Tips for preparing departmental website announcements and Morning Mail summaries

Overview

There may be times when you need to post an announcement -- and set its related Morning Mail entry -- after usual business hours, when it wouldn't have a chance to be reviewed as it normally would be before it went out in Morning Mail.

These tips should help you put your website announcements and Morning Mail summaries together more quickly and with more consistent wording.

Details

Announcements

• Keep your titles fairly short, similar to what you might see in a newspaper.  Here's an example of a title that is definitely too long:
  
  The Rensselaer Forward Education Innovation, Living and Learning Committee invites you to add your input to 3 different community ideation opportunities next week!
  
  In this case, it could be shortened to Committee Seeking Input for Three Community Ideation Opportunities.
  
  At the same time, remember to include both a subject and a verb in your title.  For example, although a title like An Important Notice is certainly short, it also isn't very helpful, as readers don't know what the update is about or who is posting the information.  Something like Important Notice Issued to Students Regarding Spring Break Parking is much clearer.
  
  
• Avoid using dates like "3/19/23" in your titles.
• Make your announcements as long and descriptive as needed, within reason.
• Make links accessibility-compliant by avoiding Click here as your link text.
• Add links to the text instead of displaying long URLs.  For example, use
  Read details about Office 365 rollout to act as a clickable link within your text,
  vs. something like the following:
  https://somewebsite.edu/blah/blah/really-long-title-that-makes-for-long-url

Morning Mail Summaries

Most individuals who normally post announcements on their departmental website can now use an Include in Morning Mail option to indicate that they want a specific announcement to go out in Morning Mail. The option includes fields where one can enter the title and brief description for the Morning Mail notice, as well select ONE intended audience, and enter up to three Morning Mail release dates. 

Here are some things to remember when posting an announcement to a departmental website:

• Make sure you use the Include in Morning Mail option if you want your department’s announcement to appear in Morning Mail.  If this section is left empty, the announcement won’t get pulled into the Morning Mail queue so it can be tagged to go out.
• Keep in mind that some websites don’t have the Include in Morning Mail option mentioned above.  In this case, individuals who normally post announcements on their department’s website should post the announcement as usual, and then submit a ticket via ITSSC to request that the entry go out in Morning Mail. If they wish, the person submitting the ticket may also request to have the Morning Mail notice go out on as many as three dates.

In addition, remember that Morning Mail entries get displayed on many TV screens around campus, so:

• Keep those titles fairly short as well.
• Use the most important information from your announcement to compose a short paragraph to serve as your Morning Mail summary.
• Review your summary carefully to make sure it ends with a complete sentence, so it doesn't look like the content got truncated.

General Tips

• Double-check your spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
• Watch for typos that a spell-checker might not catch, such as where you have typed "form" when the word should really be "from."
• Spell out dates so they look a little cleaner.
• Spell out numbers less than 10 (for example, "one" instead of "1"), and don't begin a sentence with a numeral.
• Be consistent with capitalization.  Capitalize each word in an announcement's title except for words like "and," "to," "by," "with," "in," "for," etc.  Make sure to correctly capitalize all proper nouns in the body of the text, but also don't capitalize words that aren't proper nouns.

An Example

Here's an example of an appropriate announcement and its matching Morning Mail summary.

Announcement

Box Sign Enabled for Registered Box Accounts

Box Sign, which is an added feature of the Box cloud file-sharing service offered to all students, faculty and staff free of charge, has recently been enabled for all registered Rensselaer Box accounts.

This new feature allows users to easily collect electronic signatures on shared critical content, simplify important business processes, and set up workflow identifying individuals in the order the document needs to be signed.  These capabilities help accelerate critical business processes by streamlining e-signature workflow in a secure, seamless, and cost-effective way.

In collaboration with the Administration Division and the Procurement Department, the DotCIO has tested Box Sign functionality and developed extensive documentation on how to use Box Sign.  If you need any additional assistance, please submit a Support Request.

Morning Mail Summary

Box Sign Enabled for Registered Box Accounts

Box Sign, which is an added feature of the Box cloud file-sharing service offered to all students, faculty and staff free of charge, has recently been enabled for all registered Rensselaer Box accounts.

References

None at this time.

Last Reviewed:   17-Nov-2023