What are Templates? 

Give your intranet a structure and style to match your user needs. Your templates support the way you want people to interact with your content and make everything consistent.

For content types and sections, you can add and save a layout and arrangement of widgets. This means, whenever you create a new content type or section, you simply select the template you want to use and everything will appear and work as you expect.

If you do not create templates for content types, any changes you make to widgets will be made to every news, page, policy, etc. you have on your intranet. Avoid this with templates.

Roles in Templates

There is one role with the permissions to create templates: 

• Webmaster

Accessing Templates

1. Hover over your profile and select ‘Invotra admin’ beneath ‘Advanced options’
2. Find the ‘Structure’ category and the heading ‘Templates’
3. Select the appropriate content type template or ‘Site section’

Creating Templates

Before you start creating templates, we recommend you have the information you want to display in mind. 

Perhaps you’re setting up a news template and like the BBC layout. Or perhaps, you’re setting up a site section template and know exactly where you want your navigation to be, your introductory paragraph, your images and your related links. 

If so, great, this will speed up the process and give you clarity and confidence while creating your templates. Remember, you can create multiple templates, just make sure each template has a clear and obvious ‘Administrative title’ for your publishers.

1. Select the content type you wish to create a template for (Page in example)
2. Select ‘Add’
3. Add a clear and obvious ‘Administrative title’ and select ‘Save’
4. Select the ‘Layout’ tab
5. Select ‘Invotra’ from the category dropdown
6. Select your chosen layout
7. In the following layout screen, select ‘Save’. The ‘Content’ screen will appear next.
8. Locate your layout regions beneath the heading, ‘Substitutions’ Each grey box is a widget that can be moved and styled.

To move widgets:

9. Select and hold the grey bar containing the widget’s name

10. A multi-directional arrow will appear, hold your selection and drag into the appropriate region.

To delete unnecessary or unwanted widgets:

11. Select the cog icon in the top right corner of each widget

12. Select ‘Remove’ from the dropdown menu

13. Select ‘OK’ in the pop-up window

To add new widgets:

14. Select the cog icon in the top left corner of each region

    15. Select ‘Add content’

16. Search for the widget you want to add

    17. Configure your widget

    18. Select ‘Continue’ and ‘Finish’

    19. Move your widget to the appropriate position

   20. Repeat until you are satisfied with your template

   21. Select ‘Save’

You will see the following message:

When you are creating a template, we recommend you save an early version and open up a new tab with a content type or site section that is adopting your new template.

Continue to make changes to your template, saving it after each change, before refreshing your content type or site section. This will give you a real example of how your template works using live content.

Choosing Templates

When you have created and saved your templates, you can select them every time you create a new content type and site section.

For content types:

1. Go to your content type, select ‘Options’ and ‘Edit current’
2. Scroll down to ‘Template’ dropdown, select your template and ‘Save’

For site sections:

1. Create your site section
2. Scroll down to ‘Template’ dropdown

3. Select your template and ‘Save’

 

Suggested links

• Widgets