Meetings, and Events Related Products Sites of Interest Other Links of Interest Newsletters & Publications Related Resources Subcommittees List Serv Lists Header Including Your Section Logo Editing Your Committee Name Advanced Options Choosing a Layout Enrollment Options Join Us Module Custom Online Enrollment Email Confirmation Message More Online Enrollment Settings Modifying the FROM Address Copying Addresses on Enrollment Email Questions & Answers 2

Introduction What are Dynamic Committee Homepages? Dynamic Committee Homepages are a means of enabling ABA staff and committee chairs to create and maintain committee website content without the knowledge of HTML. Once enabled, committee chairs, co-chairs and sub-committee chairs can be given access to post and edit all content present on their committee homepage. The contribution process consists of visiting the committee homepage, entering edit mode, making selections, providing desired content and submitting your changes. How do they work? DCH s (Dynamic Committee Homepages) combine information from the ABA s membership, committee, and meetings systems with text and files provided by you to display the final committee homepage. Edit permissions are determined by ABA staff. DCH harvests information from internal systems to display committee leadership and contact information, the committee roster, and the committee name. It also uses meeting information present in the meeting systems to display section meetings available in the online calendar, and link them to their respective registration pages. How do I know if Dynamic Committee Homepages would be useful for my section? Any section that is currently maintaining committee pages on the ABA website would most likely benefit from using DCH instead. DCH simplifies the web content contribution process by automatically posting information from internal systems, so that it does not need to be re-keyed to appear on the committee website. Also, allowing committee chairs to post their own content, eliminates the need to communicate desired changes to section staff. Turnaround time for posting committee materials to the web is greatly reduced, and the current person-to-person communication necessary to post materials is almost entirely eliminated. If you have any questions about getting started with DCH, contact ABA staff. Creating your DCH pages You can create and edit DCH pages for any committees in which you are the chair, co-chair, or sub-committee chair. If you have not been appointed to these positions, and would still like to contribute content, contact your section or committee staff. To create or edit a DCH page, first log in to the ABA website by clicking on the Member Login link located in the top header of any ABA webpage. On the main ABA homepage, the link is present in the upper left-hand corner. Other ABA pages may put the link in the upper right-hand corner. After you log in, you will be brought to a myaba page that indicates your ABA involvement, and the ability to modify your profile, among other things. The Entities area of DCH lists your sections, divisions and forums that you are a member of, and the subsequent committees that you are involved with. If a committee in that list already has a DCH page created, the committee name will be linked to the DCH page. If not, the committee name will not be hyperlinked. If you have access 3

permissions to edit an existing committee page, click on the link to the committee, or click on the adjacent EDIT button. If a committee does not have a DCH page created already, the name will not be hyperlinked. If you have access rights to create a new DCH page for that committee, only the EDIT link will be available. In the example below, the person logged-in is a member of the Section of Intellectual Property. They are also a member of the Copyright Legislation committee. The Copyright Legislation committee already has a DCH page, and links to that page. This person is also the chair of the Unfair Competition-Trade Identity committee as is indicated by the EDIT button present. However, the Unfair Competition-Trade Identity committee does not yet have a DCH page present. So, clicking on the EDIT button would create one. After navigating to the committee, or clicking on the edit button, the DCH page will appear. If this is a new DCH page, some default values will be present. If the DCH page was previously created, the content and layout chosen by the previous contributor will display. For the purposes of this user guide, we will use the International Law International Tax committee as an example. The committee has just been created, and is displayed here with default entries: 4

The initial DCH screen consists of several content modules. A module is the term we use to describe each content area on the DCH page. Modules can be added or removed from the page depending on your needs. We ll talk more about how to alter modules later in this guide. You ll also notice that your DCH page contains the side navigation of your section, and your section s logo. We ll also talk more about how to alter these settings later in the guide. Edit Mode and Standard Mode At the top of the DCH page, you will notice a message indicating that you have access rights to edit this page, accompanied by some links. The initial DCH page you will see probably appears in STANDARD mode. EDIT buttons are available next to each content module. You can toggle between EDIT mode and STANDARD mode by clicking on the links located at the top of the screen. Use STANDARD mode to get a better idea of what your DCH page looks like to the average visitor, by removing the EDIT buttons and other functions from the page. Switch back to EDIT mode to modify the DCH page. Editing a Module To make changes to a module, switch to EDIT mode, and click on the EDIT button that appears next to the content area you wish to modify. Let s start with making a change to the Who We Are module. You are brought to a screen that looks something like this 5

