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Frequently Asked Questions

​These are frequently asked questions and instructions specific to our CMS. If you don’t see your question here, review our troubleshooting recommendations or contact DXA.

Go to the Gear Icon menu and click on Site Contents. Click the Pages folder. There is a column called Checked Out To that will list who each page is checked out to.

Almost all of our Academics section pages use the University Catalog web part, which displays content from the University Catalog on the page. This content can only be updated in the University Catalog.
The catalog is edited twice per year and is maintained by the University Registrar. Please contact the University Registrar with any specific catalog degree content questions.

To add a faculty member, create a new page under the main Faculty A-Z list page and change the page layout to the Bio Page Layout. Remember to select the correct department so that they show up on your department's facutly page - this happens automatically when the new page is published and the bio cache is refreshed (a script does this automatically three times per day).

To remove a faculty member, simply delete their bio page -- but be sure to first check to make sure that they don't also still teach in another department (in that case, just remove your department from their department list in their bio page ).

Your changes won't be visible untill the bio page is published and the cache refreshes. You do not need to edit the page that lists your department's faculty (academics/yourdepartment/Pages/faculty-and-staff.aspx or /academics/yourdepartment/faculty-and-staff/Pages/default.aspx) -- that page uses the BioRollup web part to automatically pull faculty that have your department listed in their bio page. Learn more about the Faculty Bio System.

To add a link to an email address (so that the address appears as a link and has a little envelope icon next to it) follow the steps for linking to an address. Highlight the email address in the content and click on the Insert tab and then click on the lower part of the Link button and select "From Address" and in the Address field type mailto:  and then the email address, without spaces. For example, if you wanted to link to the main DePaul admission email address, in the Address field you would type mailto:admission@depaul.edu

The short answer is no.
The long answer is tabbed browsing is not optimized on most mobile devices. If you've browsed on your smartphone and had several browser windows or tabs open, you know how much more difficult is it to get back to where you originally were. Opening in the same window allows the user to simply hit the back button on their phone or tablet. Today, desktop users know to either open links in new tabs or to hit the back button - this has become common practice. Overall, it is simpler to have links open in the same window.

The default fonts are the only fonts available to use on DePaul websites. When our design team chose the fonts for DePaul's Responsive package, they not only spent time researching which fonts display best at all viewports (desktop, tablet, mobile), but they also made sure they would comply with ADA standards. The web design guidelines set forth in the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) specify using only a few fonts, being sure to use fonts that are clear and large, and to use high-contrast text. This is why we chose to only allow black and dark grey text and blue links on our clean white background, and to limit editors to the fonts we have pre-selected. Learn more about these decisions here.

A subsite is essentially a page that has pages nested underneath it.

Subsites are structural navigation items that have their own libraries for storing documents and images. Pages live within subsites. The landing page of a Subsite ends in "/Pages/default.aspx".

Learn more about Subsites and Pages

If you need a subsite created (so that you can put pages underneath it), contact DXA.

If it's a Microsoft Office Word document, it must live in the root documents folder that is set up to not require authentication.

As a site editor, you cannot change the top navigation items or subsite navigation titles. However, you can request approval and have a content administrator do this. Contact DXA for support.

As part of our efforts to standardize navigation terms for optimal user experience across all DePaul websites, DXA must review top-level navigation requests.
If your request is approved, the content admin will make the changes for you.

These file types are not optimal, because not all computers or devices will be able to open them.

However, if you do need to link to a Microsoft Office file in your SharePoint site, you can upload it to the root Documents library.

Go to your site's home page and click on Site Actions, then select View All Site Content. The Documents library there should be set up to allow .doc, .docx, .xls, and .ppt files.*

*Contact DXA if you link to files that live in this folder and they still require login.

If the page you created doesn't show up where it is supposed to, or only shows up when you are logged in, but doesn't appear when you are logged out and viewing the live site, check to make sure that the page is Checked In and Published.
When a page is Checked In, the yellow status bar (when you are logged in) says "Checked In and viewable by authorized users." If the page is just Checked In and not published, it is only viewable to other editors and not to the public. If the page is checked out to you or someone else it will either say "Checked out and editable" or "This page is being edited and is checked out to [name]."
When a page is Published, there is no yellow status bar (when you are logged in, unless someone has edited it recently without publishing) and under the Publish tab in the ribbon the only option is "Unpublish" where the Submit button usually is. Instructions on how to submit a page for approval can be found here.

If you are an Editor, you may need an Approver to approve and publish the page for you. Learn more about what these terms mean here.

It is likely using a Two Column Layout or a constrained layout design. Right Sidebars are no longer optimal, so we have shifted away from layotus that have right sidebars (the Three Column Layout still exists in many sites, but we have changed the default layout to the Two Column Layout).

Check the Page Layout by going to the Page tab in the ribbon and clicking Page Layout. More detailed instructions can be found here.

If it is a a Word document, does the document live at the root of the site?
If the document does not live at the root of the site (the very top-level of the site, in it main documents folder) it will automatically require Campus Connect authentication. You will need to upload the document to the root of the site by going to your site's home page and following the instructions for uploading a document, and re-link to it on the page. Make sure the page is published and it will no longer require authentication.

If an image you uploaded looks pixelated or small when you view it on the live site either on a desktop or mobile device, it may mean that the image is too small.

Check the image size by going to the Images library: On the page where the image lives, go to Site Actions and View All Site Content and then click on the Images library. Here you'll see all of the images you've uploaded to this subsite. Hover over the images to see what their dimentions are. We suggest using images that are between 800px to 1600px wide and 72dpi for best results (1600 px wide for full-page-width images). See more detailed instructions here.

If the image size is okay, remove the image from the page and re-insert it following the regular steps and choose a percentage more appropriate for the page. See our Image Best Practices guide for more.

If you are trying to edit a page, but cannot get to the edit view, you may be experiencing one or more of the following things:
1. You might not be logged in. Do you see your name in the top right corner of the page? If not, you need to log in to SharePoint by clicking Editor Login in the bottom right corner of the page. See more here.
2. You may not have permissions to edit the site. If you try logging in, but even after entering your Campus Connect credentials do not see your name in the top right corner of the page and the words Site Actions in the top left corner, you might not have editor permissions. Contact your supervisor and/or site owner.
3. The ribbon might be hidden. If you do not see the ribbon, but you do see the gear icon, click the gear icon and select "Show Ribbon" or click "Edit Page" directly from the dropdown menu.
4. Someone else might have the page Checked Out. You may not be able to edit a page if someone else has it checked out (whether they are currently editing it or just forgot to check the page back in). The yellow status bar will say "This page is being edited and is checked out to [name]" — you can contact that person and ask them to check it back in when they are done. Learn more about what these terms mean here and see instructions for checking in a page here.
5. Your browser is not compatible. If you try to click in the main content area, but nothing happens it may be because you're using a version of Internet Explorer that is not compatible with SharePoint. Try using Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

If you created a new page and saved the page so you could return to it later, but you don't see it when you are logged in: While in the subsite where you created the page, go to the Gear Icon menu and click on Site Contents. Click the Pages folder and search for your page. Learn more about what it means to Save & Close, Check In, and Publish a page here.