appease BLOG
Product Reviews, Blogging and Comments Functionality
User Documentation
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08/01/2008
DISCLAIMER
The Company makes no representations or warranties with respect to this manual. Further,
The Company reserves the right to make changes in the specification of the product
described within this manual and without obligation of The Company to notify any person
of such revision or changes.
The software described in this document is furnished under a license by The Company and
may only be used or copied in accordance with the terms of such license.
This manual is copyrighted. All rights are reserved. This document may not, in whole or part,
be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated, or reduced to any electronic medium or
machine readable form without prior consent, in writing, from The Company.
DEVELOPMENTS
The Company is continuously developing PRIAM to reflect the needs of its user base.
We are grateful for criticisms of our product and suggestions for its improvement.
Our manuals may inadvertently fall behind developments. If you find inconsistencies please
inform us, preferably with specific reference, and we will amend the master manuals and
send you back modified versions.
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Contents
Contents....................................................................................................................................................... 3
1.0
2.0
Overview .........................................................................................................................4
1.1
Introduction.............................................................................................................4
1.2
Setting-up ................................................................................................................5
Blog Menus and Usage ..................................................................................................6
2.1
Standard User..........................................................................................................6
2.2
Administrator/Moderator ......................................................................................9
2.3
Dashboard...............................................................................................................9
2.3.1 Statistics........................................................................................................9
2.4
Comments and Reviews - Moderate ................................................................10
2.5
Posts........................................................................................................................11
2.5.1 Write Post....................................................................................................11
2.5.2 View posts..................................................................................................12
2.6
Blogs .......................................................................................................................14
2.6.1 Blog Setup..................................................................................................14
2.7
Manage .................................................................................................................15
2.7.1 User Roles...................................................................................................15
2.7.2 Cleanup Database...................................................................................16
2.7.3 Settings .......................................................................................................17
2.8
Help ........................................................................................................................18
2.8.1 Content Search.........................................................................................18
2.8.2 How To........................................................................................................18
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1.0 Overview
1.1
Introduction
The appease blog module provides clients who utilise the appease ecommerce suite
with the ability to add full blogging and product review functionality to their existing
website. It is designed to be an extremely flexible and user definable addition to the
toolset and it fits seamlessly with the appease Content Management module or CMS.
It allows the administrator to create and manage blogs and posts as well as moderate
comments and product reviews all from the new Blog Toolbar. This module works
independently within each appease website. In order to access this module ensure you
have obtained the license from PRIAM Software.
The functionality can be broken up into four key areas :
Blogs :
A blog consists of a collection of related Posts. An administrator creates one or more
blogs for an appease website and sets the default parameters such as its category,
word limit and status.
Posts :
Posts are created by the administrator and can be published to any blog already
setup on this website. Posts are automatically assigned a date and time stamp and
will be displayed in reverse chronological order.
Users of the website may view these posts at anytime, however they must be logged
in to make a Comment.
Comments :
Comments are submitted via a form from users (customers who are registered) of the
website. Such content may be viewed by anyone with access to the page however,
only registered users who are logged in can add a comment. Comments can be
automatically published or set to await moderation from an administrator.
Product Reviews :
Utilising the same concept as a comment, product reviews can be attached to each
and every product on an appease website. Additional to the comments form, a
product review also features a ‘star rating’. An average of these star ratings is
illustrated on the product detail page after more than one person has rated this
product. In the same way as comments, a review can be automatically published or
set to await moderation from an administrator.
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1.2
Setting-up
You will require a license to have access to the appease blog control panel menu.
The web interface for the blog is setup as a process block. Navigate to:
appease CMS > Designer > Process Block
Select the Blog Home Page option from the drop down list and set the user role as
required (normally public). This will create the page blog.php with the relevant elements
included. As this is a new page you will need to add your generic content such as
headers and footers to this page.
Please note: This does not include the functionality required for product reviews.
To add product review functionality you must first ensure that the Blog Home Page
process block has been added to the site as shown above. Once this is in place you
must manually add the ‘Add Comment/Review’ element to the pages on your website
that display the product detail (normally detail.php and detailfash.php).