The name of your section, as well as the name of the committee home page you are creating will appear across the top of the page. Next will be a dynamic salutation, welcoming the person who is logged in. In the welcome message under the salutation, the title of the logged in person will appear (in this example, section web contributor). At the end of this paragraph will be the email address of a contact person that contributors may reach should any questions arise. Each module has a web enable checkbox to indicate whether or not to include that specific item on the final DCH page (a checked box means display, an unchecked box means do not display ). Let s try removing the Who We Are module from the DCH by un-checking the web enable box on the screen, and scrolling down to the bottom of the page, then hitting SUBMIT. Agree to the pop-up confirmation message. 6

You ll notice that the DCH page now no longer contains the Who We Are message. 7

Adding & Deleting Modules You can also add and delete modules from the DCH page all at once by using the Add/Delete Module link located at the top of the screen. Click on the link. A screen similar to the following should result: 8

Notice that Who We Are is unchecked. That s because we previously removed the web enable flag from the individual module. You can remove modules in bulk by un-checking boxes here. Or, you can enable modules not enabled by default, or that have previously been disabled by checking their respective box. Let s re-enable Who We Are and SUBMIT. 9

Modules: Who We Are To edit a module, click the EDIT button next to the module that you would like to modify. In this case, let s edit the Who We Are module again. This time, we are going to change the content of the Who We Are module to include our committee s mission statement. You can edit the Custom Title of any module by providing alternative text over the suggested text that appears by default. In this case, we re going to replace Who We Are with Mission Statement. We are also going to provide the text of our mission statement in the area provided. You also have the option of using the following text editing features. You might recognize them from Microsoft Word. You can mouse over the buttons for further explanation. Boldface, Italicize, or Underline Text by highlighting the text you wish to emphasize and clicking on the buttons provided. Align your text to the right, center, or left by highlighting the text you wish to align, and clicking on the buttons provided. Create ordered or unordered lists. Indent or outdent your text. Insert a horizontal line or rule. Insert special characters like Trademarks or Copyrights. Insert hyperlinks by highlighting the text that you want hyperlinked, and clicking the hyperlink button. Then, provide the destination address. You can also insert mailto: links by choosing email from the link type drop-down. 10

You are limited to 1,500 characters in the content area, including spaces, letters, line breaks, etc. If you would like to add more complex HTML coding to the Who We Are area, or would just like to see what s going on behind the scenes, you can Switch to HTML Mode. Click on the link provided near the bottom of the content box. Note: Be careful when cutting and pasting text from other applications into the content area box. Applications like Word, or WordPerfect allow the user to utilize various character sets and special characters. These characters might not always function correctly when present in the DCH content areas. A good practice is to backspace over quotation marks, apostrophes and other special characters after you ve pasted in the text, and re-type those characters while inside of the DCH content area. Similarly, make sure to check any hyperlinks that you are taking over from Word, as they may not function in DCH until they are recreated using the DCH hyperlink tool. Modules: More About Us The More About Us content module is contains exactly the same functionality as the Who We Are module. It is intended to allow you another 1,500 character area to use at your discretion. As with all content areas, you can modify the sub-header to serve your own purpose for the module. The More About Us module does not appear on the DCH page by default, and must be enabled using the Add/Delete Modules link located at the top of the DCH edit mode screen. 11

Modules: Leadership This area allows you the option of displaying your committee's current leadership positions. The positions that you can display are chair, co-chair(s), vice chair(s), sub-committee chair, council representative(s), liaison(s) and staff. If any of these leadership positions are currently established in the TIMSS committee system, they will appear under their respective heading (see below). If the correct leadership positions for your committee do not display, or are outdated, they need to be changed in the ABA s membership system by ABA staff. The displayed names are also directly linked to the online member directory, allowing your users to click on any of the listed names, taking them directly to additional details about that member. You'll also notice a roster link on the final committee page, once it has been created. This link also utilizes the member directory to display all committee members. You can determine here whether or not you'd like the roster link to appear on the final committee page. Note: Access to the ABA Online Member Directory is restricted to ABA Members Only. Outside of ABA staff offices, members will be prompted to log in before accessing any member or roster information. The directory is updated on a nightly basis, so rosters and member profile information will not immediately reflect changes made by staff. 12

