Team news is for stories that matter to one team, directorate or site rather than to everyone: a new starter in Finance, a change to the post room rota, a team away day. It is kept separate from intranet-wide news, so the main news listing and home page are not crowded out by local stories. Each item belongs to a news group, and each group can point at the page that represents it, so breadcrumbs and menus lead staff back to the right place. For organisation-wide announcements use a news story, see Add or edit a news story.
Switch on team news
Team news depends on the Teams module. Under Options, Modules, turn on Teams first; a Team news pages switch then appears below it. Turn that on too and save. A Team news menu appears in the admin sidebar, with an archive of every published item at /team-news/ on the intranet. The news groups and the pages that represent them are set up by hand, as described next. See Module settings and options and Add or edit a team.
Set up news groups (administrators only)
A news group is the audience for a set of team news, for example “Finance”, “Northern region” or “Science”. It is a hierarchical list like categories, so a group can have sub-groups. Only administrators can add, rename or delete groups; everyone else chooses from the existing list when writing. Go to Team news, News groups, give the group a name and, if you want, a description and a parent. Below the standard fields is a Team & landing page box with two settings that make the group work:
- Owning team: pick the team from the Teams list that this group belongs to. When someone whose staff profile lists that team starts a new item, this group is ticked for them automatically. Leave it empty for a group that no single team owns.
- Landing page: pick the page that represents the group on the intranet, usually the page carrying the [teamnews] shortcode. It is used in two places: the breadcrumb trail on every item in the group (Home, then the page’s parents, then the page, then the item) and highlighting the matching item in the main and secondary menus. The page must be published to count; a draft is ignored. With no landing page the breadcrumb falls back to the group’s own archive, listing any parent groups first.
Each group also has an archive at /news-group/group-name/ that lists its published items. See Taxonomies for how term lists work in general, and Teams template for the page that lists the teams.
Add a team news item
Go to Team news, then Add team news, or open an existing item from the list. Contributors can write and save drafts, authors can publish their own items, and editors and administrators can publish and edit anyone’s. Client sites often add a custom team news editor role, so if you cannot see the menu ask your intranet team. See Roles and capabilities.
The edit screen is simpler than a news story: no Format box, tags, Related content, Keywords or Associated teams, because the news group does the job of all of them. Team news keeps no revision history, so an earlier version of the text cannot be restored.
Title, content, excerpt and featured image
The title is the heading on the item and the link text in listings, the sidebar and search results. Anything in square brackets, such as “[Draft]”, is stripped from the title shown to staff. The permalink is /team-news/ followed by the title, whatever group the item is in.
Write the story in the main editor. The standard toolbar, headings and shortcode button all work as on other content, see Boxes on every edit screen.
The Excerpt is a one or two sentence summary. It is shown under the title on the cards in the team news and group archives, trimmed to 25 words, and in the block layout of the [teamnews] shortcode. If you leave it empty the start of the content is used instead. The box is hidden until you tick Excerpt under Screen Options. See Generate an excerpt.
The Featured image is shown at the top of the item below the date, at the Large media size, with any caption set on the image in the Media Library printed underneath. The same image appears as a small thumbnail on archive cards and in the [teamnews] block layout. See Set a featured image.
News groups box
The News groups box on the right lists every group as a tick box, with sub-groups indented. Tick the group the item is for. More than one is allowed, but only the first is used for the breadcrumb and menu highlighting, so stick to one.
When you select Add team news, the theme looks at the team or teams on your own staff profile and at the Owning team of every group. If exactly one group is owned by one of your teams, it is ticked before the screen loads. If none match, or your team owns several groups, nothing is ticked and you choose by hand. This happens only on a brand new item, never when editing. If your group is not pre-ticked, check that your profile lists the team and that an administrator has set that team as the group’s owner.
News expiry
Team news is often time-limited, so the News expiry box on the right lets the intranet take an item down for you. Turn on Auto-expiry to reveal three settings:
- Expiry date: the day the item should come down, chosen from a calendar. It must be today or later; an earlier date is rejected with the message “Provide a future date”.
