Admin Instructions

Instructions for site administrators

How to upload and publish the season schedule
How to create a Season Archive and Current Season PDF
How to change the date (or other info) of an event
How to update the Member Roster (password protected)
How to update the SOS Schedule (linked from a menu)
How to update other documents (linked within a page on the site)
How to revert to a prior version of a page
How to add photos
How to update the photo slider
Resubscribe someone to the email list in MailChimp
MailChimp security questions
SSL Cert Email Notice
How to import contact information into MailChimp from the membership database
How to Trim A Video
SO! Membership Database Notes
Control of the Home Page Layout
Posting Announcements on the Home Page
Notes

How to upload and publish the season schedule

Step 1: Prepare the import file

  1. In the Word document, before copying and pasting the records into the Excel template, search and replace all carriage returns (use ^p and ^l in the Find field) with “\”. This will preserve the carriage returns once the records are imported into WordPress. NOTE: MAKE SURE THERE AREN’T ANY TRAILING BACKSLASHES AT THE END OF FIELDS AS THIS MAY KEEP RECORDS FROM BEING IMPORTED PROPERLY.
  2. Do a search for apostrophes\quotation marks and either change the text or make a note to fix them after the import has been completed and before the draft outings link is sent to the Outings committee.
  3. Copy and paste the events into the Excel template; make sure the first row contains the column headers (Season, Category, StartDate, StartTime, etc.) and that the outings start in the second row. HINT: I’VE FOUND THAT IT WORKS BEST TO DO STEP 1 FOR EACH DOCUMENT YOU RECEIVE FROM EACH OUTINGS COMMITTEE MEMBER, THEN PASTE IT INTO THE EXCEL TEMPLATE, THEN REPEAT FOR THE NEXT WORD DOCUMENT. IF YOU TRY TO COMBINE ALL OF THE WORD DOCUMENTS INTO A SINGLE WORD DOCUMENT THEN PASTE IT ALL INTO EXCEL IN ONE STEP, YOU WILL FIND THAT YOU HAVE EXTRA COLUMNS AND ROWS THAT WON’T PASTE CORRECTLY INTO EXCEL.
  4. Make sure every event has a Season, a Title, a valid StartDate (e.g., no stray characters or embedded text), and either a valid StartTime or valid EndDate. All other fields are optional. NOTE: The Season text will be used for page headers, so I recommend using the full season name, a space, and the full year (e.g., Summer 2017).
  5. Make sure general meetings have “GM” in the category column.
  6. If you want New outings identified, make sure they have New in the category column. (You can also update categories for events already in the system by going to the Event edit screen. The categories are listed on the right side of the screen.)
  7. If there is an RSVP email, make sure it’s in the Email column and scan the email addresses in the spreadsheet to make sure that they look valid and don’t include a trailing period (i.e., snowshoeing@seniorsoutdoors.org.-note the trailing period).
  8. Save the file as .csv (and not as either Macintosh or MS-DOS .csv) using the number of events in the title; this makes it easy to know if all of the events are importing when you do the import step. NOTE, if you see a bold border around one of the cells in the excel sheet (nothing special visible on Word doc), remove the border before saving/importing to avoid creating a table in the body of the outing.
  9. Note, if you have an issue with the import, review the Word document in “paragraph” view and look for a return and end field together (the hike with Chris as the leader is correct; LmHason39 hike has an extra hard return):
    Click for Paragraph view in Word
    Look for extra return
    This manual line break character that causes multiple lines for an outing in Excel

     

For Subgroup Events (SOS, Hike, Bike, Ski, Water, Snowshoe, Train):

Information about Subgroups will appear on the SO! Subgroups page (https://seniorsoutdoors.org/so-subgroups/). Trip leaders can also choose to have individual outings that will appear on the home page and calendar pages, perhaps with an abbreviated description. These individual outings will include a link to the appropriate section of the Subgroups page.

The process is:

  1. Subgroup information (and, optionally, detailed subgroup event descriptions) should be added directly to the SO! Subgroups page through the WP back end.
  2. If there are also individual outing listings, those should be uploaded in the spreadsheet along with conventional outings. These outings should be identified by entering the appropriate category (Hike, Bike, Ski, Water, Snowshoe, Train) in the Category column. You can also identify Subgroup outings after uploading by going to the outing in WP and clicking the appropriate event category checkbox.

Note: It is a good idea to review the info on the SO! Subgroups page each season when the schedule is updated to ensure that it is current.

