Department pages are the most commonly used pages on the website. They are used as Home, About, Media, Program, Division and Location pages. These pages also have the capabilities to have Features, including video, blogs and news sections. Department pages all have a "Top Content" section.
This section is auto-generated based on your department's site traffic. It can't be removed or edited. Department pages have a three-column setup and you are able to request custom menus for department pages. Department pages have a 3000-character limit. This is to keep content concise and avoid frustrating users with terribly long pages. However, an extension of characters can be requested.
Requesting a Department Page
Department pages must be created by site administrators. Contact your department's content manager for your department's process for requesting new pages. Once a site administrator creates your page, they will save it and send it to you as an unpublished blank department page in your workbench.
How to Edit a Department Page
Search for the page from All Recent Content and then select “edit” in the right column.
All steps correspond to the fields at right, which are the fields given when creating department pages.
1. The correct Editorial Section should already be selected; however, if it needs to be changed, you can change it to reflect the change in the page.
2. The title should already be set up; however, if it needs to be changed, you can change the title of the page in the Page Title field.
3. The “This is a child page of:” field allows you to make this page have the same menu as another page. So if there is a page that has a custom menu, type the title of that page in this field to make this new page take on that same menu. Only department pages can have their own custom menus and they must be created by a site administrator.
These fields can only be accessed by a site administrator:
- Feature limit
- Character limit
- Portal and list tags
- Development home page tags
- Custom menu
- Global contact
You can skip these fields.
4. Place a summary of the department page in the Summary field. The title of the page as well as the text in the summary field (up to 600 characters) will be used in list pages (a Programs page if the page you are creating is a program, a Divisions page if the page you are creating is a Division, etc.). The title will then link to the rest of the page’s content. Make sure you don’t put too much content or images in the Summary editor, or they will get cut off in the list page
The Summary and Additional Message fields both use the body editor to allow you to edit your text. View more information about the body editor.
6. Add the rest of the page’s content to the Additional Message field.
7. To add video or media elements to your page, embed them in the "Embed Video and Other Media" box.
8. To add a blog or news feed, select the correct box under "Features."
Saving & Moderating Content
Once you’ve completed your Department Page, click Save at the bottom. You will then be able to send it through workflow to be published on the site.