WordPress

What is WordPress?

WordPress is our content management system. We started using the platform when the new website was launched in 2021. WordPress is largely intuitive, so with a bit of practise it is easy to use. Feel free to ask the production team if you need any help with anything. We use a company called Box UK to manage and upkeep the website, so any problems in WordPress will be dealt with through them. Please contact the product managers if you come across any issues..

Dashboard

After sign-in, you will be automatically directed to the Dashboard. You will find everything you need to use down the left hand side of the dashboard, with some graphics on the main body of the dashboard giving information such as page view statistics, click=through rates for adverts and any outstanding ‘tasks’ in your workflow. You can customise your dashboard depending on what you find most helpful.

Media

From the dashboard, go to ‘Media’ > ‘Library’. From here you can view all the media files which have been uploaded.

To upload a new file, click ‘Add New’ at the top or from the left-hand side panel under ‘Media’.

Images should not exceed 1,000 pixels.

See ‘Images’ for more detailed guidance

Pages

From the dashboard, go to ‘Pages’ > ‘All Pages’. Here you will find a list of all the editable pages on the site (some pages on the site are hardcoded so will not be displayed here and only Box UK can make amendments). You can create a new page by clicking on ‘Add New’ at the top or from the left-hand side panel under ‘Pages’. After you have created and published a page, users will only be able to access it via the URL unless it is added to a nav menu on the site.

Adding a new article

From the dashboard, hover over ‘Articles’ in the left-hand side menu and select the article type that you wish to add. Click on ‘Add [article type]’ at the top. 

Add the article title in the ‘Add title’ box – this will be used to create the URL slug of the article.

The Gutenberg editor has lots of blocks to choose from to create your article. Click on the black ‘+’ button to see the available blocks. You can browse through all blocks or search for a block, if you know what you’re looking for. You can also browse through the different blocks by clicking on the blue + button in the top left corner. Alternatively, if you start typing into the block that is available by default, this automatically creates a ‘Paragraph’ block. 

Depending on the article type, on the right-hand side, you will see several dropdowns. You will need to select the options relevant for your article:

Visibility — this should be set to ‘Public’.

Publish — this can either be set to ‘Immediately’ or you can schedule the article to go live. For example, if there is an embargo. 

Pending review — this is related to the workflow.

Featured content — tick ‘Display featured image at the top of the article’ if you want the featured image to appear at the top of the article (do not add it to the body of the article, this will happen automatically).

Premium content? — select ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Intro — catchline 

Peer review — this is for articles that have been peer reviewed. This will add a small ‘Peer reviewed’ block to the article on the front end. For example:

Quiz — select the relevant quiz if you have created a CPD article.

Intro — standfirst 

Permalink — you can change the URL slug of the article if you require but this will take the article title by default.

Tag — a tag can be added to group related content together.

Section — tick the section of the website that the article falls under. 

News type — select the article type for articles that come under the ‘News’ section of the website.

News theme — select themes that apply to the article. 

Location — select a location if an article discusses a topic specific to a location in the list.

Career stage — select any career stage that is relevant to the article.

Learning theme — select any themes that apply to a learning article.

Condition / treatment — select any of the conditions/treatments in this list that apply to the article.

Career development — select any of the career development themes that apply to the article.

Subject — select any subjects that the article discusses.

Featured image — upload your featured image (this image will be used for the thumbnail in article blocks/listing pages etc.).

Excerpt — we do not use this.

Post attributes — leave as is. 

Commercial partners — if applicable, select the commercial partner (if you need to add a new one, see this section. Also select whether this is promotional or supported content. See the different messages below.

Article authors — select the article author/s from the dropdown list. An author can be added as either a ‘Regular author’ or a ‘Corresponding author’. 

Crossref DOI status — this contains the article’s DOI. When an article is a draft, the ‘Deposit status’ will say ‘Not deposited yet’ and ‘Deposit processed by Crossref’ will say ‘No’. Once the article has been published, these will change to ‘Success’ and ‘Yes’.

Publication — select the publication from the dropdown list. This will always be ‘The Pharmaceutical Journal’ for new articles. Select the issue from the dropdown list.

Ad settings — tick these boxes if it has been specified ads should not appear on the article.

Uploading — article types

All articles need a headline, catchline, standfirst. 

Other than letters, death notices/tributes, and announcements, all articles should have an author/s with a featured image (with a caption). 

Other than RPS News, articles should be set to premium access, unless an editor has specified otherwise. Publication should be set to The Pharmaceutical Journal and the relevant month/issue. The correct section should be ticked and any relevant topics should be selected in the theme/subject sections. 

Death notices

Death notices are only published for members, including former members, of the Society;

The information needed for a death notice is the person’s full name, date of birth, date of death, age, place of birth and year they registered with the Society;

The text for death notices is always the same and can be copied from previous notices;

They should be added as news articles. The catchline should be ‘Death notice’. No standfirst is needed. The section should be ticked as ‘News’ and news type as ‘Tributes’. Access should be premium;

The publish date should be set to a few days before the current date, providing this is not before the death date, to prevent the notice appearing on the homepage;

The headline should contain the person’s full name, and their year of birth and year of death in brackets, e.g. John Smith (1940–2021).

Tributes

Tributes have the same article settings as death notices. The date should also be moved back if possible to prevent them appearing on the homepage;

The headline should start with ‘Tribute:’, followed by the person’s name and year of birth and death in brackets, e.g. Tribute: John Smith (1940–2021). The catchline should be ‘Tribute’;

The name/s of the author/s should be included at the end of the tribute in italics.