Step 2: Import the events

  1. From the Events page, delete any events that are in draft status; this step is optional but will make your life a bit easier later.
  2. Go to All Import -> New Import.
  3. Click Upload A File, navigate to the CSV file and select it.
  4. Under New Items, select Events from the dropdown and click Continue to Step 2.
  5. Eyeball the data to make sure everything looks ok, then click Continue to Step 3.
  6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Simplified v2.7 (or whatever is most recent) from the Load Template dropdown.
  7. Click Continue to Step 4.
  8. Click Continue.
  9. Click Confirm & Run Import.

NOTE: The outings will automatically be uploaded in draft status to allow the leaders Outings Committee to review them before the schedule is published; only people with the direct URL (https://seniorsoutdoors.org/draft-schedule/) will be able to see them. Follow the instructions in Step 4 below to publish the outings.

Step 3: Create the Draft Schedule

The purpose of this step is to enable the Outings Chair to approve the schedule before it is published. If this review is not needed, skip to Step 4.

  1. Go to Pages (in the Admin panel), find the Draft Schedule page, and click Edit.
  2. Change the season in the main content box as appropriate. Important: the text must match what was in the first column of the uploaded spreadsheet exactly!
  3. Click Update, then click View Page to verify that the draft schedule is showing correctly. You must refresh this page before sending the link to the chairman/committee or all of the events will not display.
  4. The email address to RSVP doesn’t display in the draft version (nor does it display in the printable version of the schedule). This is normal. The title link to view the outings doesn’t work until published either in the draft schedule.
  5. If someone has trouble viewing the most current version of the draft schedule, even after clearing their cache, have them wait overnight and recheck. It is an internet population of data issue that only time will resolve.

The URL (https://seniorsoutdoors.org/draft-schedule/) can then be shared with the Outings Chair for his/her review. Do not send to the individual members of the Outings committee or leaders unless requested by the chair.

Step 4: Publish the Outings

After the Outings Committee has approved the schedule:

  1. Go to the Events page.
  2. Click the “Drafts” hyperlink near the top of the page to show only events in draft status.
  3. Use the checkbox at the top of the list to select all events on the page, or individually select the outings you want to publish.
  4. Choose Edit in the “Bulk Actions” dropdown and click Apply. A Bulk Edit panel will open.
  5. In the “Status” dropdown (bottom right of the panel) select “Published.”
  6. Click Update.
  7. Repeat 3-6 for each page of draft outings. NOTE: I’m assuming the selection of draft outings will persist, but I’m not sure. You may need to repeat step 2 as well — be sure and check!
  8. Important: Months after the current month do not show up in the calendar view after uploading. To fix the problem you will need to open the latest event and click Update.

Step 5: Verify the New Outings and Notify the Membership

  1. There’s some instability in the upload process so, after the outings are published, it’s a good idea to go to the Printable List and spot-check the new outings to make sure they’ve been imported correctly. In particular, look for funky characters and check the start and end dates and start time. Hopefully, any issues will have been caught in the review step, but a second check is never a bad idea.
  2. Click on “Purge SG Cache” in the black menu at the top of the screen when you are logged into the WP panel.
  3. After you are confident the outings look OK and that they are visible to all users (check with a different computer and browser), send an email to the membership stating the new schedule has been published.

Step 6: Update the Current Season Archive page

  1. Create the prior season’s archive before doing this step.
  2. Go to Pages, then to the Current Season Archive page and click Edit
  3. Change the season in the main content box to the current season (e.g., from Spring 2017 to Summer 2017). Make sure it matches what was in the first column of the newly uploaded spreadsheets.
  4. Go to the live page (https://seniorsoutdoors.org/current-season-archive/) to verify that it has been successfully updated. NOTE: case for the new file must match the case in the HTML code.
  5. You will need to change the “season” for a few events to be consistent with the date range. For example, if you are imported “Spring” events which primarily start in March but there are already a few “Winter” events that were previously imported with March dates, change the season for those March dates prior to creating the final “Winter” archive or the current “Spring” files.

How to create a Season Archive and Current Season PDF

Step 1: Create the season archive of the prior season

  1. See step 6.4. about importing the new schedule before you go to Pages (in the Admin panel), find the ” Current Season Archive” page, and click Edit.
  2. Change the season in the main content box as appropriate. Important: the text must match what was in the first column of the previous season’s uploaded spreadsheet exactly!
  3. Click Update.
  4. Click “Preview Changes” button to see the list view of the schedule for that period.

