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Dynamic Content Feature Pack Training

Set Up Your Site to Update Content Automatically

The best-maintained sites aren’t always the ones with the most active editors. They might be the ones that pull fresh content automatically. This training covers the blocks that make this possible: news feeds, social feeds, and course and academic content that stays current without constant manual attention.

Watch the videos below in order and complete the practice tasks as you go. When you’re ready, take the quiz at the bottom of this page. Your site administrator chooses which Feature Packs are turned on. Starting with version 4.19, sites that require training will let you add the Dynamic Content blocks after you pass the quiz.

Two short practice tasks are included, with hands-on steps in WP Playground, a private practice site that runs in your browser. Playground doesn’t save your work between sessions, so finish each task in one sitting.

Estimated time to complete: about 12 minutes of video, plus about 15 minutes of practice.

The Case for Dynamic Content

Completion Time: 2 minutes

Every website has a freshness problem. This video makes the case for dynamic content, and introduces the blocks that can keep your site current without adding to your daily workload.

Looking for help keeping your existing pages current? The content audit tools covered in the Advanced training are a good complement to the dynamic blocks covered here.

Upcoming events can update automatically too. Because they’re closely tied to registration and promotion, they’re covered in the Engagement and Events training.

News Feeds: Choosing the Right One

Completion Time: 3 minutes

There are three blocks for displaying news content automatically on the NC State Web Platform, and they serve meaningfully different purposes. This video covers which to reach for depending on where your content is coming from.

Hands-on Task: Choose a news feed. For each of the following site types, identify which news feed block fits best and write one or two sentences explaining why. Then check your answers against the answer key.

  1. A college news site that publishes its own stories and wants to surface them on department subpages
  2. A department page that doesn’t publish its own news but wants to keep visitors informed with relevant campus stories
  3. A research center that wants to surface headlines from a national professional association’s website

Check your answers

  1. Posts Feed. The college publishes its own news, so the Posts Feed can pull those posts onto each department page, filtered by a category. It needs a Pro or Premium tier site.
  2. Newswire Feed. The department doesn’t publish news, so it can show stories from a Newswire collection instead, without writing or managing any of them.
  3. RSS Feed. The headlines come from an outside website, and the RSS Feed block can display entries from any site that publishes an RSS feed.

In short: Newswire Feed for university news you don’t publish yourself, Posts Feed for news your site does publish, and RSS Feed for content from other sites.

Hands-on Task: Add a Posts Feed to a page. In WP Playground:

  1. Go to Posts -> Categories and add a category called Research.
  2. Publish two short posts in the Research category.
  3. Create a new page and add a Posts Feed block. In its Feed Settings, set Source to Categories and choose Research.
  4. Preview the page. Then publish a third Research post and watch it appear in the feed.

For configuration details on each block:

Social Feeds

Completion Time: 2 minutes

If your unit has an active Instagram presence, you can surface that content directly on your WordPress site. This video covers two ways to do it (one compact and quick to set up, one more flexible) and points you to the configuration documentation for each.

Both approaches require the Smash Balloon plugin to be installed on your site. If it isn’t already, submit a request at go.ncsu.edu/ucomm-dev-request.

Course and Academic Content

Completion Time: 4 minutes

For faculty sites, department pages, and academic program pages, keeping course listings current is a perennial challenge. This video covers the Course Catalog block, which connects directly to catalog.ncsu.edu, and when a Resources custom post type is the better fit for content that doesn’t live in the university catalog.

Hands-on Task: Catalog or custom post type? For each of these, decide whether you’d use the Course Catalog block, the Resources post type or the Noncredit Programs post type. Then check your answers against the answer key.

  1. The required courses for your department’s master’s degree
  2. A searchable list of lab equipment that students can reserve
  3. A series of continuing-education workshops for working professionals

Check your answers

  1. Course Catalog block, set to Degree/Plan Requirements. The requirements already live in catalog.ncsu.edu, so the block keeps your page in sync when the catalog changes.
  2. Resources post type. Lab equipment isn’t in the university catalog. A Resources listing gives it a searchable, filterable home that you maintain yourself.
  3. Noncredit Programs post type. The workshops aren’t credit courses, so they aren’t in the catalog. This post type is built for programs like these.

Optional: In WP Playground, add a Course Catalog block to a page. Paste the address of a catalog.ncsu.edu page into Catalog URL, choose what to display, and check the live preview.

For configuration details and setup steps:

Training Feedback

As we launch our on demand trainings, we are looking for all feedback — positive, negative and everything in between. Please let us know what you like and how we can improve.

Submit Feedback

Ready for the Quiz?

You’ve covered the full dynamic content toolkit — from choosing the right news feed for your situation, to surfacing your Instagram content, to keeping course listings current without duplicating work that’s already being done in the university catalog.

When you’re confident in the material, take the quiz below. You’ll need a score of 80% or higher to pass.

Complete the Dynamic Content Training Quiz

What’s next? If you’re also interested in collecting leads, managing events, or building more visually rich pages, explore our other trainings: