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OU Campus User FAQ

Note: These questions are intended for people who already have access to an SJSU web site in OU Campus. We also have detailed information about OU Campus and instructions on how to apply for a site in OU Campus.

 

Q: What web browsers are supported?

A:  According to OmniUpdate, the OU Campus interface works best with Internet Explorer 7.0+, Firefox 2+, and Safari 3+. It also works well with the latest version of Chrome.
Web sites built using OU Campus and the SJSU templates are designed to work in the following browsers:

  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0+
  • Mozilla Firefox 3.0+
  • Google Chrome 4.0+
  • Safari 3.0+

Anyone still using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or earlier should upgrade to a more modern browser.

Q: How do I log in to OU Campus?
A: 

  1. Open the page you want to edit in a web browser
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page
  3. Click on the last modified date
  4. The first time you log in, you will need to choose a campus from the drop-down list. Choose San Jose State University
  5. At the login screen, enter your SJSU ID number and SJSUOne password (this is the same information that you use to log in to SJSU mail)

If you are not able to log in, please open an iSupport ticket.

 

Q:What are some best practices for creating web pages in OU Campus?

A:

  • Use brief but meaningful names for folders/directories you create
  • Use lower-case letters for page names. Page names are case sensitive; for example, www.sjsu.edu/webservices/services is not the same as www.sjsu.edu/webservices/Services
  • Since spaces are not allowed in folder names, use a hyphen '-' or an underscore '_' to separate words. For example, "about_sjsu"
  • Use bold or italic to emphasize important words or phrases
  • Use the Heading styles (starting at H3) to organize your page and format headings and sub-headings.
    Items of the same importance should have the same heading level.
    Do not skip levels; the next less-important heading under H3 should be H4
    Do not use bold text to simulate a heading 
  • If the primary navigation links are taking up too much space, consider shortening the appropriate page titles

Refer to SJSU Web Redesign - Style and Guidelines for additional information.

Q: How do I create a new page?

  • Click the Content tab
  • Click the Pages button in the second row
  • Navigate to the folder/page that will be the parent of the new page
  • Click on the + new button in the upper right corner
  • Select the page type you want to create (you can change the number of columns later if you need to)
  • Enter the following information:
    • Directory Name: Enter the directory name (lower-case, no spaces)
    • Page Title: Enter the page title (no restrictions)
    • Keywords: (optional)
    • Description: A description of what the page is about (optional)
    • Meta Author: The name of the person who wrote the page content (optional)
    • Primary Nav Order: The relative order that this page should appear in navigation list (01 is first, 99 is last)
    • Add Navigation Item: Yes, if you want the page to be in the automatically generated site navigation; No, if you want to manually create links to the page
  • Click the Create button

Q: How do I edit an existing page?
A: 

  • If you are not already logged in to OU Campus, browse to the page you want to edit, click the Last Modified date, and log in.
  • If you are already logged in, click the Content tab, click Pages, and find the page you want to edit.
  • Click the index.pcf link for the page (if the page is checked out, you will need to contact the person who has it checked out, to ask them to publish their changes and/or check it in)
  • A preview of the page will open. Each editable area of the page will have its own green Edit button
  • Click the Edit button for the area of the page you want to change
  • The editable area will open in the WYSIWYG editor
  • Make the changes you want to make
  • To check for typographical errors, click the Toggle Spell Checker button (a check mark with ABC above it). If there are no problems, you will see a message saying "No misspelled words found". Otherwise, all words not recognized by the spell checker will be underlined with a red line. Clicking the word will bring up a list of suggestions. Click the suggested replacement in the case of a misspelled word, or the Add to Dictionary in the case of a correctly spelled word that is not yet in the dictionary
  • Click the Save button
  • If you want to abandon the changes you have made, click the "Revert content to last saved" button
  • Click the Publish Now button to push the changes to the production server.

Q: How do I change the page title?
A: 

  • Check your page out by clicking the light bulb icon
  • Click on the Properties (Props) icon
  • Change the Page Title in the Title box
  • Click Save

Q: How do I add calendar events to a page?