Step 2: Create a .pdf of the schedule

  1. Copy all of the full season of outings and paste it into a new Word document.
  2. Delete the footer information showing the abbreviations.
  3. Remove all of the hyperlinks: press Ctrl+A to select all text, then press Ctrl+Shift+F9 to remove the hyperlinks.
  4. You will likely have to resize the table to fit on the width of the page. The easiest way is to change the orientation to “Landscape” and make the paper size “Legal” until you can make the table fit on a page that is 8 1/2 inches wide. Then change back to the orientation of “Portrait” and “paper size of “Letter” or 8 1/2 x 11″.
  5. Save the file as a .pdf. The file name should be SeasonXX, i.e., Spring17.pdf or Winter1819.pdf (NOTE: case of the file name must match the case of the name in the HTML code. Summer19 is not the same as summer19)
  6. Add the file to the Media Library (same process as updating the SOS Schedule) or via File Manager in the cPanel.
  7. Go into the “Schedule Archives” page, and add a link to the new .pdf file as the top item under “Previous Seasons”.

Note: if changes are made to any remaining outings for the prior season after this process, you will need to repeat the above steps to create a final season’s archive.

Step 3: Create the “Current Season” File

    1. Using the above steps and the current season’s name from the uploaded spreadsheet on the Current Season Archive” page.
    2. Save the file and view the page and create the PDF as noted above.
    3. Upload the current season file and link it under the “Current Season” text on the “Season Archive” page.
    4. Save and view the page to confirm that the files are all correct.

How to change the date (or other info) of an event*

  1. Log in to WordPress, click on Events, and click on the event you want to change.
  2. Change the date.
  3. Scroll down to the Event Change field (about halfway down the page) and enter the change information (for example, “Moved from 4/13”). The presence of text in the Event Change field is what prompts the system to highlight the change on the home page, printable list, and individual event page.
  4. Click Update.

*Note you can highlight any type of change, not just date changes. If you make a change to an event that you’d like to be highlighted (e.g., changing the time or location), just type the change info into the Event Change field.

How to update the Member Roster (password protected)

  1. Make sure the most current roster is on your computer and is named “Roster.pdf”. Name is case sensitive and must be an upper “R”.
  2. Log in to SiteGround and click on the “Websites” tab and then “Site Tools”.
  3. Choose “File Manager”
  4. Choose “public_html”, then “wp-content”, and “Uploads”
  5. At the  public_html/wp-content/Uploads” folder, click on the “File Upload” icon (page with an up arrow, the 3rd icon from the left on the top line).
  6. Check “Overwrite existing files” box
  7. “Browse” computer and choose the Roster.pdf file from your computer.
  8. Test the download of the roster from the website.

How to update the SOS Schedule (linked from a menu)

  1. Save the file as “SOS.pdf”
  2. Log in to SiteGround.
  3. Log into the cPanel>File Manager
  4. Upload the PDF to public_html/wp-content/uploads (you will overwrite the existing file).
  5. Navigate to the new schedule on the front end to verify that it has been successfully uploaded and linked.

How to update other documents (linked within a page on the site)

  1. Log in to seniorsoutdoors.org/wp-admin.
  2. Click on Media, then Add New.
  3. Upload the PDF.
  4. Once the file is uploaded, click on it.
  5. In the box on the right, highlight the URL and copy it, then close the overlay.
  6. Click on Pages in the side navigation, find the page where the document is linked, and click edit.
  7. Make sure you are in the code editor by checking that it says Editing Code in the upper left corner of the window. If not, click the menu in the upper right corner of the screen (the three vertical dots) and select ‘Code Editor.’
  8. Find the current URL on the page. The link itself will be inside double quotes after the ‘href=’ indicator. Delete everything inside the double quotes and paste in the new URL.
  9. Click Update.
  10. Navigate to the page on the front end to verify that the new document has been successfully uploaded and linked.

*Note that you can also update the URL from the visual editor, but doing so may mess up some of the formatting. It’s safer to do it in the code editor.

No financials are posted on the website.  They can be requested by a member. “Board meeting minutes are available upon request from the Secretary, and financial statements are available from the Treasurer.”

How to revert to a prior version of a page

You can revert to a prior version of a page via the “Revision” option:


Choose the appropriate version and save.

Members often submit photos from outings to be posted in the Website Photo Gallery. It is up to the Webmaster how many photos s/he will post for each outing. This is a two-step process: first you create a new photo gallery, and then you add the new photo gallery to the Photo Gallery page.

