Web Services

The Document Provider System (DPS)

The Document Provider System [DPS] is a storage application that holds your documents and displays them on your website. Any NSU account holder who is responsible for their unit’s documents may request access to the DPS by creating a ticket and asking for access (be sure to include the URL to your site).

The benefit of access to the DPS is that whenever you must add or upload a new document to your website, you may bypass our ticket system and update the site content yourself. You control all the documentation on your website, and can add, update, re-order, or remove any document immediately.

How the DPS Works

1. Once you receive email notification that you have been granted access, log in to the Document Provider System with your NSU username and password—do not enter your full email, just your username (“doej@nsula.edu” is “doej”).
2. You will see the DPS dashboard and, if they have already been created (by another user), you will see a list of Categories. If no Categories exist, create one by pressing the “+ Category” button.
3. Once a Category has been created it will appear below in the Title section. Click on the Category name to enter the Category view.
4. On this screen you may populate the Category with your documents. Select the “+ File” button to upload a file, or select the “+ URL” button to create a link to another website. A DPS user can create multiple Categories and within those users can populate each Category with the following document types:
   • Excel spreadsheets
   • PDF documents
   • PowerPoint presentations
   • URLs
   • Word documents

   Note: Before uploading your file, be sure to remove any apostrophes (‘) in the filename (ex.: January’s-data.pdf becomes Januarys-data.pdf).

5. If you populate a Category that already exists and you know where it is displayed on your website, then you should see your uploaded document appear there. If you created a new Category and uploaded documents into it, proceed to step 6.
6. Whenever a new Category is created, it resides in the DPS but it needs to be linked to your website; for this you will need to create a ticket and give us the following information in your request:
   • Your unit information (i.e., Nursing, Business Affairs, etc.)
   • The Title of the new Category you created in the DPS.
   • The exact URL of the web page where you would like the Category’s contents displayed.
   • Any extra information about placement (ex: “I would like it placed beneath this header”, “I would like it placed below that section on my page”)
7. Finally, once you populate your Category with documents the cache usually takes about 30 minutes to display new files that were uploaded to it. If you want to see your files immediately, open a ticket instructing us to “refresh the cache“ and provide the URL to your page; we will do so as soon as possible.

Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms is an online survey software program that allows users to create surveys and quizzes; the data submitted to a Form can be exported to Microsoft Excel or viewed live using a feature of the Forms software called Present. Microsoft Forms is part of Office 365, and subsequently is available to all NSU faculty and staff who possess an @nsula.edu account.

How To Log In

1. Visit the Microsoft Forms website and click on the icon at the top right to sign into your account.
2. Input your NSU email address
3. When you are prompted at the next window select “Work or school account”.
4. Follow any login instruction that might appear.

Your Forms Dashboard
Once you log in you will see your Forms dashboard, with a series of pre-made templates for you to browse. You may select a template to modify and edit, or you may start building a form from scratch by selecting the “New Form” button (fig. 1). Either choice will automatically create a new Form instance in your library.

Collaboration With Forms
You might choose to share editorial access to your form with other members of your team, especially if their participation is crucial for processing the data that is submitted to your form(s). It is advisable to only include other NSU employees as collaborators. You and your collaborators are responsible for any issues that might arise from data loss or data theft.

You can collaborate one of two ways.  Either perform the following steps if you have created a Group in Microsoft Teams and you wish to share access to the form with all members of your Team (we recommend this method):

1. In your Forms dashboard, hover your mouse over the form box until you see the ellipses at the bottom right.
2. Click on the ellipses and a small menu appears with a few options. Select “Move to a group”.
3. A slide appears on the right side of your screen and from there select the group with which you would like to share the form.
4. Once the group is highlighted, click the “Move” button below.

Or perform the following steps if you wish to grant access to a form with only specific individuals:

1. In your Forms dashboard, click on your form to open it in a new window.
   Once you are at your form window, click on the ellipses at the top right of your screen and a menu will appear.
2. Select “Collaborate or Duplicate”; this will open a slide at the right of your screen.
3. Beneath the “Add collaborators” select the option “+ Share the link to collaborate and view result”.
4. This option opens a new drop-down menu with three choices–in this case select “Specific people in Northwestern State University with the link can edit and view result”.
5. Once you have chosen the selection above, you may input the email addresses of the individual(s) you would like to add and press the Return key on your keyboard.
6. Beneath the “Enter a name, group, or email address” field you should see icons for each of the people you have added. Beneath the icons is a select field with a “Copy” button. Here you can copy the URL to email to the individual(s) you have selected as Collaborator. Once the link is delivered, they must input the URL into a web browser and will thereafter have editorial access to your form.

