Overview

Blog channels are locations in your digital workplace where you create and store blog articles. These types of articles are often long-form rich-text articles about news, updates, and announcements. Your digital workplace can have many blog channels, each focusing on a specific niche topic or targeting a particular type of user. By going to a blog channel, users can view a feed its articles and subscribe to receive email notifications when an author posts a new article.

Users will only see articles that they have at least Read access to.

Go to one of the following sections in this article:

• Considerations and caveats
• Layout
• Creating
• Configuring
• Auditing
• Moving
• Deleting
• Creating articles

Considerations and caveats

Blogs vs. microblogs

If you need help deciding whether to use a blog or a microblog channel, refer to the article When to communicate using a Blog versus a Microblog (BP).

Aggregating multiple blog channels

You can use the blog articles widget to display a feed of blog articles from multiple blog channels in one central location. For more information, see Blog Articles Widget.

RSS feed

Blog channels that have anonymous access enabled have an RSS feed. You can find a link to the feed's URL at the very bottom of a blog channel.

Channel URL

When you first create a blog channel, its URL will match the title that you've given it. To change the URL of a blog channel that already exists, see Changing a channel's URL.

Layout

Channel header

The channel header is shown below your workplace's navigation bar and above the content of the channel. It contains the following features:

• Breadcrumbs: Select to go to a location.
• Channel title: If enabled and configured on the channel, a color bar showing the channel's color will be shown next to the title of the channel and the title of articles on the channel.
• Actions button: Visible to those with at least Edit access to the channel. Select for additional options.

The feed

The blog channel feed occupies the majority of the space on a blog channel. This feed initially shows a preview of the 10 most recently published articles. However, you can view the following 10 most recent articles by selecting << Older articles below the feed.

The feed shows these properties of an article:

• Author profile image: Hover over for their profile card.
• Publish date: This shows the date and time of when the article was published. Hover over the date to see the exact time.
• Title: Select to go to the article.
• Actions button: Visible to those with at least Edit access to the article. Select for additional options.
• By: This shows who published the article. Select to go to the author's profile page.
• Archived: Visible if the article is archived.
• Comments: Visible when there are comments on the article. This shows the number of comments. Select to go to the comments section of the article.
• Summary: This shows the summary section of an article.
• Body: This shows the first image in an article and approximately the first 500 characters.
• Read More: Select to go to the article.
• Like: Select to like the article. Select the number of likes to view who has liked the article.

Side panel

The side panel of a blog channel provides metadata about the channel and additional actions for users based on their access. Features include:

• Add an article: Visible to those with at least Write access to the channel. Select to begin creating a new article on the channel.
• Add an article dropdown: If Email Content is enabled on the channel, this option is visible to users with at least Write Access to the channel. Selecting this brings up a menu with the following options: 
  • Post via email: Select to open up an email in your system's default email application. The To field of the email is pre-populated with the channel's email address. 
  • Download Contact Card: Select to download the VCF file for the channel. 
• Search box: If enabled, search for content on only the current channel.
• Information panel: This section contains the following information and actions:
  • Follow: Select to subscribe/unsubscribe from email notifications about new articles.
  • Channel stats: This shows the count of views, articles, and followers on the channel. Select Follower to view a list of all followers.
  • Channel summary: This shows the configured summary for the channel.
  • Recent contributors: This shows a list of recent content authors. You can hover over the profile picture to view a user's profile card or message them on teams (if enabled). Select the author's name to go to their profile. A user who's content has been deleted will stay in the list of recent contributors until their content is purged from the trash can. 
  • Recent Comments: This shows a list of articles that have recent comments on them. Select the article title to go to the article.
  • Archives: Select a date to filter the feed to show only articles from that period.
  • Manage: Visible to those with at least Write access to the channel. Select to go to the Manage page.

Channel trailer bar

The channel trailer bar is shown below the contents of the channel and above the workplace's footer. Features include:

• View count: This shows the number of views on the current location.
• Follow: Select to subscribe/unsubscribe from email notifications about new articles being added to the current location and set the frequency of these notifications.
• Share: Visible if the channel allows anonymous access. Select to share a link to the current location to social media sites. To configure which social media sites can be selected, go to the Social Media Sites page of the Control Panel.
• Email Link: Select to draft an email that contains a link to the current location. 
• Broadcast: If enabled in the workplace, select to broadcast a link to this location to select workplace groups; see Broadcast.
• Feedback: If enabled in the workplace, select to send a feedback message to workplace administrators; see Feedback.
• RSS: Visible if the channel allows anonymous access. Select to go to the RSS feed for the channel.

Creating

The workflow for creating a blog channel depends on what type of administrator you are.

