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Using the Alert Topic Template for Newsletters

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Overview

The purpose of the Alert Topic template is to allow Administrators to create a newsletter-style alert, whereby content from various sources can be reviewed and assigned a topic. By creating and assigning articles to alert topics, an Administrator is essentially creating their own custom sources/sections while pulling from RSS feeds, web pages, and searches to create them. This functionality gives Administrators greater freedom in organizing their alert’s content.

Advantages of the Alert Topic template:

  • Content is frozen at the point of loading so that each article can be reviewed before new content is loaded for review;
  • Sources can be assigned to predetermined topics, but articles can easily be moved to an alternate topic;
  • Articles from a variety of sources can all be combined in one topic of the alert, without the use of article collections.

Set Up the Newsletter

To use this functionality, first create a new Alert from the Alert Management page. For more guidance on how to create a new Shared Alert, please see this guide.

From the Alert edit page's Email Template tab, choose to Group By: Alert Topic*. (*Note that this functionality must be turned on for your account by your Linex Account Manager.)

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Note: it is important that you NOT apply the deduplication option to an alert using the Alert Topic grouping, as this will affect the content which will load into your alert for review. Additionally, this newsletter should always be set to a Manual publish frequency, as content must be loaded for review.

Set Your Alert’s Topics

From the Email Template tab, select ‘Manage Alert Topics’ to set the various topics for your alert. These topics can be modified at any time from this page or the Content Review page.

Once you have created your alert topics, continue to set up your alert by setting styles, logos, introductory text and adding sources as you normally would.

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Assign Sources to Alert Topics

In order for articles to automatically be assigned to a specific topic, you will need to set that topic on the source within your alert.

  1. On the Alert Elements tab, select the tag icon below the source you want to assign to an alert topic. This will open the list of topics for that alert.
  2. Select the topic that you want articles to automatically be assigned to when loading into the alert. These articles can be moved to an alternate topic prior to publish if you so desire.
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Managing the Newsletter

From Alert Management page, click on the arrow to the left of the title, and click on Content Review OR open the Alert Edit view, and under Options, select Content Review.

Click on Options → Load Content.

  • Your content loads as “New”, which is automatically excluded from your Newsletter. Content items must be expressly included AND have an assigned topic to be published in your Newsletter.

Content Status

  • New (not yet reviewed) - Article title is BOLD
  • Excluded - Article is greyed out
  • Included - Article is in color but not bold

To Curate/Select Content

Content can be viewed in smaller sections using the filters on the left side of the page.

Filter options for viewing content:

  1. Content Status: Select to only view New, Included and/or Excluded articles
  2. Topics: View content by topic (topics can be created from the Content Review page under Options → Manage Topics)
  3. Alert Elements: View content by source

You can select more than one filter at a time, for example:

  • Status: New
  • Topic: Publishers
  • Elements: Law360 - Intellectual Property feed

Other options for reviewing content:

  • Articles can also be sorted by Publisher, Article Title or Content Date using the sorting drop down on the upper right side of the list.
  • Key word searches can be performed in the search box at the top of the page.
  • Mass selection of articles can be used for updating multiple articles at a time.
  • Click the “-” to permanently exclude (optional)
  • Click the “+” to include
  • Click the tag icon to set the topic (articles must be assigned to a topic to publish)
  • In the pop up, select the new topic;
  • Click Update.
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Preview Final Version

Click Options → Preview to see what your final version will look like.

If you need to make further changes, go back to your Content Review page and select:

  1. Content Status: Included
  2. Topic: The topic you want to update

Once complete, click the Publish button.

  • Test Publish will send an email only to you, for review
  • Publish will send the newsletter to the full recipient list, and empty out all content so it is ready for the next version
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