- Expiry time: optional, in 24-hour form such as 17:30. Shorthand such as “2pm” or “0930” is tidied up when you save. Leave it blank and the item expires at the start of that day, in the first check after midnight.
- Expiry action: Revert to draft (the default) keeps the item in the Team news list so it can be edited and republished later. Move to trash bins it; it can still be restored from the bin.
A background check runs every five minutes, acting as the item’s author, and clears the expiry fields as it goes, so an item republished from draft stays up until you set a new expiry. Unlike blog posts and news updates, expiry cannot be made compulsory for team news.
Sidebar content and Document attachments
Two boxes under the editor work the same way as on every other content type, so Boxes on every edit screen has the detail. Sidebar content is free-format content for the top of the right-hand sidebar, above any widgets and the group pill. Document attachments lists files for download under the content with a Documents heading, a file-type icon, and the type and size. Select Add document for each file and give it a Display title if the file name is unclear.
Discussion and Author
A new item follows the WordPress default under Settings, Discussion; untick Allow comments to turn comments off for one item. Comments appear at the end of the item, below the documents. See Allow comments on a news story or blog post. The Author box lets editors and administrators credit a different person. No author name is printed, but the author is who the expiry check acts as. Both boxes are hidden until ticked under Screen Options.
Publish
Select Save Draft to come back later, or Preview to see the item with a “Draft preview” badge. Set a future date in the Publish box to schedule it, and select Publish when it is ready. Contributors see Submit for Review instead. See Save, preview, schedule and publish pages and posts.
What staff see on a team news page
From the top, a published item shows: the breadcrumb trail (Home, then the group’s landing page and its parent pages, then the item; see Understand the breadcrumb trail), a preview badge if it is not yet published, the title, the publication date, the featured image with its caption, the content, the Documents list, the like button when Enable likes is on and Team news is ticked under Likes post types in Options, General, and then the comments. No author name is shown.
The right-hand sidebar shows, in order: the Sidebar content; any widgets placed in the Team News Sidebar area under Appearance, Widgets (see Add an advert or campaign to the sidebar); the item’s group as a pill under a News groups heading, linking to that group’s archive; and a Recent team news list of up to five other items from the same group with their dates. If the group has no other items, the five most recent items from any group are listed instead.
Where team news appears
Team news is kept out of the main news listing and the Most recent widget. It appears in these places:
- The archive at /team-news/, listing every published item as cards, newest first, with paging. Each card shows the thumbnail, title, date, comment count and excerpt.
- Each group’s archive at /news-group/group-name/, with the same cards plus a “Team news” label.
- Any page carrying the [teamnews] shortcode, usually the group’s landing page. It lists a group’s latest items as blocks with image, title, date and excerpt, or as a compact list, with an Archive link to the group. See Display team news.
- The main and secondary menus, where the group’s landing page is highlighted while staff read the item. See Setup navigation menus.
- The Recent team news list in the sidebar of other items in the group.
- Search results, where staff can narrow to Team news using the filter.
- The home page, when the (Govintra) News widget pins a team news item under Pin stories, which is how one local story is promoted to everyone.
There is no widget dedicated to team news. To keep an item out of search results, use the Relevanssi box on the edit screen, see Stop something appearing in search results.
Who can do what
| Role | Team news |
|---|---|
| Contributors | Write, save and delete their own drafts and submit them for review. Cannot publish or upload files. |
| Authors | Publish, edit and delete their own items, including after publication. |
| Editors | Publish, edit and delete anyone’s items, including private ones. |
| Administrators | Everything editors can do, plus adding, renaming and deleting news groups and setting each group’s owning team and landing page. |
Anyone who can edit an item can tick an existing news group on it. Many client sites add a custom role that can publish team news and nothing else, so treat “people who can publish team news” as the practical test rather than the role name.