Dynamic Lists
Dynamic lists linked with tags auto update your lists and news
Dynamic lists are Live lists that will update automatically and auto fill new content is updated in Brightspot. The Power of Dynamic lists is derived from Tags – when you tag an item, you link it to a group that a dynamic list can find for you and organize how you like. Especially for long lists, or lists that need to be kept relevant, this can save you literal hours of work.
Creating a Dynamic List:
1. Log into Brightspot through your BYU credentials.
2. Open the page, article, section, etc. You wish to have a dynamic list on. (you can do this by searching for an already created page or similar, or by creating a new one).
3. On the main tab in the edit page on the left, scroll down to “Content” and click on the “+ Add” icon.
4. This will bring up a pop up window – select “List” on the left sidebar.
5. Select the style of list desired.
6. Within the list, on the main tab, scroll to “Items”. Click on the drop-down labeled “Basic” and select “Dynamic”.
7. (Optional) Under Types, select the type of items you intend to use in the list (I.e. articles, employees, etc.)
8. Select the items per page amount under “Items Per Page”. If you aren’t sure how many you need, you can just put a very large number (ex: 1000).
9. (Optional) If you would like to limit your list to only content published within a certain number of days (for example, if you wanted to have only current events in your dynamic list), you can enter a number in the field under “Time Period” and it will only select content published within that number of days.
10. Add a Tag (See Below)
11. (Optional) Click on the drop down under “Sort” to have your list automatically sort the content based on your preference. The default is sorted by Newest content.
12. (Optional) You can add a pinned list item that will stay in the list no regardless of the dynamic results – for example, if you wanted a certain list item to always stay in the list, like an important page, you can “Pin” it to the list. You can do this by Clicking on the “Add” dropdown right next to the + under “Pinned Items”. This will allow you to choose a content type to add to the list. If in doubt about what to choose, choose a promo – this will appear exactly like all the other list items. You can link something to the promo and then save it. You now have a pinned item on your list that will stay in the same spot on that list.
TAGS:
As mentioned previously, Tags are what make Dynamic lists work. All one need to is connect a tag to your dynamic list, and any content that have that tag added to them will be included on the list.
Including a Tag -
A) In our main edit page, editing our dynamic list, scroll to “Tags” (just under Time Period). Click on the “+” Icon and add your desired Tag. You may select multiple tags.
B) Make sure that each content item you want included in the list is Tagged with that same Tag. You can easily do this by searching for the content, clicking on it, and scrolling down to the bottom of the main tab until you find “Tags” just under “Content” and “Section”.