FedNews FAQ

What is FedNews?

FedNews is an application to allow news to be processed by approvers and used for various purposes across the University website and other applications.

The aim of FedNews is to increase the level of communication within the University. Media releases will be included on the site but they will only be approved by the Media and Communications Officer or another authorised staff member.

FedNews features
  • Efficient approval systems
    • Automated approval process with 'one click' approval emails
    • Access levels for particular branches of Federation University organisational chart
    • Ability to escalate approval request to higher level of organisation chart
  • Modern WYSIWYG editor with "Paste from Word" functionality
  • Ability to auto look up and save contact details
  • Category system reflecting Federation University organisational structure
  • Integration of News and Media Releases into the one application
  • Various integration options with corporate website
  • Easily upload images or attachments with news item
  • Advanced search options
  • Security and spam protection
  • Daily summary email sent to all staff
How do I submit a news item?
  • Login to the FedNews admin with your university username and password
  • Select "Submit News Item"
  • Complete the required fields and categorisation
  • Click "Submit item for approval"
  • You will be sent an email to confirm you have successfully submitted a news item
Where will my news item appear?
Depending on the categories selected, the news item can appear:
  • On the Federation University website (Media Releases)
  • On the staff news page (Staff news)
  • On the student news page (Student News)
  • In the RSS feed. (All news)
  • In the daily summary email sent to all staff
Why can't I change the font style or size in the WYSIWYG?

To ensure consistency, quality and accessibility across the corporate website these formatting options are unavailable.

Any non standard formatting will be automatically removed and replaced with the university brand style

How do I remember my contact preferences?
When submitting a news item, tick the option "Remember contact details"
I'm not listed as an approver or my approver is not listed

As the organisation has changed, not all approvers are current.

Please review the approver list and check that the correct approver(s) for your portfolio, section or school is listed.
View the current approver list

Why is my school/section/portfolio is not listed?
If your section is not listed in the University Organisation chart, contact the FedNews Administrator to request an additional section.
How do I see who the approver for my news item is?

Hover over categories in the tree to view the approver before submitting the news item.

A message will also appear before submitting the item notifying who will be emailed, or whether item will be automatically approved.

How do I add new categories?
Only the FedNews administrator can add new categories.
Contact the Service desk or the FedNews Administrator to suggest categories or request admin access.
How do I approve a news item?
To approve a news item you must be an approver for at least one category that the news item belongs to.
Either
  • Click 'Approve item' from the automated approval email.
    This will open up a webpage and you will normally see the message "Item approved and made live"
  • Log in to the admin to view any items pending approval
How can I be added as an approver?

To add an approver or change an existing approver, contact the FedNews Administrator

Supervisor or manager confirmation may be required

How do I update or delete an item?

Approvers can edit or delete items they have approved.

Caution should be used when deleting items, as they will also be removed from the public news archive.

My item has been approved, why cant I see the item on the university website?
The university corporate website uses caching mechanisms for performance. For this reason news items may not appear immediately after being approved, but should appear on the website within 15 minutes.
How do I set an item to be made live in the future?
Change the publish date to a point in the future.
Once approved, the item will not appear publicly until that date.
How do I set an item to expire after a certain date?
Change the expiry date to a point in the future.
Items will expire after the expiry date - eg: an item with an expiry date of 7/1/2013 will expire from midnight on the 7/1/2013.
My contact details are incorrect

By default a staff login lookup is used to populate the most likely contact details.

If you are submitting items on behalf of someone else you will need to manually change these.

How do I submit an item in more than one category/department/folio?

Tick all the appropriate categories in the tree.

If this selection contains more than one approver, both will be notified, and either can approve the item.

What is the "Current warnings" category?

The Risk, Health & Safety department may have need to alert staff and students to a current risk (eg: Fire danger ratings, Campus security incident).

Items submitted in this category will appear in a special "Current Warnings" box on the home page for a period of 4 days, or until the expiry date.

What kind of attachments can I upload?
Attachments can be:
  • Documents: .pdf only
  • Images: .jpg, .png or .gif
    • Max resolution 500px x 500px.
      Images larger than this size will be automatically resized.
  • Maximum file size is 10mb (Although it is recommended to limit attachments to 1mb)
How do I embed a video in a news item?
To embed a Youtube video:
  • From Youtube, click "Share", and then the "Embed" button
  • Copy the HTML to the clipboard
  • From FedNews, click the "Source" button from the WYSIWYG toolbar
  • Paste the HTML into the WYSIWYG
  • Click the 'Source' button to return to normal editing mode
How do I submit an event?

Events are submitted using the CRM system instead of FedNews.

Find out how to promote an event in CRM.

How do I escalate an approval request?

Within the admin you can view pending news items.

You can either resend the email to the original approver or send to the next approver up the chain.

The Service Desk and Media and Communications Officer have the ability to approve any item as a last resort.

Why am I not seeing emails from FedNews?
You may need to check your junk mail settings and add 'news@federation.edu.au' to the safe senders list.
What is an RSS feed?

RSS feeds allow users to subscribe to news updates and be instantly alerted to news items via their RSS reader.

How to subscribe to an RSS feed in Outlook
Can I see views for a particular category or department?

An RSS feed is available for each category within FedNews, allowing users to only access the news relevant to them. (eg: A "Mt Helen Campus" RSS feed or a "Learning and Quality" RSS feed )

An RSS feed is also available for approvers to see any pending news requests.

View available RSS Feeds

I can't login to FedNews

Staff members must log in with their university username and password to submit news.

If you cannot log in - check the password has not expired and that you can login to a university computer.

If your account has been locked out from a university machine - then the password will not work.

What Federation University website integration options are available for my section/school?

Categories of news can be integrated into website content or side banners.

When news items are classified using the appropriate categories, these can then be used to embed appropriate news within your website.

Contact the Web Team for more information.

Does FedNews use cookies?
FedNews uses cookies for non-personal information:
  • Authentication (Required)
  • Remembering category preferences when submitting news (Optional)
When is my item included in the daily email?

The daily email includes news item or media release from the previous day.

The daily email is generated at 8:00am in the morning each weekday.

Tuesday through Friday the news will include all news with a publish date of the day before.

On Mondays any news with a publish date falling on the Friday, Saturday or Sunday will be included

Can I unsubscribe from the FedNews daily summary email?
No. It is the University's position that all staff are to receive a daily summary email.