Emergency Alert

Our Emergency Alert module allows our clients to post a message on their site to notify visitors of things like school closings, late-start, etc. The message will pop up in a white box and everything around it will be grayed out until the site visitor dismisses the alert. A few things to remember:

  • The module must be type "Article" in order to work correctly.
  • On most sites, the module is only on the Home page, and will show every time a visitor lands on that page.

Giving Clients Access to Post Alerts

In order for clients to log in to SWEngine and post an emergency alert, we need to set them up with access to do so.

Creating the Role

Roles are used in SWEngine in order to lock down access to things and allow users to only see what you want them to see.

  1. Make sure you have selected the client site from the dropdown in the top right.
  2. On the left-hand side, click on Settings.
  3. From the menu, click on Roles.
  4. Click the blue Add New Role button.
  5. Fill out the form.
    1. Name: Client Access
    2. Description: Leave blank
    3. Account: It should default to the site you are on.
    4. Click Submit
  6. You will now see the role you created in the list. Click on the Edit button on the right.
  7. Now, click on the Permissions button.
  8. This is where things get fun. All of the boxes are unchecked by default, but all permissions are automatically assigned. In order to take permission away, you have to check a box, and then uncheck it so there is a drop shadow showing that a change has been made. You will need to check every single box on the page so the drop shadow turns red, and then uncheck the boxes you don't want the client to have access to. Everything should be unchecked at the end except for module access and all of the boxes on the component line. 
  9. When you are done editing the permissions, click the Save button in the bottom right.

Creating a User

Now that the role has been created, we'll create a user and assign that role to it.

  1. Click on Users on the left-hand side.
  2. Click the blue Add New User button in the top right of the screen.
  3. Fill out the form.
    1. First name, last name, and email are self-explanatory and need to be filled in.
    2. Select an Option: Admin (Yes, this is counterintuitive, but in this case Client refers to our teacher sites.)
    3. Where it says *Template Starters, select the site you are giving the client access to.
  4. This will take you to the full user form. You don't need to fill in all of the fields, but you do need to fill in New Password and Confirm Password so the client can log in. Do that, hit Save Changes, then do it again, and Save Changes again. There is a little bug where it doesn't always save it the first time. 
  5. In the right column, click on Assign Role.
    • From the list, find the school and click on the role that you just created. Click the blue Add button.
    • The role you have given them will now show up on the right-hand side of the screen. 
  6. The primary account should already be set since you chose it when created the user, but if it isn't you can choose it from the dropdown again.
  7. Click Save Changes to save everything.
  8. Now, go to the client site and add /Admin at the end of their URL. For example, https://www.fhusd.org/Admin or https://www.yoursitedomain.org/Admin. This will take you to the admin log in screen for this site. Type in the credentials you've created for the user to make sure they work, and to ensure that the permissions are set up correctly. 
  9. Send the client their log in information. You will always give them the URL of their school site with /Admin at the end, their username is their email address, and then the password you created for them.