News items in XUNO

News items are the perfect tool for communicating with your school community. They can be used for newsletters, bulletins, primary school timetables, general notices and reminders. News items can be displayed to staff, students and/or parents/carers,

In this article

• Permissions: Who can create, approve and publish news items?
• Creating news items
• Approving news items
• A few tips

Permissions: Who can create, approve and publish news items?

To assign permissions to a XUNO user group, go to Options > Software Settings > User Groups & Permissions.

Click on the Pencil icon next to the staff user group you are setting permissions for, and then click on the Staff option in the left hand menu.

The table below outlines the permissions and the access level granted.

Creating news items

Staff must have the 'Add' permission for news items to access this function.

1. Go to School > Communication > News.OR Click the + icon in the news widget on the dashboard.
2. Click the Add button.
3. Enter a title for your news item in the New news item field.
4. In the text editor, type in the text for the news item. Note that you can use formatting if required using the options in the header bars in the text editor.
5. To print your news item text, click the Printer icon. You can also preview your news item as a popup, by clicking the Eye icon, or in full screen, by clicking the Full screen icon.
6. Optionally, attach one or more files by clicking the [ Attach a file ] text. Maximum file size is 1G.
7. Select the Publish Date by clicking on the date and using the calendar picker to make a selection. This is the date the news item will appear on the XUNO news feed (once it has been approved).
8. Select the Publish Time using the dropdown list. This is the date the news item will appear on the XUNO news feed (once it has been approved).
9. Select the Expiry Date by clicking on the date and using the calendar picker to make a selection. This is the date in which the news item will no longer appear on the XUNO news feed.
10. In Show news to: select who should be able to see this news item. You can make one or more selections by ticking the Staff, Students, and/or Parents checkboxes.
11. You can then further refine who will see the news item on their news feed, by choosing one or more Forms, Classes, Groups, Year levels, or Individuals in each user type.
12. If the news item is ready for approval, use the Status: dropdown list to change from Draft to Ready to Publish. If you have permission to approve news items, skip to the next section, 'Approving and publishing news items', step 4.
13. Click the Save Draft button. Your news item is now ready to be approved, and a XUNO user with approval rights will be notified to approve and publish the item.

Approving news items

News items may only be approved by a user who has the 'Approve' permission for news items. When there are news items awaiting approval, an alert will show in the alerts widget on the dashboard of all users with 'Approve' permission.

To approve a news item:

1. Go to School > Communication > News, or click on the alert shown in your alerts widget.
2. Any news items awaiting approval will have a red Approval required tag.
3. Open the news item you wish to approve by clicking on the Pencil icon.
4. Review the content, then use the Approved?: dropdown list to change the selection to Yes.
5. Click the Send Now button. Note: If the news item is set to be published at a future date/time, the button will instead display Schedule. Click to approve this news item to be published at the applicable time.
6. The news item will be shown to the selected users once the publish date and time have passed. Any app or email notifications you have enabled in your Messaging & SMS settings will be sent once the news item is published.

A few tips

• By default, a table resizes to fit the screen width (unless otherwise specified to be smaller). This is great for basic tables, but isn't recommended for most complex tables.
• Attach a PDF or Word document to the news item when a complex table is required.
• When viewing news items, use the Expired items checkbox and the month/year dropdown lists to see prior and/or expired news items.
• For repeating news items, e.g. bulletins and newsletters, consider using the Copy icon to create a new news item based on the previous item. This will copy all the formatting as well, and save time.
• Consider creating a 'Master' news item which has all the school formatting, logos, etc. included. This can be a draft news item that is copied every time a new news item is needed.
• Limit the different fonts and formatting used in a single news item. Multiple changes in fonts and formatting can be distracting.
• Different devices and browsers can display fonts and graphics differently. Stick to standard fonts to ensure the best display on all devices.
• Remember that different devices and browsers show emojis slightly differently (or not at all if converted to plain text). Use emojis to emphasis a point only. Do not use it as the key part of the message.
• Emails for scheduled news items will be sent during the next autoimport that runs after the scheduled release time. For most schools, this is within the hour.
• For information on using news on your mobile device, see the related article News items in the XUNO Staff App.