Setup Govintra for the first time

Check the WordPress settings

Alongside the theme’s own Options screens, a handful of WordPress’s built-in settings shape how an intranet behaves: what it is called, what time it thinks it is, which page is the homepage, whether people can comment, and how big uploaded pictures are. This page walks through the four screens that matter, General, Reading, Discussion and Media, and says which settings the theme relies on and which are safe to leave alone. All are under Settings in the admin menu and only administrators can change them.

General settings

Site Title and Tagline

The Site Title is the intranet’s name. It appears in the browser tab after each page title, in emails the intranet sends such as thank-you notifications, and in the search results snippet. The Tagline is shown only in the browser tab / window.

WordPress Address and Site Address

Leave these alone. They are set when the intranet is installed, and changing one on a live site locks everyone out until it is put back.

Site icon

Add an image to appear in your browser as the icon for the site.

Administration Email Address

Where WordPress sends its own notices, such as new comments awaiting moderation and update reports. Use a shared mailbox rather than one person’s address.

Membership and New User Default Role

Most intranets create accounts through single sign-on or a user import, so leave Anyone can register unticked. If you do tick it, the theme can show a Register link on the login prompt under comments, and the New User Default Role should be Subscriber, which lets people read, comment and keep a profile but not edit content. See Roles and capabilities.

Site Language

The language of the admin and the theme’s own labels. English (UK) gives British spellings throughout. Other languages need the theme’s language pack for that locale as well; see the language packs on this site.

Timezone

Choose your city, such as London, rather than a fixed offset, so that clocks change with daylight saving. The theme uses this for event dates and times, for scheduled publishing, for the expiry of news and vacancies, and for overnight housekeeping such as the forum tidy. A wrong timezone shows events at the wrong time and publishes scheduled items an hour early or late.

Date Format and Time Format

These set how every date and time on the intranet is written: on news stories, event cards, comments, profiles and lists. Pick the format your staff expect, such as j F Y for “30 September 2026” and H:i for a 24-hour clock. The theme reads them everywhere, so a change here changes the whole site at once. See Date and time format codes.

Week Starts On

Not used by the theme. Leave it.

Reading settings

Your homepage displays

Choose A static page and pick the page that uses the Home page template as the Homepage. That page then shows the homepage widget areas, carries no breadcrumb trail, and can only be edited by administrators. Leave Posts page empty unless you use standard WordPress posts, which Govintra intranets rarely do: news, blog posts and news updates each have their own listing page chosen on the theme’s Modules screen instead. See Home page template.

Blog pages show at most

Despite its name, this is the number of items per page on the theme’s listings: news, news updates, blog posts, events, projects, vacancies and tag pages. Twelve suits a three-column card grid; ten is the WordPress default. Widgets and shortcodes have their own numbers and ignore this.

Syndication feeds and For each post in a feed

Leave the defaults. Feeds are rarely used on an intranet.

Search engine visibility

Tick Discourage search engines from indexing this site. An intranet behind a login or a private network cannot be indexed anyway, but the setting stops well-behaved crawlers trying, and it does not affect the intranet’s own search.

Discussion settings

Default post settings

Allow people to submit comments on new posts decides whether a new news story, news update or blog post starts with comments open. Tasks, events, training courses, vacancies, projects and teams never take comments whatever this says. Editors can still open or close comments on each item from its edit screen. The two link-notification boxes above it are for public blogs; untick them.

Other comment settings

Tick Users must be registered and logged in to comment. Everyone on an intranet has an account, and this stops anonymous comments. Someone who is not logged in then sees the message set under Options, General, with the optional Login and Register buttons from the same screen. Comment author must fill out name and email is then irrelevant. Leave threading on with the default depth, and comments per page as they are.

Email me whenever and Before a comment appears

These go to the administration email address. On most intranets comments appear straight away, so leave Comment must be manually approved unticked and rely on the comments report to keep an eye on them; tick it if your policy is to moderate first. The theme switches off WordPress’s “posting too quickly” check, so a quick reply to a colleague is never rejected.

Avatars

Show Avatars must stay ticked. When it is off, WordPress hands the theme no picture at all and staff photos disappear from the directory, profiles, comments and every staff card.

The Default Avatar choice will apply if you have not set a default within the Govintra module settings for the staff directory. Choices range from the default “Mystery person” to automatically generated images, or simple letters for initials.

Media settings

Image sizes

Every uploaded picture is saved at these sizes as well as the original, and the theme picks one for each place:

  • Thumbnail, 150 by 150 with Crop ticked: the small square picture on list-style cards and in the aggregator’s listing blocks. Keep the crop on, or the squares turn into odd shapes.
  • Medium: the picture on grid cards on the news, training, projects, hashtags and About pages, and on related-content cards. The WordPress default of 300 is a little soft on a wide screen, where a card can be 400 pixels across; 600 by 600 keeps cards sharp without heavy files.
  • Large, 1024 by 1024: the featured image at the top of a story, and the hero picture on the comms hub. The default is right.

Changing a size only affects pictures uploaded from then on. To bring existing pictures up to a new size, run a regenerate-thumbnails plugin once. Intravert images use their own 1200 by 500 size and are unaffected by this screen.

Uploading files

Leave Organise my uploads into month- and year-based folders ticked; it keeps the uploads folder manageable. The largest file that can be uploaded is set by the hosting, not here; ask your host if staff hit the limit.

Screens you can leave alone

Writing has nothing an intranet needs. Permalinks are set at installation and should not be changed afterwards, as every link on the intranet depends on them. Privacy only chooses the page linked from the login screen.