Post FHA Meeting Agenda or Minutes to Website

05 Jun Post FHA Meeting Agenda or Minutes to Website

In late 2016 the FHA Board adopted a policy of posting Board meeting agendas and, after approval, meeting Minutes with attachments (reports by Board Members). This article describes the process of posting these documents on the FHA website.

Before reading further, interested parties should have the following skills:

1. Generate a PDF file from one or more Microsoft Word documents (.doc and/or .docx) (LibreOffice free software recommended!)
2. Upload a PDF file into a given directory on the website using FTP or the website’s Media Manager.

Agendas usually come from the FHA President as a single file. Minutes come from the FHA Secretary and/or the FHA Director of Communications, usually in the form of a Minutes file and several “Reports” documents. Either transmission needs to be made into a single PDF file. Agenda PDF files are to be named “Agenda_mm-dd-yy.pdf” (Underscore after Agenda, dashes separating date elements). Consolidated Minutes PDF files are named “Minutes_mm-dd-yy.pdf” (same punctuation). 

The resulting PDF files should be uploaded to the website’s /images/mtgs&agendas directory. You can do this using FTP or by using the “Media Manager” link, labeled “Media” inder the Administrator top menu’s “Content” drop-down. (Open “Media”, click green “Upload” button at top left.)

Once the file is uploaded you then create a link to it, then order its appearance in the list of existing Agendas and Minutes files.

To create a link, open the Administrator top menu’s “Components” top menu dropdown and click “Weblinks” at the bottom of the list. This will list all existing weblinks. Click “Search Tools”, and in the “Select Category” box select “Board Meetings and Agendas”. This restricts the list to the weblinks category “Board Meetings and Agendas” so you don’t have to look at all the other kinks of links we use. 

At the far left of the headings line (“Status”, “Title”, etc.) click  the up-arrowhead/down-arrowhead symbol at the far left to activate the positioning icons (three dots arranced vertically).

[Hint: You can always create a new weblink from scratch, but I find I make fewer errors if I edit an existing link, so that’s what’s suggested here.]

Choose an existing weblink with similar name and date to the file you’re trying to post, and open it. then

1. Edit the title to reflect the correct title of your new document’s weblink.
2. Clear the Alias field. (When you save, this field will be regenreated.)
3. Edit the URL field to reflect the correct name of the file you uploaded to /images/mtgs_agendas
4. IMPORTANT: Click Save as Copy, NOT Save.
5. Click Close.

You’ll have created a new weblink pointing to the file you uploaded. It will be found at the very bottom of the list of Agendas and Minutes. Click the red-circle ‘x’ to publish the new link.

Next click and hold the positioning icon (three dots arranced vertically) to the right and drag the line upwards to its correct position. Lines for a meeting are ordered minutes first, agenda second. If adding an agenda file it shouild be in inverse date order (most recent at the top.

TEST THE NEW WEBLINK!

You’re done.