Workplace administrators can create a blog channel by following these steps:

1. Select Control Panel.
2. Under Presentation, select Site Manager.
3. Select Add followed by Blog.
4. Complete the provided fields:
   1. In the Title text box, enter a name for the channel.
   2. In the Description text box, enter a summary that describes the channel.
   3. Use the Location selector to select where to create the channel. You can use the search function above the selection list to return up to 100 results that match your query. Only Pages and Spaces to which you have at least Read Access are visible.
   4. For Hide from navigation, select if you want to hide the channel from navigation menus.
5. Select Add to create the channel.

Space administrators can create a blog channel by following these steps: 

1. Go to the space.
2. On the space's navigation bar, select Administration followed by Navigation.
3. Select Add followed by Blog.
4. Complete the provided fields:
   1. In the Title text box, enter a name for the channel.
   2. In the Description text box, enter a summary that describes the channel.
   3. Use the Location selector to select where to create the channel. You can use the search function above the selection list to return up to 100 results that match your query. Only Pages and Spaces to which you have at least Read Access are visible.
   4. For Hide from navigation, select if you want to hide the channel from navigation menus. 
5. Select Add to create the channel.

Regardless of the method used to create the channel, you should explore configuring the channel once created. See the next section for the configuration options that are available for blog channels.

Configuring

To configure a blog channel, go to the channel and select Actions. From the actions menu, explore each of these options to configure your channel:

• Edit: Configure the following (if your digital workplace supports multiple languages, use the language tabs and translation button to ensure that any text that you enter is readable in all your supported languages):
  • Title: Enter a new title for the channel.  
  • Summary: Enter a summary that describes the purpose of the channel. This summary is shown in the information panel of the channel.  
  • Custom content: Enter custom content for the channel. This content is shown above the article feed.
• Advanced: Modify the page title, enhance how external search engines index a page (if your site is public), and add custom JavaScript code and CSS to the channel's page. For more information, see Advanced page.
• Access: On the Access page, you can control how users and groups interact with the channel and its contents. For more information, see Access rules.
• Subscriptions: Control what groups are subscribed to the channel and at what frequency they will receive notifications. In addition, you can control whether auto-following occurs. For more information, see Subscriptions.
• Channel Template: Use the editor to enter text, headings, and other content to pre-populate for all articles created on the channel. Then, when a user begins creating a new article, the template contents appear in the user's editor. For more information, see Channel Templates.
• Settings: Configure the following settings for a blog channel:
  • Email Content: Select whether users can email articles into the channel and what email address the channel uses. For more information about emailing content into a channel, see Add content via email. 
  • Labels: Select whether labeling articles is mandatory or not. If mandatory, users must apply at least one label to an article before publishing it. For more information, see Labels.
  • Anonymous Commenting: If your workplace has public registration and anonymous commenting enabled, select whether anonymous users can comment on articles and whether the article's author must approve their comment before displaying it to others. For more information, see Enabling anonymous commenting.
  • Comments: Select whether newly created articles have commenting disabled. When enabled, this does not disable commenting on existing content or prevent authors from enabling commenting on specific articles.  For more information, see Comments.
  • Moderation: Select whether the assigned moderators must approve articles and comments before being posted. For more information, see Moderation.
  • Archiving: Select an archiving policy for articles on the channel. For more information, see Archiving. 
  • Pinning Content: Select whether authors can pin articles on the channel. For more information, see Pinning and unpinning content.
  • Read Tracking: Select whether newly created articles have read tracking enabled and customize the text of this button. When enabled, this does not add read tracking on existing articles or prevent authors from disabling read tracking on specific articles. For more information, see Read Tracking.
  • Search Box: Select whether the channel and articles have a search box included in the same column that includes the information panel. This search includes only articles on the same channel. For more information, see Search.
  • Networked Enterprise: If the channel is in the hub workplace of your networked enterprise, select whether authors can share their articles to spoke workplaces. For more information, see Sharing Hub Blog Channel content to one or more Spokes.
  • Channel Color: Select a color to associate with the channel. This color appears as an accent on the channel and article names and helps differentiate the channel in widgets that aggregate content from many channels. For more information, see Channel Colors.

Auditing

To better understand how users are interacting with the channel, go to the channel and select Actions. From the actions menu, explore each of these options:

• Activity: View what actions (e.g., views, edits, etc.) users have been performing on the channel and when they did them. This page only tracks activity on the channel itself and does not include activity on articles that are on the channel. For more information, see Activity page.
• Manage: View the status (e.g., draft, published, unpublished, and in review) of articles on the channel. For more information, see Manage - Action Button.

For more in-depth auditing, see Data feeds or the Insights program.

Moving

The workflow for moving a channel depends on what type of administrator you are.

Workplace administrators should refer to Site Manager.

Space administrators should refer to Navigation page.

Deleting

While on the channel, select Actions followed by Delete to send the channel and its content to the trash can. For more information, see Trash Can.

Creating articles

For information about adding content to a blog channel, see Blog articles.