To create a new photo gallery:

  1. Save the photos in a folder on your computer. The folder name and image filenames do not matter. However, the photos need to be less than 500 KB each, because WordPress has a limit on how much data you can upload. The photos look best if they are wider than 1200 pixels. I’ve found that it is easiest if I put them all in a single folder on my computer, massage them if necessary, then move on to step 2.
  2. Go to https://seniorsoutdoors.org/wp-admin and log in to access the WordPress dashboard.
  3. Click the Photo Gallery link on the left pane. The Galleries page opens.
  4. Click Add new. The Create new gallery page opens.
  5. In the Name field, type the title of the photo gallery as it will appear on the Photo Gallery page. For example, the title might be Maggie Gulch Hike August 2017 (photos by Chris Blackshear).
  6. Click Add Images. The Add Images window opens.
  7. Click the Make a directory button (folder with a star on it) on the toolbar. Give the directory an abbreviated but informative name, such as MaggieGulch17, then click OK. The new folder appears on the Add Images page.
  8. Double-click the new folder. The Add Images window for the new folder opens.
  9. Click Upload files, then click Choose Files. A file dialog window opens.
  10. Navigate to the folder on your computer where you saved the image files in Step 1.
  11. Select all of the files, then click Open. As the files upload to the Website, a blue progress bar appears. When the files are uploaded, they appear as thumbnails in the folder.
  12. Click Select All. All of the thumbnails appear highlighted.
  13. Click Add selected images to gallery. The Create new gallery page appears, and now displays thumbnails of the images.
  14. Click Save. The Galleries page appears, and the new gallery should now be listed. (You will need to click the > arrow on the top right corner of the gallery list to scroll to the last page of the gallery list.)

To display the new photo gallery on the Website:

  1. Click the Photo Gallery/Gallery Groups link on the left pane. The gallery groups page opens.
  2. Edit the gallery group entitled Gallery of Galleries.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Add box at the end of the gallery list. This brings up the gallery selection popup.
  4. Locate your new hike gallery and select it. Click on Add to Gallery Group. You will return to the gallery group edit page.
  5. Locate your new entry at the end of the gallery list and drag it to the beginning.
  6. Click Update to save your changes. The new gallery is now live.

How to update the photo slider

The Home page contains a photo slider that shows photos of a recent outing. To keep the page fresh, the Webmaster should update these photos at least quarterly to reflect the changing seasons. The target photos must first be placed in the WordPress Media Library. Then, you update the slider by removing the current photos and adding the new photos.

To add the photos to the Media Library:

        1. Save the photos in a folder on your computer. The folder name and image filenames do not matter.
        2. Go to https://seniorsoutdoors.org/wp-admin and log in to access the WordPress dashboard.
        3. Click Media in the left pane, and then click Library. The Media library window opens.
        4. Click Add New at the top of the window, and then click Select Files. The file dialog window opens.
        5. Navigate to the folder that contains the target photos, select the first photo, press the Ctrl key, and then select the remaining photos. Click Open. The photos appear in the Media Library.

NOTE: I usually leave the old photos in the Media Library in case I don’t get new photos that are suitable and want to use them again in the future.

The final step is to remove the existing photos in the slider, add the new photos, then preview the slider.

To remove the existing photos and add the new photos:

        1. Click Pages in the left pane on the Dashboard, and then click All Pages.
        2. Move the mouse pointer over Home Page, and then click Edit.
        3. Scroll down to the Image Gallery. In the Outing Name field, type the name of the outing from which the target photos are taken, such as Utah Slot Canyons, April 2017. This is the text that will appear under the slider.
        4. Move the mouse pointer over the first photo in the current slider, and then click the X in the top right corner to remove the photo. Repeat this step for all of the current photos so the Image Gallery is empty.
        5. Click Add to Gallery. The Media Library window opens.
        6. Select the first photo that you want to add to the slider, press and hold the Ctrl key, then select the rest of the photos. The target photos should appear with a checkmark in the top right corner.
        7. Click Select. The photos appear in the slider Image Gallery.
        8. Click Update to update the Home page and save your changes.
        9. Click Preview Changes. The new photos should appear in the photo slider.

Resubscribe someone to the email list in MailChimp

If someone was unsubscribed to the MailChimp email list and wishes to resubscribe, in the WordPress admin, go to the unsubscribe page and enter the email address and submit the form.

SSL Cert Email Notice

The webmaster will receive an email from cPanel@seniorsoutdoors.org every 3 months with the subject: [seniorsoutdoors.org] ⚠ seniorsoutdoors.org: AutoSSL certificate expiry on …. The SSL cert will automatically renew and no action is needed. If it doesn’t automatically renew, contact hosting company support and they can do this.

MailChimp Security Questions

The answer to the questions is “none”.

