Group Setup
When a group leader sends an email requesting a group setup (or a form is submitted)
- Staff (or the form) creates a group record in our database. This automatically generates preliminary versions of the text needed to post on the website, including a Collapse-O-Matic “short-code” used for the main listing and the content of a small group-specific page that can be found by someone searching the entire website for groups. Staff reviews and may need to create an edited version those preliminary texts.
- Staff adds a user to the website and assigns a username, password and display name. Normally, leaders will be given the role “author,” able to log on to publish their own posts (even if most are actually published by an editor). However there may be circumstances where leaders will be assigned the role “contributor”, requiring an editor to publish their posts and specify an author.
- Staff adds the draft group-specific page. At the top it shows what the page will look like. At the bottom it shows what the Collapse-O-Matic “short-code” will look like.
- Staff sends email is sent to the leader for review and confirmation. Modifications are made as needed.
- Once the page is approved by the leader, staff adds the Collapse-O-Matic “short-code” to the main group list page(s) and publishes the group-specific page.
- If a leader included the text for an initial post, staff will create it and assign its “author” to be that group’s username
- If leaders wish to directly participate in editing or publishing their posts or pages by logging on to the site, staff may be able to provide some training
If an update is requested, the existing record is updated. The steps needed at that point depend on how extensive the changes are, but usually steps similar to 4-6 are needed.
Message Handling
Site volunteer staff control what is posted as “published” content. Such site volunteers may be “administrators” or “editors.”
When a new email arrives at the special address, a copy is forwarded to staff. The message stays in the mailbox until the site wakes up, which happens whenever someone opens a page on the site. When the site sees a message, it compares the From address to its list of approved “posting email addresses”. If the From address is found on the list, it reads the message and creates a draft post. The post is assigned an author based on the “posting email address.” Then the email message is deleted (placed in the mailbox’s “trash” folder).
Editing and Publishing
Based on the staff schedules, staff receives the forwarded message and, so notified, visits the site and reviews the draft post(s). If there are concerns, staff will contact the leaders for resolution. That may require the leader to send a revised email message. Then staff will publish the post.
If leaders are properly trained, they can log in to the site and publish their own posts. Or just add/edit/publish posts directly without using email messages.
Staff will handle any issues or process that is needed to handle messages marked as “KEEP” or “KEEP” with a date. We will use a plugin to automatically “unpublish” posts whose dates have expired.