Getting Started with you Website

Getting Started with you Website

Overview

We're delighted that you've chosen Parish Online to provide your website. Your website is based in the Government Design System, to ensure accessibility to the latest WCAG standards and functionality. Getting started with anything new can seem daunting but you'll soon get used to the way that your website works.  This guide is intended to make that a little easier and point you in the correct direction whether you've just got your new site or you've taken over from a previous Clerk. And don't forget, as part of your website subscription, you have the gov.uk email system included in your package.

Logging in to your website admin panel

To log into your website Admin Panel, add "/admin" to the end of your website name. The Clerk has been provided with a log in for the admin panel. Requests for additional users will need to sent to us by the Clerk.
To keep things simple, we've got some menu items which are fixed and cannot be changed.  Each of these menu items has its own section on the admin dashboard and the content for these is managed through there. These are:
Home
Events (we can switch this off if you don't want it, just email us)
Contact Us: (this is fixed and cannot be edited)

The other menu items can be personalised by you. Your new site will be handed over with:
Policies, Documents and Plans: this is a signposting page and has subsections set up for:
  1. Statutory Documents (e.g. Standing Orders, Financial Regulations, Code of Conduct)
  2. General Policies (e.g. Grants Policy, IT Policy, Risk Management)
  3. Data Policies (e.g. Privacy Policy, Accessibility Statement)
  4. Council Plans (e.g. neighbourhood plan, resilience plan, climate plan)
  5. Commitments and Pledges (e.g. Civility and Respect Pledge, Climate Emergency Declaration)
Finance: this is a signposting page and has subsections for:
  1. Annual Accounts: this can be arranged by document type or by year.  We've found that most parishes publish by year.  If you've got a website with this set up by document type and would like to switch it over let us know and we'll help with that. Adding Finance Documents
  2. Asset Register: if you prefer, you can put your asset register under the accounts year and delete this subsection.
Local Information: this is a signposting page and we've set this up with the following subsections:
  1. About the area (e.g. village information, history)
  2. Services (e.g. halls, defibrillator map see: How do I add defibrillator locations to the map on our website, play areas)
  3. Local Groups and Societies (you can either set up pages for the groups or provide links to their websites)
  4. Local Authorities - you may want to put in links to the most useful pages on your Unitary/County/District Council's website (e.g. planning, bin collections, libraries)
You can change or create your own subsections: Adding and Rearranging Subsection Titles and Page Links

The information you create to sit under these subsections are the content pages.  Once you've created a content page, you will need to add this to a signposting page to make it discoverable: Adding and rearranging Page Links to Signposting Pages or Menus

You can change the existing signposting pages or add new ones, but you'll need to make sure that you change the permalink and replace the permalink(address) and link text under the relevant sections under the General section and/or  Home Page Quick Links under the Home Section of the dashboard: Creating Signposting Pages, 

For more information on this see Menus, Signposting Pages and Content Pages

Homepage

 Your homepage layout is largely fixed to ensure that the websites can be updated by us in the background as necessary.  Here's what you can change:
  1. You can choose your theme colour: Change the Primary Colour of your website
  2. You can change your header (or hero) image and choose how the header image fits on the page: Setting your Homepage Header Image or Changing your Homepage Image
  3. Add your logo: Setting a homepage logo
  4. Change Your Contact information (including adding or removing social media links): Changing your Contact Info on the Homepage
  5. Adding Forthcoming Meetings: this is added through the Meetings section on the dashboard which then automatically updates your homepage; see Adding an Forthcoming Meeting
  6. News: news articles are added through the "New Articles Section" on the dashboard; see Posting a News article.  Make sure to add an image to your news article as otherwise the placeholder image will appear on the homepage and this can't be removed. Make sure to include the full website address (URL) and Link Text as this is what your user will see to click on.  If you're linking to a 3rd party website, it's good practice to select the box "Open Link in a new tab". You should then also include a Link Summary to tell people more about what is available by following the link.
  7. Services and Links (unless this has been renamed by a previous clerk): the "Home Page Quick Links" can be renamed and links can be added or removed under the Home Section of the dashboard. This can include links to other pages of the website or to external websites.
  8. People: You can choose the view under the Home Section of the dashboard: You can choose to "hide the images" and just have the names and contact information showing, you can choose whether 4 or 6 people are displayed, you can choose whether to have the Council and Staff Figures showing or hidden.  You'll need to set up  Key Personnel to select which of the people are displayed.
  9. Area Information: The map is linked to our Parish Online Mapping Software; you can toggle on the wards under the Home Section of the dashboard.  The stats are put in from various data sources that we have access to .  If you need to change any of these you can do this under the Home Page Area Information section.
  10. Notification Banner: If you have a particular event or issue that you wish to highlight, you can add this in under the Notification Banner section of the Home Section of the dashboard.  We'd urge you to only use this for special events not as a normal setting.
  11. Email Pop Up: If you'd like to get people to sign up to your email newsletter, you can do this under "Email Newsletter Pop-up Settings" section of the Home Section of the dashboard.  

Accessibility

We keep the site infrastructure up to date but you'll need to make sure that the content is added in an accessible way.  For some tips please see: Website Accessibility - Tips

Help

There are lots more articles under "Knowledge Base" which you can click on from the dashboard or you can click "Contact Us" if you need further help.





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