A: 

  • To add a a list of calendar events, click on the Insert/Edit Assets icon in the WYSIWYG editor.
  • Go to the globalresources site in the breadcrumb.
  • Select "Upcoming Events"
  • Save your page
  • Publish your page. Your calendar will appear on the page

Q:How do I add a downloadable document to a page? 
A:

  • Navigate to the docs folder in your site
  • Upload the document you want to link to
  • Navigate to the page you want the link to appear on and open it in the editor
  • Enter some text that will be the link to the document
  • Select the text and click the Insert/Edit Link button
  • Browse to the document in the docs folder and insert it

Q: How do I edit my department address?
A: 

  • In your site, go into the includes folder
  • Click the department.inc file
  • Edit in the WYSIWYG editor
  • Save and publish the changes

Q: What are snippets and how do I use them?
A: A snippet is a pre-defined piece of content you can add to a page and then modify. To add a snippet 

Q: What are assets and how do I use them?
A: An asset is a piece of content that can be shown on multiple pages. When the asset is updated, the changes are immediately visible on every page that uses that asset.

Q: How do I change the Primary Navigation?
A: 

If you are using Mega Navigation, edit and publish the /includes/meganav.inc file

If you are using the default navigation:

  • Check out the page you want to rename or move to a different place in the navigation
  • Click on the Edit Properties icon
  • In the "Primary Nav Order" input box, change the Page Title or the default value from "01" to the number where you want the navigation item to appear. Note: The navigation goes by ascending order, with "01" being the first value and "99" being the last value.
  • Publish your page
  • Go to the top level of your site
  • Check out and Publish the primarynav.pcf file
  • Note: Do not attempt to edit the primarynav.pcf file. There is no user-editable content in it. The primary navigation is automatically generated based on the pages found at the top level of the site. When primaryav.pcf is published, the primary navigation will be automatically updated.

Q: How does Secondary Navigation work and how can I change it?
A: Secondary Navigation is the list of links you see in the right column of a page that contains sub-pages.

Every time you add a page at the second or higher level, it is added to the secondary navigation links for its parent page. OU Campus automatically appends the link to the end of the sidenav.inc file in the parent directory of the page you created.

If you want to add or remove items from the secondary navigation, or change the order, you will need to check out and edit the sidenav.inc file. You can delete links, add links, or cut and paste them to change the order. The sidenav.inc file only affects the secondary navigation for that page.

Q: How can I implement Mega Nav?
A: 

  • In your "includes" folder rename zz-meganav.inc to meganav.inc
  • Edit the meganav.inc file to include your site navigation
  • The "row" Snippet adds a vertical drop down menu, with two categories side-by-side
  • The "sub" Snippet adds a horizontal drop down menu, with three categories side-by-side
  • A light dashed box surrounds the Snippet content showing the div structure
  • Do not delete the dashed, grey box or else Mega Nav will not work
  • By default, the Snippets add a list item, a new primary navigation link, to the end of your inserted Snippet. Delete the bullet point if you do not want to add any more links (otherwise it will show up as an empty link)

Q: How can I recover my work if my computer or browser crashes?
A: If your computer or browser crashes while you are editing, you might be able to recover your work. If this happens, log in to OU Campus using the same computer and browser you were using when you were editing, open the page you were working on in the WYSIWYG editor, and before you do anything else, click the red and white "life preserver" Restore auto-saved content icon. You will be prompted to restore the saved content.

Q: How do I add headings to a table?
A: To make the top row of a table into headings, do the following:

  1. Click in one of the cells in the top row
  2. Click the Table Cell Properties icon in the tool bar
  3. Set the Cell Type to Header 
  4. Set the Scope to Column
  5. Change "Update Current Cell" to "Update All Cells in Row"
  6. Click the Update button

Q: What happens when I publish a page?
A: Before a page is published, it exists only on the "staging" server, located remotely at OmniUpdate's data center. Publishing the file will send it to the "production" server, located at SJSU. The production server is dev.sjsu.edu for sites that are not yet live, and stage.sjsu.edu for sites that are live. For live sites, updated pages are copied from stage.sjsu.edu to www.sjsu.edu approximately every ten minutes.