Navigate to:
appease site view > select module [ Blogging – Adding Comments ] >….
select element [ Add comment/rating ] > select section > select role >…
click add to page
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2.0 Blog Menus and Usage
2.1
Standard User
Any individual who has registered on the appease website will be entitled to make a
comment or submit a review. As default, appease will use the text before the ‘@’ symbol
on a users email address to automatically register as their Nickname. This is a mandatory
requirement when making a comment or review but can be changed by the user at any
time within the ‘my account’ or ‘my profile’ functionality.
The user may also personalise the blog homepage to show one or more blogs they are
particularly interested in using the ‘My Profile-> My blogs’ page (FIGURE 1). All blogs are
selected by default and any new blogs will be ‘active’ unless the user has unchecked
this box.
Figure 1: Blog Registration
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The user can access the blog by clicking on the blog title. This will display all posts which
are published and assigned to that blog. A summary of each post will also be displayed
together with the author of the post, date published, a link to read more and number of
comments so far. (FIGURE 2)
Figure 2: Post Summaries by Blog
Comments and reviews can be made on posts and products using the add comment
box (FIGURE 3a/b).
The add comment box for products is found on the product detail page for normal
products (detail.php) and detail fashion page for fashion products (detailfash.php). The
user must be logged in to add comments/reviews; if they are not, they will be prompted
to log in.
Figure 3a: Add Comments
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Figure 3b: Add Reviews with star rating
A user can also report a comment or review if they feel it is inappropriate. The visibility of
this functionality can be turned on and off in the settings menu and is shown in FIGURE 4.
Comments or Reviews which are reported are flagged for the administrator and the
report comment is also visible to them so that they may make an informed decision.
Comments or Reviews will not be removed automatically from the page. Only one
report per comment per user is permitted.
Figure 4: Report a comment/review
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2.2
Administrator/Moderator
The administrator is responsible for creating the blog, creating the post and moderating
the comments.
This is all controlled within the appease Blog Control Panel Menu which is accessible on
the left hand side of your site-view toolbar. This menu includes:
Dashboard
•
Statistics
Comments and Reviews
• Moderate
Posts
•
•
New Post
View Post
Blogs
•
Manage Blog
Manage
• User Roles
• Cleanup Database
• Settings
Help
•
•
Content Search
How To…
The functions of each one of these are described below.
2.3
Dashboard
2.3.1 Statistics
This page displays summary statistics of registered users and blog posts
(FIGURE 5). The data displayed includes:
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Total number of unique users
Number of user per blog
Number of posts published per blog
Number of reviews/comments made per post per blog
Number of reviews/comments made on products
Top 10 rated blog publication
Top 10 rated product
Comments or Reviews awaiting moderation
Reported comments and reviews
Items flagged for deletion
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Post titles and product descriptions have a hyperlink attached to them. Clicking
on post titles will display detailed information while clicking on product’s
description displays the product’s detail.
When items are awaiting moderation, a link is provided to view them directly from
this page however, these are also accessible using the Comment/Review tab
(2.4).
Figure 5: Blog Dashboard - Statistics
2.4
Comments and Reviews - Moderate
The moderate page has features similar to the ‘view post’ page. This page allows
the user to moderate comments and reviews submitted by users (FIGURE 6).
Each comment or review can be independently moderated but also controlled
en-masse.
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Figure 6: Moderate Publications
2.5
Posts
Posts are created and managed by the administrator.
2.5.1 Write Post
Blog posts are created and edited on this page using a new HTML content
editor. Posts can be classified into groups and categories and are assigned to
one blog.
Groups and categories are user defined and created in the ‘Blog Settings’
Menu (see 2.7.3).
Clicking ‘show tool tips’ displays help icons next to the prompts displayed.
Placing the mouse over these icons will provide pop up help text.
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Figure 7: Create / edit blog post
2.5.2 View posts
View Posts page summarises all posts that have been created on this website.
The administrator can edit or remove a post at any time. Posts are displayed
in descending order of date created as default however, they can be sorted
by Date, Title, Group, Category, Reviews, Comments and Status by clicking
on the headers which alternates between descending and ascending order.
