A few weeks ago some of you may have noticed a little addition to the Meeting Calendar in the ANR Portal. This addition is a little link in the top-left corner of the Meeting Calendar which says "Resource Calendar". Clicking on this link reveals another calendar all in pink colors. Some may be asking how do I use the Resource Calendar? What does the Resource Calendar do? Or even why is it pink?
I am glad you asked! The Resource Calendar was designed as a way for anyone in ANR to see which meeting rooms and other resources are being used. You may be wondering if the Plum Room available on August 20th? Well now you can find out. In the top-right corner of the Resource Calendar you will see a drop-down menu. Choose the "Plum Room" and now you can see whether it's scheduled or not. If it is scheduled click on the event name and you can see the details of the event.
How do I add my Resources?
Adding your own resources to the calendar is quite easy. Select the "List Resources" link in the top-left corner of the Resource Calendar. This will take you to a list of ALL the resources accross ANR. If you have permission to edit the Resource an edit link will show up to the right of the resource name. Otherwise you may view the resource details by clicking on the respective view link to the right of the resource name.
If you see the resource you want to add already in the list, someone else already added it. If not select the "New Resource" link in the top-right corner of the page. Now enter in all the appropriate information for this resource. Make sure to select a Resource Unit where people manage this resource. The Resource Unit drop down decides who may edit the resource as well as who may schedule the resource. So if I create a resource for the Communication Services Meeting Room. I would select the unit ANR Communication Services. This automatically enables everyone in ANR Communication Sevices unit to be able to edit and schedule the Communication Services Metting Room.
I added a resource. Now what do I do?
Click on "Return to Resource Calendar", this takes you too the calendar itself. Here you may schedule events that use the new resource. To do so simply click a day on the calendar that is today or in the future. This takes you to a form allowing you to create an event. Enter the event name, choose the resource for the event, the time, and any other information that may be helpful. Save this and it is now available for all ANR to see.
Who can edit the resources and schedule events?
Resource creators can always edit resources and schedule events for the resources they create. However for most people they will be using resources that other people have already created. When creating a resource the Resource Unit is very important because this tells the system who may schedule events. Everyone who is a member of that unit may schedule the resources for that unit.
What happens if I want to schedule a resource but cannot?
From the Resource List if you view the resource you will find contact information of people who are able to schedule the resource for you. Simply contact the appropriate person and they can help you.
Why is the Resource Calendar Pink?
That mystery is very great! I'm afraid the answer to that may never be known!
We are testing a new WYSIWYG editor on the Blogs! Please let us know how you like it compared to the old one. We hope that this one will not only be much better looking but also much easier and better to use. Go ahead and copy and paste from Word this editor should clean out all the garbage!
So go ahead and try to break it, but please let us know if you do run into any issues, or even better let us know if you like it more than the previous editor.
We just added the ability to track your Site Builder site with Google Analytics. To enable Google Analytics, you'll first need an account, which you can get here.
You will receive a code, as seen in the image. Go to Site Builder and click "Edit Site Information" under the Administration section. You will see the field available to place your newly minted code. Save the information and republish your site when prompted. That's it!
A couple of warnings about Google Analytics. First, we don't support it in any way. We only facilitate you being able to use them, and do not offer any training on running reports within Google's system. Second, Google Analytics is not set up to track file downloads. We are looking at ways to integrate file tracking, but right now you will only be able to view statistics regarding page views and other user data acquired by Google.
Earlier this week, the Web Action Team received honorable mention from the prestigious Larry L. Sautter Award Program, which highlights innovations and achievements in UC information technology. To celebrate, we may give ourselves an extra 21 days off next fiscal year!
In other news, we've made one upgrade to a system that warrants some announcement and explanation. We have a universal file handler that we use in many places like Collaborative Tools, Site Builder's Calendar, the Master Gardener Volunteer Management System and other applications. I added special handling for Flash files (FLVs and SWFs), so that they will appear embedded rather than as links.
Give it a try! The function will capture the size of your file and, if the file is an FLV, create a first slide for the player. It will also reduce the size of your video to fit on the page you have displayed it.
If you need a tool to capture a FLV from the 'net (and I'm not saying you should, since it's probably illegal), you can use Keep Vid dot com, a site that merely gives you the direct path to the actual Flash file so you can download it to your computer.
In recent weeks there has been some updates to the Blog system that should be noted. While these are minor, they can be very helpful and help make more content available to those of you who frequently post on the ANR Blogs.
First, change goes out to those wo make comments on posts. Now if you leave a comment and someone else comments on the same post, you should recieve an e-mail letting you know that someone else has commented on the post. We added this because many times people will reply to a comment but the commenter may never know about the reply.
For the second change we now allow users to embed content like YouTube videos into the blogs. Here's one below as an example:
This is quite easy to do but a couple steps should be followed for it to work correctly. First find a video you want to embed or include in your post. Then copy the "Embed" HTML coding and paste the coding into the source code of your post. That is it! Don't worry I'll give more in depth steps in an example below.
In order to embed the YouTube video above. I went to YouTube and found the video I wanted to include. Next to the video is small box where you will find the "Embed" HTML code that can be copied and pasted in to the blog post.
The arrows point to the code that needs to be copied. Here's the steps needed to embed the video into your post.
- Copy "Embed" HTML coding (make sure to copy all the coding)
- Edit your blog post
- Click on the "Source" button in the WYSIWYG editor. (this switches to the HTML view of your post)
- Find the place where you want to include the video.
- Paste the copied HTML code into your blog post.
- Click the source button again.
If all went well you should see an empty box where the video will be displayed with a small green puzzle piece in the middle. To test the video Click "Save and Review" the video should load and be dispalyed inside your post.
If viewing the HTML Source is too confusing there is a second way to paste the "Embed" coding. Simply paste the coding in the text editor without clicking the "source" button. Click "Save and Review" then click "Re-Edit This Post", and the "Embed" HTML coding should be be properly converted. You should see an empty box where the "Embed" coding once was. This method may not always work, but it never hurts to try it if the steps above are too complicated.
Hope this post is informative and helpful!