Modules: Message From the Chair This area is used to display a general message from your committee s chair or co-chair(s). If you are using layout option 1, a link to read the chair s message will be located beneath the chair s name, in the leadership area. Clicking on this link will launch another window with the chair s message present. With layout 2, the chair s message will appear in the main portion of the page, just like the Who We Are and More About Us messages. Layout can be changed in Advanced Options. Modules: Programs, Meetings, and Events This module allows you to display default ABA or section specific events from meetings present in the meetings system, or custom committee events not in the system. Events pulled from the ABA registration system will be directly linked to their respective registration screen, or an alternative location provided by staff. For 'default ABA events' and 'section specific events', only the next 5 upcoming events total from both categories will be selected (not including any custom events). Custom Events Custom events not managed in the ABA s meetings system can be entered manually in DCH. They appear in a separate area from ABA and Section events. To add a custom event, follow these steps: 1.) Select the Display Custom Events checkbox, and indicate how many custom events you wish to display. 2.) Select the start and finish dates of your event by clicking in the respective boxes, and choosing a date from the calendar. 3.) Then, provide a title for your event. 4.) If you like, you can provide a URL link to a website that contains more detailed information. Note: Please be certain to use fully qualified URL s when entering web addresses (i.e. http://www.abanet.org). Don t forget the http:// at the beginning. 5.) You can also provide a description (1,000 characters in length) telling more about your event, or how to sign-up. 13

Modules: Related Products This area allows you to display a product from the ABA Web Store (http://www.ababooks.org, http://www.abaclecatalog.org) on your committee page. You have the option to choose a randomly selected ABA wide product, a randomly selected product sponsored by your section, or a specific product sponsored by your section. The product that you choose will appear with its thumbnail image, a brief description of the product, a more link and a Buy Now button. This is a great way to highlight a publication that was authored by a member of your committee, or contains materials relevant to the committee s mission. 14

Note: If you can t find the publication you are looking for in the list of section-sponsored products, it may not be present on the ABA Web Store. Contact ABA staff to include a product in the store. If you choose to highlight an individual product, and that product eventually becomes unavailable in the web store, a broken image will appear on your DCH page. Modules: Sites of Interest/Other Links These areas allow you to enter links and upload files to appear in one list on the committee homepage. Links: Links can be either internal ABA links or external links to other websites. You can also provide a description for each link. These sections also use variable drop lists, allowing you to enter up to 10 separate links each. For each site you wish to display, please enter a description for that site, as well as a fully qualified URL (i.e. http://www.abanet.org). File Uploads: A drop list appears for you to select the number of files that you would like to upload to the server. You may enter up to 10 files at a time. For each file that you wish to upload, you will see a BROWSE button. Clicking on this button will display a select window that will allow you to choose a file from your local computer to upload. You may only select documents that have an extension type.doc,.zip,.xls,.ppt, or.pdf. All other extensions cannot be uploaded. Each file must also be 15

2 megabytes or less. Each committee can upload up to 10 megabytes of content in each of these areas. Once a file has been selected, you have the option of entering a brief (75 character) description of the file. Note: All files uploaded will be scanned with anti-virus software prior to being made available to the general public. Files found to have a virus will be deleted. Additionally, all files that contain spaces in the filename or exceed 2MB will not be uploaded. You will receive a pop-up message indicating that the upload did not succeed. The name of all uploaded files will display, as well as each file's size, the last modified date, the description entered for that file, and a delete checkbox. To delete an uploaded file, just select the checkbox next to the file in question, and click the submit button at the bottom of the page. A running total of how much space you have available for any additional file uploads appears on the screen. Display Order To alter the display order of the uploaded files and links, you can specify an order number in the boxes provided. Modules: Newsletters & Publications/Related Resources These areas allow you to upload additional documents to the website for your website visitors to access. The instructions are the same as above. Modules: Subcommittees If a committee is set up in the committee system to be the parent of one or more subcommittees, task forces, or other types of child entities, you will be presented with an option to display those child entities on the DCH page. They are listed according to what class, or type, of child entity they are. As with other content areas, the sub-title is customizable. If DCH pages exist for those child entities, they will be automatically hyperlinked from the list. Modules: List Serv Lists Many committees use List Serv email lists to communicate with their members and to facilitate discussion. In some cases you may want to display your committee List Serv lists on the committee homepage, so that others may sign up. In other cases, however, your lists may only be intended for committee members, and do not accept outside participants. Additionally, you may also use this area to automatically place new committee enrollees on the list, if they use Online Committee Enrollment to join. See the guide entitled Getting Started with Online Committee Enrollment for additional details. This area of DCH is intended to serve either of the purposes mentioned above, or both, allowing you to choose what works best for your committee. A drop list appears to allow you to enter up to 10 List Serv lists at a time. In the below example, we are entering 1 list: 16