Figure 8: Edit post menu – List all posts by date
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Use the search filters to filter search results by blog, status, group and / or
category.
Use the ‘keyword search’ field to search by keywords.
Click the ‘+’ sign next to the date created to view summary details of the post
selected (FIGURE 9). The details displayed include:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
The nickname of the post author
The post’s moderator and when it was moderated
Who published the post and when it was published
The post’s language
The blogs the post is published in
The post keywords
The word count of the post’s main content
The post’ summary
There are flags to indicate if there were bad words in the post prior to filtration,
the presence of links and uploads in a post as well as the publish status of the
post.
To view the post’ main details, click the post’s title.
Click ‘delete’ to flag the post for deletion
Click ‘save’ to save changes made to the post summary
Click ‘publish’ and ‘unpublish’ to set the active status to published and
unpublished respectively.
Select the post status from the drop down list to update.
To update, publish or delete multiple items, select the checkbox next to the item
and click the required button located at the top of the table.
To select all items click the ‘select all’ check box.
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Figure 9: Summary post details
2.6
Blogs
2.6.1 Blog Setup
This page allows the administrator to set up new blogs, define default parameters
and manage existing blogs. Before a publication can be made, at least one blog
must exist.
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Click ‘Add’ New’ to create a new blog.
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Click the ‘show tool tip’ button to show tool tips for each of the page
prompts (tool tips are predefined by PRIAM).
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Click the ‘+’ sign next to an existing blog title to view and/or edit its
details.
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Figure 10: Creating and editing Blogs
2.7
Manage
All menus for creating and managing blog definition, blog setting and user
defined variables.
2.7.1 User Roles
Similar to the user roles which can be created in appease CMS roles have been
defined in the blog module.
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Standard User : A user with no admin privileges
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Moderator
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Administrator : A user with full admin privileges
: A user with limited privileges (not functional in Feb 08 release)
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Figure 11: Manage user roles
Only an administrator can manage user roles. Selecting the radio button next to
the user automatically updates the user’s role.
2.7.2 Cleanup Database
When an item is deleted e.g. publications, groups, status etc, they are not
permanently deleted from the database, rather they are flagged for deletion. In
this page, the administrator can either:
5 Restore the items flagged for deletion to their original states
or
X Delete the items permanently from the database.
Select a table from the drop down list to view the items that have been flagged
for deletion specific to this table selection.
Figure 12: Purge items flagged for deletion
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2.7.3 Settings
The default parameters required for the blog module to function correctly, are
defined in this page. These are advanced settings only to be edited by a trained
administrator. Some of these values:
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Cannot be deleted or modified
Can be modified but not deleted
Can be deleted and modified by an administrator
Figure 13: Blog settings
Blog settings are grouped into tables. To view/add new settings to a table, select
the table from the drop down list. The tables listed include:
Badwords (defined words for exclusion)
Entries in this table are required to filter content published and items submitted
by a user. An administrator or moderator can define the bad words to be
filtered. These bad words can be categorised as required e.g. by language,
severity etc or set up in one category. However, only one category of bad
words can be used at any given time. This category should be specified in the
Default Settings table.
Categories
The categories into which blogs/publications are categorised are defined
here. A category must belong to a parent group.
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Groups
Define groups for grouping blogs and posts in which the user can then filter
results based on this criterion.
Languages
Define the language of any posts that are created. This functionality has
been added for future use.
Publication Type
By default there are three types of post
Post –
A published article created by an administrator which is added to a blog. Users are then
invited to add a comment.
Comments –
A comment is a reply or response to a post made by registered users.
Review –
A review is an individuals opinion on a product including a ‘star rating’.
More publication types can be defined as required.
Status
This defines the status of a comment, review or post.
User roles
See section 2.7.1. Additional user roles can be defined here.
Default Settings
This table specifies the default values required by the blog module to function
properly.
When required, the data source for the required variables is specified. The data
source can either be:
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Values from an existing table
Numeric – selected from a drop down list
Free text – the user types in a value
Some of the default values are set by PRIAM and should not be modified.
2.8
Help
To be specified in future updated
2.8.1 Content Search
To be specified in future update
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2.8.2 How To
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To be specified in future update
08/01/2008