How to import contact information into MailChimp from the membership database

The short version:  use the Name and Emails by Yr and Date query from the Access database (not the report of the same name) and copy and paste the entries into MailChimp.

In more detail:

In the Access Membership Database

  • Copy the Access database from the SO! Dropbox account to a local directory so you are working with a copy and not interfering with other potential users
  • Run the query Name and Emails by Year and Date, supplying the current membership year (e.g., 23-24) and a start date (e.g., 9-1-23) to pull all members who joined or renewed since that date. It is OK to use an early date to help insure that all members are loaded because MC will update records and not create duplicates as long as you check the box “Update any existing contacts”.
  • Copy the query contents (including the “Renew” date), including the first line with column headings.

In MailChimp

  • Open the Audience tab and click on Manage Audience
  • Click on Import Contacts (on the right of the screen
  • Select the Copy and Paste input option (you may have to scroll down to see this option)
  • Paste the new/updated query contents into the provided box.
  • Click Continue to Organize
  • Select the status Subscribed and
  • Check the box Update any existing contacts.
  • Continue to the Tag page and add a tag for the current year, e.g., 2324 for the 2023-24 membership year.
  • On to the Match page which matches query column labels to MC labels. It should successfully match all four columns: first name, last name, email address and Renew status (the membership year).
  • Select Finalize Import and then view all contacts, where changes and new entries should be listed right at the beginning.
  • Review and complete your import screen, confirm the information and number of imports
  • Check Complete Import
  • An email is sent from MC to Webmaster@seniorsoutdoors.org after each membership update. Click on the green box that says “failed imports”. That takes you to the “Import History” and take any necessary action.
    • A few may be addresses that have been “cleaned”, meaning ones MC cannot reach because of address changes, errors, or because MC is blocked at that site.
    • Others may be listed as unsubscribed and should be checked in MC to see if they were unsubscribed administratively by us (a poorly chosen way to remove non-renewals from email in 2019) or if they unsubscribed themselves and should be left unsubscribed unless we have explicit approval to resubscribe them.  So far, most of the few people we’ve checked with who unsubscribed haven’t remembered doing so and wished to be resubscribed through a special Resubscribe page that administrators can reach on the SO! website.  However, some may well wish to remain unsubscribed and MC is very strict about honoring such requests.

Restricting the email list to current members

Every year around September 1, we have restricted emails to go only to current members.  Restricting email to current members was easy to do in our old email system, but more complicated in MC.  In 2020, we accomplished it by unsubscribing all old members, a poor choice because it became painfully difficult to tell who actually unsubscribed and who was unsubscribed by us.  It also meant that any subsequent renewals by those folks had to be resubscribed one at a time by an administrator, using the resubscribe form on our website and then editing each person’s record in MC to update the renewal year.

Current Procedure. At present, we Archive non-renewing members by sorting on membership year (the Renew column) checking off those who haven’t renewed after receiving several reminders to do so.  Then click on on Actions and “Archive”, which removes them from the list of active members, but automatically reinstates them if they rejoin and are added back in.

We also periodically check the MC list of members for folks who have unsubscribed and then go to the membership database and remove them from future queries by unchecking the box labeled “Send Email?”.

SO! Membership Database Notes

The notes on using the membership database are stored in the same place that the roster.pdf file resides.

Notes

  1. No financials are posted on the website. They can be requested by a member.
  2. The budget is not carved in stone. Requests for amounts in excess of the website budget should be submitted to the Board for consideration.

How to Trim A Video

  1. Open the video (mp4 file) in “Photos”
  2. In the upper right, click on “Edit/Create”
  3. Choose “Trim”
  4. Slide the white circle to the start and end of the video. You can only edit the start and the end of the video, not sections within the video.
  5. Save the video in the top right of the page; this might take a long time
  6. If you are adding the video to the “Meetings” page of the website, upload the video to DropBox and get the link to use on the “Meetings” page and then notify the membership that there is a new file uploaded

Control of the Home Page Layout

The home page layout is controlled in the lower right of the edit page, “Page Attributes”. For the traditional layout that displays upcoming events and announcements, the “Template” is set to “Custom Homepage Template-Canonical”. The special homepage layout which only displays text entered into the body of the homepage edit page. Choose the correct template and update. (Regular pages should be set to “default template”.)

Home Page Announcements

To add announcements to the right side of the home page, go to seniorsoutdoors.org/wp-admin and click on “Announcements” in the menu on the left side. Click on Add New and enter the announcement. Announcements that may be reused in the future, such as the Avalanche Season announcements are kept in Draft status to prevent publishing.