For LISTSERV list name, enter the name of the list that you wish to display (i.e. ABA- HUMANRIGHTS). NOTE: You must have the exact name of the list for this functionality to work properly. If you are uncertain of a list s name, you may click on the click here for full listing to obtain a list of all current ABA List Serves. For LISTSERV list description, please enter a brief description of the purpose of the list. You may also choose whether to use this entry for display on your committee homepage, for the enrollment of new committee members, or both. Modules: Header Including Your Section Logo Your section logo will be populated from the ABA web store, if the logo is available there. If you have not uploaded a logo to the web store, a note stating that a logo has not been uploaded will display. Contact ABA staff about altering your section logo. You also have the option of displaying a different logo, as long as it has been uploaded to a web server. Contact ABA staff to upload a committee specific logo. Editing Your Committee Name 17

This area allows you to modify the displayed committee name for the completed web page. Making any changes here will not change the committee name in the ABA s membership system. The edited name will only appear on your committee website. Advanced Options: Choosing a Layout There are 2 layout options available. View the samples provided to see which layout might apply best for your committee. For committees with more content, we would recommend the second layout option. If you do not wish to use your standard section side navigation bar on your DCH pages, you can use a different.js file by referencing it s location in the box provided. This option is particularly useful for Standing and Special committees, as those committees usually have their own side navigation. If a side navigation file does not exist for your purposes, contact the webbox to create a new file. Advanced Options: Adding Edit Permissions If you would like to appoint another member of your committee to edit DCH pages, and that person is not the chair, co-chair or sub-committee chair, contact your section or committee staff. Enrollment Options: Join Us Module This module is present on your committee homepage if online committee enrollment has been enabled for the committee. The Subtitle of this particular module cannot be modified. The module is user specific, as it will only display certain links for certain users. There are 3 possible links that this module might display. Join the ABA Join Our Section 18

Join Our Committee Depending on who is logged-in to the website, the appropriate links will appear. If the user is not logged-in, all 3 links appear. If the logged-in user is already a member of the ABA, the first link will not be present. If the user is a member of the section, the first 2 links will not be present. And, if the user is a member of the committee, the entire module disappears. If your committee is not in part of a section, but rather a forum, or a division, you can edit the Join Our Section language accordingly in the provided text field. To enable online committee enrollment contact your section staff. Enrollment Options: Custom Online Enrollment Email Confirmation Message Note: The following selections have to do with adding some additional functionality to Online Committee Enrollment via the DCH form. This area allows you to customize the emails sent to new committee members if they enroll via online committee enrollment. Text entered in this area will appear at the bottom of every successful email confirmation sent to new committee members who join online. HTML tags are not supported on this feature. There is a 1,500-character limit on this field. Enrollment Options: More Online Enrollment Settings Modifying the FROM Address This area allows you to specify the FROM email address on all successful email confirmations sent to users who join this committee online. The chair s or co-chair s email address is the default. If there is NO email addresses associated with the committee s chair/co-chair, then service@abanet.org will appear as the first option. If there are co-chairs, the application will pick one co-chair to send from by default. 19

The second option is a blank text box where you may enter a custom email address that will appear as the FROM address on all committee join confirmation emails. If there is an email associated with the chair/co-chair for this committee, then an additional checkbox will appear asking if you would like the chair/co-chair carbon copied on all committee join confirmation emails. This field is not modifiable. Copying Addresses on Enrollment Email This area allows you to copy either the chair, an alternative address provided, or both on all new enrollment email messages for this committee that result from Online Committee Enrollment. Questions & Answers Q1: We have a new chair for our committee, and have entered this information into TIMSS. Do we have to update our final DCH page to include this change? A1: No. The leadership display pulls data directly from the committee system. Any changes in that system will be reflected in real time on your final DCH page. Q3: Our committee chair s term expires in August. Once we have a new chair, what must I do to allow the new chair access rights to their committee page? A4: You need to do nothing. The DCH application pulls directly from the committee system, so new chairpersons will automatically have access rights, and outgoing leadership will have their rights suspended, automatically. Q5: I am having trouble uploading files. Some files are present as links on the DCH page, but don t function. Who should I contact? A5: Contact your section or committee staff to work with the information systems department on resolving the issue. Q6: I am not receiving copies of online enrollments. What should I do first? A6: Verify that the option to be cc d on enrollments is on. This functionality is present in the Enrollment Options area. Next, verify that the email is not being sorted as spam before contacting section or committee staff. 20