The "Must-Read" functionality is a new option in the search web part configuration. It allows you to highlight any kind of content on the intranet, whether it is news or documents.
With this functionality, you can see when the article is read by users. You can also display only unread content.
You can dedicate a content type to "must-read" news & docs or use an existing content type filtered on a property to create "must-read" content.
Finally, you can associate this functionality with the gamification center, to notify and reward users when they create content and see all readers of an item.
Check also the article "Standalone Template -Company policies" as a possible use case of must-read functionalities.
All of this will be explained below in more detail.
Data privacy: Please take into consideration all contributors & admins of the site will be able to see the must read statistics.
Prerequisites
To use Must-Read functions inside Search webpart, several prerequisites must be met :
Graph permissions :
To activate this specific right, edit Search, open Graph permission and enable it.
Powell list :
Powell list User settings is required to remember which items has been read by what user. To get this list, you need to synchronize your Powell lists.
You can do it directly inside Manager / Deploy / and open settings of a Powell site collection.
1. Set up a search web part with must-read features
The Must-Read feature is only available with Orion display templates (more will come soon) in the "Search web part" :
- Aggregate content tiles,
- News list,
- News tiles,
- News tiles (large display)
- Video tiles.
- Save read items: Store items for each user individually if they have read the content
- Hide read items: If a user reads an item, it will not be displayed in the search results
- Gamification action : Define a gamification action triggered by reading content via the Search webpart.
- Show number of readers: displays the number of users who have read the item. Clicking this number will display the full list of users in the left panel. This feature only works if you have linked it to the gamification site and enabled the RDI action "Read Article" on it.
- Due date managed property : Set a due date property in your reader list to see who read the content in time
You can add and configure these options as you wish and save your web part to be able to use the "Must-read" feature.
2. Set Search to display/hide must-read content
Save read items and hide read items are the two most important features of the Must-read use cases, so let's take a look at them to better understand their use.
Save read items
The Save read items option, when enabled, allows you to save users who have read content via the Search webpart in a list. If a user has read a piece of content, it will be reminded that this specific user has read this specific piece of content.
Display/hide must-read contents
When the Save read items option is enabled, every time a user reads content as part of a search, it will be remembered. You can now activate the Hide read items option to hide read content from search results.
The search will now only display the content you request, minus the content that has been read by the user. So if an item is read by a user, it will no longer be displayed in the results for that specific user.
To ensure that your content is instantly hidden once it has been read, please disable the "Enable cache" option in the Miscellaneous section.
See read content
Another feature linked to the Save and Hide items options is the display of content read by a user.
If you enable the Save read items option without enabling the Hide read items option, the Search webpart will remember whether a user has read a specific piece of content, but will not hide it.
In this way, a Read icon is displayed in the view to inform the user that he or she has already seen that specific content.
3. (Optional) - Display Number of readers
This feature requires that your site collection is linked to your Gamification Center
This option displays a button with the number of readers. It opens a panel with the complete list of readers.
If you do wish to use this feature, make sure you follow the entire article to make sure you don't miss any settings.
If you decide to enable it, you can also add a "Due Date" managed property that will allow you to fill in a managed property of your content type, to see if readers have read the content before or after the due date.
You can leave this field ( due date managed property) empty and it'll only show the list of readers.
4. (Optional) Set "Must-Read" gamification action
As we said before, the Must-Read feature requires linking it to a specific gamification action. For this, you need to make sure :
- Your site collection is linked to your Gamification Center
- The gamification center has the "Read items" action, with the RDI code, added to it.
If these 2 prerequisites are not met, here is what to do :
How to link your gamification center to your site collection?
If you don't have a Gamification Center, follow this link to see how to deploy the Powell Gamification Center.
Go to the settings of your site collection, and click on the configuration tab of the environment where your site is deployed:
Then, in the Gamification category, click on the button to link your gamification center to your site collection.
You can either choose, if it already exists, a Gamification site, or create a new one by clicking the button "Create a Gamification site collection".
Once you have your gamification site, you can select it and click the "validate" button, to save your changes.
How to add the "Read content" to your Gamification site?
To add the "Read content" action, you need to be a Site administrator. Go to the Gamification site.
At the bottom of the "Gamification actions admin" web part, click the "Add a new action" button to create a new action.
Then, click the "Create action" to add your custom "Must-read" action.
The followings fields are required to be filled for this feature to work :
- "Title" : Give your "Must-read" action the title you wish
- "Code action" : It has to be "RDI"
- "Points" : The points a user receives for the action
You can finish configuring your action by filling in all the other fields. You can publish your action by clicking the "Publish" button.
How to add the "Create content" to your Gamification site?
Even if it's not mandatory, we suggest you add the "create content" action to your site. This will allow setting a gamification reward if a user creates a must-read item. ( In the next step : (Optional) Set a content type dedicated to must-read contents action will be used.)
You'll just have to follow the same steps as in the "How to add the "Read content" into your Gamification site ?" but with the following fields filled differently :
- "Title" : [USER] when a user creates content, his name will appear as a title.
- "Code action": e.g. For the "News creation" action, the code NCS has been used.
You can also notice that this action gifts more points and Is Boosted.
Finish your configuration by filling all the other fields and then publish your action by clicking the "Publish" button.
5. (Optional) Set a content type dedicated to must-read content
If you do not wish to add a content type linked to this feature, you can go to the next section. It won't influence the use of the "must-read" feature. It is not mandatory to have a content type dedicated to "must-read".
You'll need the gamification action "Create content" created in your environment, to make it available on your actions, as shown in the "How to add the "Create content" into your Gamification site ?" part.
In Powell Manager, in the content-type section, you can set a content type dedicated to must-read content.
You can :
- Create a new content type (number 1 in the screenshot below),
- Edit an already created content type (number 2 in the screenshot below),
- Duplicate a Powell content type (number 3 in the screenshot below) to edit it after the duplication.
You can now set a gamification action to your content type to notify and reward a user if he creates content.
Once your content type is selected, you'll just have to go on the Gamification tab to the left and turn on the button to "Enable the Gamification".
You can select "Manual value" in the list below and add the code action linked to "Create news" action we set previously on Sharepoint.
Then save and deploy your content type to make your changes appear on your site.