The SNO Report: Welcome To A New School Year

It happens every August. Support tickets ramp up all of a sudden, and then we know only one thing can be true: school is back in session. We sure hope you’re settling in and excited to get your site up and running again.

We’re back in your email inbox today, not to make you think too hard but to remind you that there we’ve got some cool new things for you.

Updates to FLEX: Is there a rogue color orange on your site that you don’t know how it got there? Well then, you might not know where to change it. There are hundreds of different places to change colors individually, but only one place now where all colors on your site are listed together: Master Colors. These controls allow you to quickly change all instances of a single color to a new color. Buh-bye, orange!

Master Colors can be helpful, but you’ll still be able to change colors individually like you always have, in the hundreds of different areas they show up throughout the SNO Design Options and Widget Control Panel pages.

Hmm… what else? The Design Snapshots tool rolled out late last year. There’s no better time than the present to start using it. Don’t forget about the Above Header Full Width widget area either. There, you can put widgets ABOVE your header area.

Do more with staff profiles, too! Reorder them based on staff hierarchy using the Staff Profile Order tool and put them at the bottom of stories with enhanced Story Page Extras options.

Bundle Up: There’s a new way to buy those add-ons. The Site Booster Bundle packages together Sports Center, Form Builder and Ad Manager. The Education Bundle packages together the Unlimited Training Subscription and SNO FLOW.

You can still buy the Unlimited Training and SNO FLOW separately, as well as mobile apps, email addresses, logos and headers, and individual trainings.

New Narrator: Thomas, the knowledge center of SNO Support, re-recorded and added several new help site videos. So, now there’s no getting away from his voice, whether you call us for support or seek it on your own. The “Getting Started” videounderwent the biggest change, he says. It’s worth showing your new staff members.

New Smart Guy: Join us in welcoming Noah Seichert to the SNO team! Noah will be the server and site technician making sure your online publications are running seamlessly.

Easy Listening: A new podcast by SNO, titled SNOcast, will feature interviews with journalism teachers, students and working professionals. Listen to our first episode, an interview with former St. Louis Park High School student and Echo editor Annabella Strathman, this week!

Stay tuned! More about the podcast and more about changes coming to Best of SNO (the way you submit stories for it) later! For now, better go ahead and start class already!