Publishing A Form On Your NSU Website

1. Open your Form and in bar above select the “Collect Responses” button at the top right. This will open a window centered on your screen, titled “Send and collect responses”.
2. From this window select the “Embed” icon, which is symbolized by a bracketed forward slash “</>”. This will open a new viewport beneath the icons and from here select and copy the code from that text field. Be sure to select all of the text in that window and copy it.
3. Open a ticket at our Service Desk. Be sure to specify the exact URL to your web page where you would like us to embed your form. Within the body of the ticket, paste that entire line of code so that we can place it properly on your page.

Web Services Protocols

How To Submit A Work Ticket

1. Open a new ticket at our Service Desk.
2. Log in with your NSU username (“doej@nsula.edu” is “doej”) and password.
3. Click the “+” icon on the upper right to open the Create New menu and select Incident. This opens the New Incident screen.
4. In the Title field, enter a brief summary of the work you need done.
5. Describe the work you need done in the Description field. You may attach files relevant to your ticket using the paper clip icon underneath the Description field.
6. Select “Department Websites & Web Applications” from the Category drop down menu. If you have communicated beforehand with a technician here at Web Services about your ticket, you may select their name from the Assigned drop down menu.
7. The Priority and Due at selections do not affect the manner in which we work on tickets. You may include any colleagues or interested parties to this ticket in the CC field.
8. In the URL field, enter the exact URL of the page you would like us to work on. This information is required.
9. Once you are satisfied with your message, click Create.

Upon submission your ticket will enter the queue and once we arrive at it we will do our best to complete it. Due to the unpredictable character of the work queue, we appeal to your patience and ask that you give us a working week (5) days before asking us for updates about your ticket.

Remember: always include the URL to the page you need updated; tickets without this information are automatically placed On Hold in the system.

How To Convey Detailed Requests

There are times when you may need edits on multiple pages, or you may have a large project with a lot of data to be displayed. We have found through trial and error that the methods listed below are the best methods to get your point across to us. We understand that some styles of expression contain the impulse to meet in-person in order to discuss web changes, and we will respect that wish accordingly; however, in the 25 years that we have been in service to NSU the methods included below have proven to be the best time and resource-efficient methods. Clients may use any one or a combination of these methods and attach their documents to a ticket:

• Word Documents: this constitutes the majority of attachments we receive, mainly due to the versatility of MS Word. Word can contain your screenshots marked up along with new text blocks to replace old text. A minor caveat: if you want new photos or graphics on your page, be sure to send those separately. Do not embed them within your Word Document, because Word will compress the media and potentially cause quality loss.
• Line-edits: print a hard copy of your web page and mark it to indicate areas that need to be added, modified, or removed. Attach a scan of this document along with a text file or Word Document which contains any new text to be inserted. Be sure to attach any photos, images, or other graphics you would like on your page.
• Screenshots: much like the line-edits above, except done with a screen capture and mark-ups typically done in MS Paint or Photoshop. The resulting images are then attached along with text files or Word Documents containing new text to be copied and pasted over old text.
• Spreadsheets: create a spreadsheet and list the page’s unique URL in one column, and in the adjacent column detail the changes you need; some clients will include the new text blocks in their entirety, which makes it easy for us to copy/paste. Be sure to attach any media you wish to include along with placement instructions within the spreadsheet (“IMG_123.JPG is to be inserted at www.example.com/thispage above the second paragraph block”).

Our Operational Protocols

• We prioritize the ticket system over email or phone communication because point-of-contact for email or phone communication is one person and if that person is out of office, the rest of the team is unaware of their communications; by contrast, the ticket system has multiple viewers.
• Web Services respond to tickets on a first-come, first-served basis; assigning a priority does not change its order in the queue. The ticket queue is rarely empty.
• Tickets submitted closer to end-of-workday may not be observed or completed on that day; tickets submitted after work hours will not be observed until the following day.
• Tickets with multiple changes spanning multiple pages are considered projects; we cannot guarantee they will be completed within the week they are submitted. If your content changes have a deadline, we recommend submitting them at least two weeks in advance and notifying us of the deadline date.