Welcome to the BLOX Digital (formerly TownNews) customer community! Connect with other BLOX Digital customers—and with us—to suggest features, share best practices and ask questions.

Though BLOX Digital representatives often participate in discussions, this is not a customer service site. For immediate help, call 800-293-9576 or submit a support request via our online ticketing system.

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Linking advertisement to phone number

michael 4 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Maureen Reinert 4 years ago 3

I'm trying to link a banner advertisement to initiate a phone call. Normally that would be done by using tel:xxx-xxx-xxxx in an HREF. I try to put it into the Link URL: section, but it converts it to tel://xxx-xxx-xxxx which does not work.

Is there a way to do that?

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Adding moderators to Facebook comment plugin

Jenna Duncan 4 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Tom Houston 4 years ago 1

We keep getting the runaround from FB/Town News but we have no idea how or where to add additional moderators to the Facebook comment plugin on our news website. Anyone have any ideas on how to do this? The person who set up the integration left and we haven't been able to figure out how to actually delete spam comments from news stories. When we asked Facebook, they gave us script that Town News said it doesn't have in the system. 

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Answered

I was trying to add a login...

Matthew Digiacomo 4 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 4 years ago 3

Right now it keeps telling me  'BLOX CMS admin is currently unavailable' ... Of course, the person I am adding needs admin privileges ... IS this something related to the recent password update and is there an ETA for when this might be fixed?

Answer
Christine Masters 4 years ago

Hi guys!

Yes we disabled the ability to promote a user account to an admin temporarily, but that should be working again now.

If you are still having any issues, please submit a support ticket for our Customer Service team, they will be able to help you out quickly. =)

+12

More poll customizations: End dates, hide results, etc.

Graham Archer 7 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Nicholas farnsworth1 4 years ago 3

Hey all, I'm thinking we could really benefit from a few new options with polls. Some details:


1. It'd be really nice to be able to put an end date on a poll. It just seems like a basic functionality, and I know several people up-voted the idea before: https://help.bloxcms.com/knowledge-base/applications/settings/urls/custom_properties/article_5fd6d870-2bdc-11e5-93e5-034d9f275a7e.html


2. Can we have the option to NOT show results (and maybe show a field after someone votes — "Check back Aug. 8 to see the winner."). That'd allow for us to do some really cool stuff that's not currently allowed. You could have votes for an athlete of the week, person of the year, etc. and not risk people not voting because someone is out to a 2-to-1 lead early, etc.

+16
Under review

Closings Application

Jason Schaefer 11 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Mike Stickler 4 years ago 34
Since business/schools/daycares/etc closings is a issue that all newspapers/media have to deal with it would be nice to have a built in way to have approved businesses input/update closings/delayed starts within BLOX.
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Under review

Creation of a keyword to restrict premium content to subscribers.


1. What problem(s) does this idea solve? Why do you need this idea implemented? Provide as many problems or use cases as possible.

Like every subscription-based newspaper across America, the New Hampshire Union Leader must transition our users from paying for print to paying for online content. The online content subscribers will pay for are exclusive news and enterprise stories; the premium information that you dedicate a reporter's day or week to, not just a few minutes to rewrite a press release.

A metered paywall is fine for commoditized news like accidents, fires, crimes, etc. -- the info all media outlets in a region will share. But on premium content -- a story we might have invested hundreds of dollars in and only we have it -- these we want to make access subscriber-only with a hard paywall that can be applied selectively on a story-by-story basis.

Presently, TownNews allows us to assign the level of paywall needed to any defined section in the taxonomy of sections and carve out niches within that hierarchy. For example, unionleader.com has a hard paywall on Business and Politics, and a metered paywall in the Crime and Safety sections. Further, within Politics and Business are sponsored subsections that are excluded from the paywall because an advertiser is footing the bill. All of that works great.

The problem we're seeing arises when a premium story we have invested in naturally falls into a section such as crime, safety, education, etc., that is a metered paywall section. At present we must either allow access to that premium content through the metered paywall or intentionally miscategorize that content to place it into a section that has the hard paywall needed.

A section-based paywall is fine in bulk, but in the particulars is unable to convey Premium status to the content we are most invested in in a manner that is quick and simple.

What we are proposing is that a keyword such as #premium and/or #hardpaywall be established that can be applied by our editors on an article-by-article basis to allow us to lock out non-subscribers regardless of section. Our editors are already accustomed to using keyword #nofollow on Washington Post stories, so such an approach is easy to train against.

We believe such a feature will not only be valuable to the Union Leader, but to newspapers you serve across America who like us will survive only by getting readers to subscribe.

2. How often would you use this feature?  Every day.

3. How many people in your organization would use this feature? About 20 on the news team.

Answer

Hi All,

BLOX Subscription Pro does currently support Keyword rules in the rule profile settings. With this you can add Keywords that will trigger premium content restriction in addition to the section definitions. Please feel free to contact our Customer Services folks if you require assistance.


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Completed

Flash webinar: Updates to e-Editions, AP imports; FREE Election 2020 polling widgets

Cherry Wolf (Marketing specialist) 4 years ago updated 4 years ago 1

Webinar recording now available.

Image 683

At this special webinar, the product team at TownNews introduced important changes to BLOX Live e-Editions and Associated Press feeds, and showed how new polling widgets from our Content Exchange partners can enhance your Election 2020 coverage.

Ready to get started? Watch it now.

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Answered

Can we get weekly reports of form submissions/transactions emailed?

Nick 9 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Carl Appen 4 years ago 3

We've got a payment form set up on our site. The marketing team wants weekly spreadsheet emailed with info from that week's submissions. Is that possible?

Answer
Christine Masters 9 years ago

We can set up forms to be sent in real-time (rather than in bulk). There is an email tab in the properties of the form that allows you to add an email address, and they will get emailed with each form.


If you need help with this, please contact our Customer Support team. =) Thanks!

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Answered

Question about the Hammer.

Marshall Hopkins 4 years ago in BLOX CMS updated by Christine Masters 4 years ago 1

When using the "Hammer" headline in an article, is there a way to turn off the title?

Answer
Christine Masters 4 years ago

Hi Marshall!

There is not a way to turn off the headline now. However, note that the headline is still used in many places throughout the site, such as on some auxiliary block, search results, social media, og tags, etc. So, I would think of the hammer headline as an extra graphical highlight, but you still need a good main headline.

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Infolinks programmatic: any experiences or opinions

Ian Greaves 4 years ago in BLOX CMS 0

Anyone have any experience integrating Infolinks as a programmatic provider. Or any opinions on Infolinks as to value, user experience. Am looking into using them to augment our AdSense for remnant ads

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How can I disable "do not publish" on a permanent basis?

Chris S 4 years ago in BLOX Total CMS updated by Kevin M. Cox 4 years ago 1

How can I disable "do not publish" on a permanent basis? Essentially, it automatically comes on when I set stories for print and web but have not yet set them to final. Then later when they should go online, they don't. It is very frustrating, as I have to go back in later on to post on the website.

+5

Is there a way that the breaking news flag can go off automatically after a certain time?

Chris S 4 years ago in BLOX Total CMS updated by Kevin M. Cox 4 years ago 1

Is there a way that the breaking news flag can go off automatically after a certain time? It is a pain to have to go in and turn it off later on, especially on a weekend.

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"Broadcast" doesn't seem to be turning on the twitter and facebook.

Chris S 4 years ago in BLOX Total CMS 0

"Broadcast" doesn't seem to be turning on the twitter and facebook. What am I doing wrong? Is there something else I need to do?

It used to work. Anyone else having problems before I put a work order in?