How to create and manage News items in Jostle

News Categories 

News Categories are required. They provide descriptive labels to your News Items so they are easy to identify.

Categories are a great way to identify the different types of content your organization may publish on a regular basis, like CEO Blog, Workplace Updates, or New Employees.

Categories are also available as one of the sorting options when you click on the filter icon that is on the left of the News view.

Once published, a News Item's colored Category label will appear above the Title of the News Item.

News Editors can manage News Categories to add, remove, disable, rename, and arrange them. Learn more here.

Using the Block Editor

To add a new block to your item, News Editors and News Reporters can click the “+” on the left side of the editor and select the type of block they want from the menu. Repeat for every different and/or additional piece of content you wish to add.

You can reposition any block by holding down on its arrows icon, and dragging the block up or down to its new location.

Click the three dots to the right of a block to open its Action Menu. You can also delete any block via this Action Menu.

News settings

In the column to the right of the block editor News Editors and News Reporters find all the optional settings available for their News Item.

The Cover is where you set the image you want displayed for your article on the News view. News Editors or News Reporters can tap Change Cover to select another option from:

• The Item’s content
• An uploaded image
• AI-powered image suggestions
• A search of an integrated image library

In order to use the last two, your organization must have Cover Suggestions in News enabled by a System Administrator at Administration Settings > Views and Functions > Manage AI Features. Note: It might take up to 1 hour for the AI feature to become fully functional.

After selecting the image for your Cover, you can choose how the image fills the available space with the Style options. There are four styles to choose from:

1. Fill: Crops the image to fill the entire space edge-to-edge. Part of the image may be trimmed if it doesn't match the 16:9 ratio of the Cover.

2. Frame: Adds space around the image and fills the surrounding space with an ambient background, so the image looks like a framed picture.

3. Fit · With Background: Shows the full image without cropping and fills any empty space with an ambient background.

4. Fit · No Background: Shows the full image without cropping. Empty space around the image is left blank.

The ambient background that appears in Frame and Fit · With Background is generated from the image so it matches the image's tones and colours.

The Visible To setting allows News Editors and News Reporters target your News Item at a particular audience using the List Selector (see more below)

Feature in banner (or pin permanently) places it in the banner at the top of the News view so it's more visible. Any News Item that is featured will also appear in the Weekly Digest Email, helping it reach employees who may not visit the platform every day.

When you select this option, you can control how long the News Item stays in the banner:

Until a set date and time

Use this option when you want to promote a News Item for a limited time. The News Item will appear in the banner until the date and time you specify. After that point, it will automatically be removed from the banner and continue to appear in the regular News feed. 

By default, After a user views the item, remove it from their banner is checked. This means the News Item will be removed from the banner for each user individually once they've opened it — even before the end date is reached. If you uncheck this option, the News Item will remain in the banner for all users until the expiry date, regardless of whether they've already viewed it.

Selecting the Until a set date and time option works well for announcements, events, time-sensitive updates and content you want to highlight when it first arrives. 

Pin permanently

Use this option when you want a News Item to stay in the banner indefinitely. Pinned Items remain in the banner until they're read by everyone that the News item is visible to (including new users). A permanently pinned item is typically used for evergreen content that new employees should see when they first start using the platform. 

Selecting the Pin permanently option works well for welcome or onboarding guides, important policies or resources or “How to use this platform” information.

Require sign off after reading asks readers to sign off that they have read and understood this News Item (see more below). 

Disable Commenting allows News Editors and News Reporters to turn comments on or off for a particular News Item. They can also set whether they want to be notified of new Comments or not (this depends on the user's settings in My Preferences).

Set publish date and Set archive date allows News Editors and News Reporters to schedule a time and date to publish and/or remove their Item from the News view (see more about auto-archiving in the Managing your items section).

Your Publishing Role is for News Editors and News Reporters that belong to more than one Reporter Group. They may be prompted to select their Publishing Role in order to access certain features.

Targeting

Jostle's List Selector allows News Editors and News Reporters to publish News Items to any specific audience they wish. For example, you may have a detailed article on the renovation plans for a building that is only relevant to those located in that building. Targeting your content helps keep your platform relevant and engaging for everyone.

When you are creating a News Item, you will see the Visible To option. The default setting is Everyone but if you click Edit it will bring up the List Selector and allow you to create a Custom List to target your content to. Learn more about the List Selector here.

Using Sign Off 

News includes a Sign Off feature. Use this when you need to ensure that a particular News Item has been read and understood by everyone in its audience, such as an article that detailing upcoming changes to your company's benefits policy.

