Knowledgebase

The Community area of StarChapter provides the ability to automate publish and archive dates, share content on several pages of your website without duplicating effort, and pull content into email templates for easy distribution. Each tool has specific features that benefit particular types of content. It isn't common for chapters to use all Community tools, but using a few can greatly reduce time and effort spent managing website content.

Newsletter

The Newsletter tool is intended for periodic, multi-section publications. Typically, newsletters are published on a regular basis, monthly or quarterly. Multiple admin users can contribute to a single newsletter before those sections are ordered, formatted and published by the responsible admin user. All past newsletters are automatically archived by year when a new issue is published. Newsletters will always post to the /news.php page of any StarChapter website.

The associated Newsletter Article List will highlight chosen sections of a newsletter and this is often added to the Home Page, when a regular newsletter is published.

Published Newsletters can be pulled into the Newsletter Email template.

Articles

Articles are longer publications of a single subject. The publication and archive dates can be automated to keep the website tidy. All published Articles will display on the /articles.php page.

The associated Article List can be linked to a specific Article Category and shared on any other page of the website. The Article List will list the titles of articles with links to read the full text. The Article content section will display the full-text articles of a chosen Article Category, so multiple Article pages can be created beyond the built-in /articles.php page.

Published Articles can be pulled into the Article Email template.

Calendar

The Calendar tool provides the option to post important events to the /calendar.php page of your StarChapter website. Any meetings published in Meeting Manager will automatically appear on the calendar, so only additional dates need to be added through the Calendar tool.

Calendar posts can be pulled into the Calendar Email template.

Blog

Blogs provide a way to engage members and website visitors. Comments are permitted on blog posts and can be a way to drive traffic to your website. Both auto-publish and auto-archive options are available within the blog and all published blog posts will display on /blog.php. Moderation can be enabled to ensure that no inappropriate content is posted to your website.

The Blog List content section can be added to any page. It will display the title of recent blog posts and a Read More link. The Blog Page article list allows for a fully functional, secondary blog page to be setup that is specific to a category of blog posts.  

Published Blog posts can be pulled into the Blog Email template.

Forum

The Forum is intended to maximize engagement between members and website users. Depending on the configuration of forum settings, members, or even the general public, can begin discussion threads or reply to active threads. All active discussion threads will post to /forum.php. Moderation can be enabled to ensure that no inappropriate content is posted to your website.

The Forum List content section will list a set number of forum thread titles with Read More links. This will drive traffic to the Forum. The Forum Page content section will provide a fully functional, secondary forum page that is specific to a forum category.

Announcements

The Announcements tool provides the ability to post quick, temporary updates to your website. This is typically text that wouldn't require a full article or newsletter. Auto-publish and auto-archive dates can be set. All published Public Announcements will be posted to /announcements.php while all published Members Announcements will be posted to /members.php.

The Public Announcements content section will list all published Public Announcement titles with a Read More link.

Public Announcements can be pulled in the Announcement Email template.