Letters

Letters should be screened before publication to ensure they are not defamatory;

Letters are added as their own article type. The section should be ticked as ‘News’ and news type ticked as ‘Opinion’. The catchline and standfirst sections are left blank, and they don’t have a lead image. Access should be premium. Relevant themes/subjects can be selected;

The name/s of the author/s should be included at the end of the letter in italics.

Learning content

Learning articles should have a catchline, standfirst, author/s and featured image, with a caption. The article should be set to premium access, unless an editor has specified otherwise. Publication should be set to The Pharmaceutical Journal and the relevant month. The section should be ticked as ‘Learning’ and any relevant topics should be selected in the theme/subject sections. 

Some learning content will be sponsored/supported. A commercial partner can be selected under the ‘Commercial partners’ section, as well as whether the article is ‘promotional’ or ‘supported’. This will automatically add a box to the article with the company’s logo and text stating the article is sponsored/supported content.

Learning objectives should be added in a bulleted list in a box at the top of the article. ‘Style 3’ should be selected as the box style.

Figures/tables should be added with their titles included in the image. They should be labelled in the caption section, e.g. Table 1, Figure 1, 

References can be added by clicking on the graduate cap icon in the top right. If the reference has a DOI/PMID/PMCID number, this can be added and the rest of the information will automatically pull through. If not, the reference will need to be added manually. The citation type can be changed at the top of the ‘Add reference’ box. The reference will be added to the uncited items list. To add the reference into the text, click where it needs to go in the text and then click on the reference in the list. Click on the arrow pointing to the left at the top of the reference list section. The reference will then be inserted into the text. The reference will move to the cited items list and can be added anywhere else in the text, if needed, by following the same process.

Previewing articles

To preview an article, it must have a publication assigned to it, otherwise it will lead to a critical error message on the site.

When previewing an article, it displays ‘Desktop’, ‘Tablet’ and ‘Mobile’. Regardless of what is selected here ‘Preview in new tab’ will open in a full browser window, not on the setting listed. This is WP Engine functionality. Changing this setting will however change the size of the Gutenberg editor screen.

Jump links

Please see instructions here: https://wordpress.org/support/article/page-jumps/ 

Editing and revisions

From WP Admin, find the article you wish to edit by going to ‘Articles’ > [Article type] in the left-hand side menu. 

When hovering over the article, you are presented with different options. ‘Quick edit’ allows you to quickly edit a couple of settings such as title and slug. ‘Make revision’ creates another copy of the article. To see the full article and all settings, click on ‘Edit’. The latter is the recommended way to edit all articles.

To avoid WordPress turning the number into a bullet when you type “1. “, click backspace before typing out further text, and it will revert it from a numbered bullet to just being the text “1. “.

This will only work if there isn’t any text after the “1. “ already, and if it isn’t already a bullet.

When changes are made, WordPress captures a “version” which you can view. To see revisions, click on ‘Revisions’ on the right-hand side of an article when editing. From here, you can browse through different revisions and restore a particular revision if you wish. It will keep the 5 most recent revisions.

References

If the author of an article is something like ‘Department of Health’, click ‘Remove contributor’ and then you’ll be able to add the reference.

Additionally, if you click on the people icon at the end of the row (next to the first name box), you can add as a single contributor.

Publication issues

Against an article, this metadata is set, which in turn specifies what the citation will be. 

After you have selected the publication, you will have to set the issue – either to be ‘Online’, which would create the online citation in the example below, or the print issue. If a print issue is set, you will also need to specify the page number.

Workflows

When creating an article in WordPress, you will have the option to ‘Submit to Workflow’ on the right-hand side of the page under the ‘Oasis Workflow’ tab. You can select the article type under ‘Select Workflow’, confirm the stage the article is at under ‘Step’, give it a priority level and publish date (if necessary) and add any relevant comments. Once ‘Submit to Workflow’ is pressed, the article will appear in the editor’s ‘Inbox’ and they will be sent an email alert.

The next editor in the process will be able to continue the workflow process by sending it to the next stage in the same way as described above. There have been some issues with this, but often if you go out of the article and come back into it then you will be able to continue using the workflow. Use your ‘Inbox’ under ‘Workflows’ to keep track of articles that have been assigned to you or are unclaimed.

Taxonomies

We currently have the following sections in the taxonomy. These can be selected against articles and some taxonomy terms can be used as criteria in the article blocks used on hub pages. 

News types

News themes

Locations

Career stages

Learning themes

Conditions/treatments

Career development

Occupations

Sectors

Subjects

The taxonomy can be added to and edited. Note that some of these taxonomy terms display on the front-end. For example, the conditions/treatments display in the preference centre and on the search page, so please make sure that new terms are added in sentence case.

Authors

From WP Admin, go to ‘Article Authors’ > ‘Authors’. From here, you can see the list of all the authors on the site. 

To add a new author, click on ‘Add Content Author’. From here, you can add:

First name

Last name

Email

Twitter

Job title

Affiliation

Bio

Headshot

You can preview your changes from this page to see what the author’s profile will look like on the front-end of the website.

After publishing the author’s profile, you can also view their profile on the front-end of the website by clicking on ‘View’ underneath the author’s name in the list.

To find an author in the list, you can search for an author in the search bar or filter by date. To edit an author’s profile, click on ‘Edit’ under the author’s name.