To activate this feature on a particular News item, News Editors and News Reporters check the box for Require sign off after reading in the settings panel when creating your News Item:

When activated, users are prompted to sign-off once they've read the article. If they don’t, when they try to close the News Item, they will be presented with a pop-up reminder. They will have to select one of the following options in order to sign off:

• I confirmed I have read and understood this: which confirms they've read and understood the News Item. The message will not appear anymore to this user for this item.

• I will read this item later: will close the News Item. The user will be prompted to sign-off again when they re-open the News Item.

• I will read this item now: will return to the News Item so the user can read it and then sign-off.

For platforms that have the Tasks view enabled, enabling Sign Off on a News Item will automatically generate a Sign Off task for each user in the target audience. 

At the bottom of the News Item, those with edit rights will see a summary of how many users have signed off on the News Item.

The News Editors and the Author can click on Sign Off Report to download a CSV file. This file specifies when each user was asked to sign off (normally the day they joined), when they signed off (if they did), their Location, email address, and more. Use this to speed up compliance audits.

Note: Sign Off for Library is also available, but only on platforms that have both Library and Tasks enabled.

Publishing

When News Editors or News Reporters have finished creating their News Item, you can click Publish at the top of the screen or Publish and Notify, if applicable (learn more about Notify below).

Previewing News Items Before Publishing

When News Editors or News Reporters have finished creating their News Item, select the Preview button at the top of the screen to see exactly how it will appear to your audience before publishing.

Scheduling News Items

News Editors and News Reporters can set a Publish Date for their item on the Settings Panel. When they do, the Publish button is replaced with a Schedule button. Clicking this button (or Schedule and Notify) will send your item to the Scheduled List and then automatically post it at the time you set.

Saving draft News Items

If they're not ready to publish, then News Editors and News Reporters can open the drop down menu in the Publish button and select Save Draft so they can come back to it later. You can also view any items you have saved to the Drafts Table if you want to see what they will look like when published (see Managing your items).

Using Notify

All News Items include the option that allows News Editors to send an "Important Notice" to everyone that the Item is published. This can be triggered when publishing or at any time after that.

The intent of this feature is to draw attention to the item when it is urgent to do so. For it to be effective in this way, it's important that you don't overuse it, such that employees learn to ignore these important notifications. Use Feature for routine promotion of News Items. Use Sign Off to help ensure that everyone has seen a particular Item. Only use Notify when its critical that uses see the News Item ASAP.

Unlike other notifications, users cannot opt out of Notify. But they do see who triggered the Notify, and that person needs to provide a bit of context. This context also helps this special notification communicate in a potent way.

News Editors (and News Reporters if it is permitted by their Reporter Group) can enable Notify: 

• When publishing: Instead of selecting Publish, click the arrow next to it and select Publish and Notify.

• After publishing: Open the News Item, click on the Action Menu in the top right corner, and select Notify.

Whichever method you choose, you will receive an alert where you:

• Can customize the title of your notification (click Use a Custom Title)
• Must enter a message to share context about why this is urgent

Clicking Send will close the alert and notify all viewers via email and a mobile notification.

The notification will include:

• Sender's name (your name)
• Sender's notice (your message)
• Link to the related News Item
• Publishing info (Category and original date posted)

Note: Notify is also available for Events and Library updates.

Revising a published News Item

To edit a published News Item, News Editors and Authors can open it in News view and then click Edit in the upper right corner. After making your edits, scroll up to the action bar and click Publish to post the revised item back to the main News view.

Republishing does not create fresh Red Dots or generate an "All new News items" notification to users.

You can also edit an Item via your Manage tables (Drafts, Scheduled, Published, and Archived).

Duplicating News Items

News Editors can Duplicate a News Item, by either of these methods:

1. Open the News item in the viewer and select Duplicate in the action menu top right.

2. From the action menu of the main News view, select any of the management tables (Published, Drafts, or Scheduled). Find the item of interest and select Duplicate in its Action Menu.

When a News Editor selects Duplicate, an alert opens where they can set the Title for the duplicate, which opens in a new tab and is saved to the Drafts Table until it is published. All of the content and settings are copied, except for any time-related settings.

Tip: If you regularly publish News Items with the same format, such as a monthly project summary or a new employee welcome, either:

• Duplicate the prior article as your starting point for the next version, or
• Always start by duplicating an item in Drafts that you use as a template.

Ghostwriting

The Duplicate function that News Editors have access to in News provides an effective way to ghostwrite an article on behalf of someone else. For example, if a CEO wants someone to publish an article under their name, then a News Editor can just go to any item that was previously published by the CEO, duplicate it, and then use that as a template for the new article. When they go to publish the new item, they can opt to keep the CEO as the author and then publish it on their behalf.