A [Wordpress-based] "Alerts" Dashboard - Library Closings, etc.

[Harper, Christopher]

We recently moved from a static web server to WordPress as well.  We have a slider that I made a custom post type back-end for, and whenever there's an alert, I just un-draft a pre-made eye-catching slide and add a new caption.  But there are endless ways you can achieve alerts with a simple back-end on your WP site.

If you're a competent coder, you can create a plugin or modify your theme to add a custom options page where you can enable and enter your alert message.  Or you could just enter your alerts as posts with a specific category or tag and show the latest one on your homepage; this will also expose a category feed that you can syndicate to other sites in your network.

And if you're not a coder, I'm sure there's a plugin that at least handles displaying alerts on your homepage.

________________________________
Chris Harper
Library Information Systems Specialist
Longwood University
434.395.2438

From: Michael Schofield [mailto:mschofield at NOVA.EDU]
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 10:12 AM
Subject: A [Wordpress-based] "Alerts" Dashboard - Library Closings, etc.

Hey everyone,

I've been toying with the idea making something because I can't seem to find a free alternative, but I thought I'd do my due diligence and pick your brains. I'm open for any alternatives to the following, but I'm specifically looking for a free option with an API.

Scenario: our main website lives on the university's server, which turns out to be a very dull playground: HTML/CSS/JS only. This means there's about 150 static files that I'm now presently rolling into a WP Network living on our own boxes-and our own domain-(we've been waiting for the last year for a university-wide CMS, but we just don't want to hold our breaths any longer :)) but the main site, the landing page, will always be static. This means that whenever there's an early closure, a hurricane watch, or some other announcement someone has to submit a ticket and then I have to make a change. My goal is to cut me-the middleman-out of the process.

My potential project: So what I was thinking was jury-rigging a Wordpress theme into an "alerts" dashboard for managers, directors, and so on. I want to empower the Circulation manager to login, make an announcement, and be done with it. For all the departmental and other sites that live on the WP Network, I'd write and install a corresponding "alerts" plugin that watches the JSON API for an alert and-if true-display it. For our static sites, I'd toss in a jquery plugin that did the same.

My question: this seems like something that's been done before! Has it? If not, anyone want to collaborate on github?

All the best,

Michael Schofield(@nova.edu) | Web Services Librarian | (954) 262-4536
Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center

Hi! Hit me up any time, but I'd really appreciate it if you report broken links, bugs, your meeting minutes, or request an awesome web app over on the Library Web Services<http://staff.library.nova.edu/pm> site.

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2012-11-07

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