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Help

This page in intended for owners and content providers (called "Collaborators" in Google-speak) of this site. If you think you should be a collaborator but aren't, feel free to contact us.

Overview

The purpose of this page is to explain in plain terms how to use this site. If you feel that any area is not covered in enough depth, you can go to the support site for the individual Google app (see the sections below) and search for more details or feel free to simply contact us.

Four pages have been created to help new site owners and collaborators get up to speed quickly:
  • Help - This page which is intended as a quick start to understanding how everything works.
  • Getting Started Exercises  - These are a bunch of exercises that teach how to use the site.
  • Getting Started Answers - Hey, no peeking! These are the answers to the exercises.
  • Help FAQ - This is a list of common questions relating to how to use the site.
  • Sandbox - This is a "play" area where you can safely try out the different features of the site.
Feel free to go directly to the Getting Started Exercises, though I recommend reading this page first and then returning to it. It should only take you 5 or 10 minutes. The exercises will walk you through creating your own pages in the Sandbox. Once your done, you can use the Help FAQ as a reference if you forget how to do something.

Understanding How the Site Works

Stanton SPA is currently using three Google applications to create this website experience:
Google Sites is used for the main content, Google Calendar for a shared calendar that will be displayed on the site and will be update-able by the many collaborators of the site, and Google Groups for the mailing list and list archives.

I listed Google Docs because it is possible to integrate it here. However, it is anticipated that if any documents would be shared through the site, they would be things like meeting minutes or flyers which would be uploaded to the site rather than created on Google Docs.

The vast majority of help documentation for understanding these Google apps can be found on their respective support sites. The remainder of this document will give a quick overview of the basics so that you can get started with the site. If you want more details, the following support sites should do the trick:

Let's take a quick tour of how each of these Google apps are used on this website.

Google Sites

Google Sites is a phenomenal content management system that is free of charge (like most google apps). This site can be around as long as Google is (which will probably be longer than I am). To understand how to contribute to the site, it is helpful to first get an understanding of two different types of things: pages and gadgets.

To understand the power of pages, it is useful to explain gadgets first. Gadgets are, well, gadgets. They are things that you can put on pages that do cool stuff. Some examples of gadgets are images, calendars, documents, slideshows, videos, etc. You can browse the full list of gadgets from the "Insert" menu in the upper left corner after you begin editing a page. ... Oh, you begin editing a page by clicking the "Edit page" button in the upper right corner. Try it with this page if you like, just please don't delete any of the content.

Ok, now for pages. There are five different types of pages that can be created. To create a new page, just click the "+ Create new page" button in the upper right corner. Here's a quick rundown of the five page types:
  • Web Page - This is your standard web page. Think of it as a Microsoft Word document on the web. Most of the pages on this site are simple web pages.
  • Dashboard - This is a page that is pre-populated with four gadgets in a dashboard-like fashion.
  • Announcements - This is just that, it is a running list of announcements that can be displayed on a page. An example of this can be found on this site's home page. This is different from our mailing list announcements. That uses Google Groups (see below).
  • File Cabinet - This is a place to upload files to. Think if it as an online shared directory. Pretty cool. An example of this is the Meeting Minutes page.
  • List - These are pretty flexible, basically it gives you the ability to create a bunch of different lists. An example of this is the Help FAQ. Here are the types of lists you can create:
    • Action Items - Keeps track of action items from a meeting or project
    • Issue List - Track your project's open issues
    • Unit Status - Track the status of individual units in your project
    • Create your own - Define your own columns for your list
There are some other options for pages. You can find these in the "More Actions » Page Settings" dialog. From here you can select whether the page allows comments or attachments, or shows the page title. You can even change the web address of the page. You can also make the page show up on the "Main Pages" menu on the left. Please use this last option sparingly so that menu doesn't get too cluttered.

One last note on pages. When you create a page, you can specify who its' parent it. For example, the Getting Started Exercises, Help FAQ and  Sandbox are children of this page. If you go to the Sitemap you can see the hierarchy of the pages of the site. It's a nice way to keep things organized. Don't worry, if you put a page in the wrong place you can always go to "More Actions » Move" to move it.

Well, that's about it for Google Sites. You can consider yourself well educated at this point, but needing a little hands on training. I know you're itching to try out your new found knowledge, but first let me give a quick overview of Google Calendar and Groups. Bear with me please, we're almost there.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is an online calendaring tool that can be owned ("shared" in Google-speak) by multiple people. This is a wonderful fit for SPA since it will allow us to create a single calendar but have a number of people be able to update it. The calendar for SPA can be seen both on this site's Home page as an agenda and on the Calendar page in full calendar view.

If you would like add or change events on the calendar, simply go to http://calendar.google.com and select the "Stanton SPA" calendar to see that calendar or for creating and updating events. If you don't have access to update the calendar, but would like to, feel free to contact us.

Google Groups

Google Groups is the application that is being used for the SPA mailing list. It makes it really easy to manage users, subscribe to and unsubscribe from the list, send or post announcements and view the archives.  This is a list for parents of kids at Stanton.  Please include your name and your  children's name and grades so that you can be added to the list of announcements that go out.  

The vast majority of both the SPA parent community and the SPA volunteers won't have access to post new announcements to the group. In order to maintain the integrity of the mailings, it is important to limit the number of active posters.

One additional plus with the groups is that subscriber email addresses will no longer be visible to others when the mailings go out.

You can check out the group page at http://groups.google.com/group/stantonspa. Feel free to browse around. For the most part you can only update your subscription options and view the archives. If you happen to have manager or posting privileges, here's the skinny.

As a manager you can invite new group members. It is not recommended that you directly invite people (meaning add them directly instead of asking them via email to join). That is considered bad mailing list etiquette. In addition, if you do invite directly and the recipient clicks on the "this is spam" link at the bottom of the email they get, Google reserves the right to shutdown the group. So please don't.

Instead, go to "Invite Members » Invite members by email". They do not have to have a gmail account. It can be any old email address. Just write a quick note to them and send it off. They can then subscribe if they really want. Once people are subscribed, managers can change their status within the group to allow them to post or making them managers. This is done in the "Management tasks » Manage Members" tab.

If you would like to post to the mailing list, simply go to http://groups.google.com/group/stantonspa, click on the "+ new post" button and fill out the email form. Alternatively, you can simply send an email to stantonspa AT googlegroups DOT com (cut and paste email address; replace the AT and DOT).

Next Steps

Ok. So now your chomping at the bit to really try out your wicked new skills. You are now ready to enter the next phase of your training by going to the Getting Started Exercises.The exercises will walk you through creating your own pages in the Sandbox. Once your done, you can use the Help FAQ as a reference if you forget how to do something.

I hope you've enjoyed this little walkthrough. If you have any questions, don't forget you can check out the Google app support sites (listed above) or simply contact us.