Setup and operate a Press Release and News System

PortalProdigy provides a sophisticated Press Release management feature which is meant to be used by membership organizations that wish to extend public relations management services to their members or customers. However, the Press Release management feature is not ideally suited for controlling the news and press release management of the PPIOP customer. Instead, the procedure described herein should be applied to handling internal Press Release and News Management.

1. Activate the News Feature by following the steps in the Quick Tutorial titled, “Activate the News Feature”.

2. Create a link from the home page to the news archive by following the steps in the Quick Tutorial titled, “Add a Link to the News Items Selection Page”.

3. If desired, add a news mini-browser to the home page by following the steps in the Quick Tutorial titled, “Show News Items on the Home Page Mini Browser”.

4. Load past news articles to create a news archive. To add news items, follow the steps in the Quick Tutorial titled, “Add a News Item”.

5. Load media contacts into the database by following the steps in the Quick Tutorial titled, “Import Media Contacts”.

6. Create a Press Release Broadcast Template following the steps in the Quick Tutorial titled, “Create an Email Broadcast Template”

The template should contain merge fields for the name of the Media Contacts and a standard press release closing. For example:

Attn: <%CONTACT:FirstName%> <%CONTACT:LastName%>

      <%CONTACT:CompanyName%>

Press Release

Portal Prodigy, Inc Announces XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Robbinsville, NJ – Month XX, 2004 - XXXXXXX Copy XXXXXXXX

About Portal Prodigy, Inc.

Portal Prodigy, Inc., located in Robbinsville, NJ, is dedicated to providing products and services to small and medium businesses and nonprofit organizations. The company’s mission is to Isolate the best website features, processes and practices on the Internet and roll them up into a uniform, easy to implement and reasonably priced operating platform so its customers can leverage the web without complications, without programming, without headaches and without changing the way they do business. The company’s philosophy is simple: Build, maintain and constantly improve a feature rich system that is simple and easy to use. Keep the customer involved in the development, improvement and support process so it meets their needs. Preserve a fair and economical price. Sell one complete system instead of a core with expensive add-on modules. Build community.  Its flagship product comes complete and ready to go. No need to add modules. Just add personality and organizations are up and running instantly. Clients don’t even need to install expensive servers and bandwidth. Portal Prodigy run the equipment for them. PortalProdigy makes Internet implementation simple, quick and easy.

Portal Prodigy Contact

Stephen M Reuning

Tel: 609.584.7747 Ext 202

Email:SMR@portalprodigy.com

7. News items are added to the system by following the steps in the Quick Tutorial titled, “Add a News Item”.

8. News items are broadcast as press releases by pasting the announcement title and copy of the news item into the broadcast template in the areas designated by the XXXXXXX variable and then selecting recipients and running the broadcast as described in the chapter of the Administration Manual titled, “Broadcasting Feature in Detail”