Help & How-To

Everything here is written for volunteers, not web designers. If you get stuck, the AI Assistant can walk you through any of this.

The big picture

The back office is a private area. The public can't see anything you do here until you publish it. Your work is organized by school. Pick your school from the left menu, then use the tabs: Pages, Files & Photos, and Planning.

Building a page

1. Open your school → Pages tab → ＋ New page.
2. Type a Page title (e.g. "Jefferson Fun Run 2026"). The Page link fills in automatically — you can shorten it.
3. Add blocks one at a time using the buttons:
   • Heading — a title for a section.
   • Paragraph — normal text. Select words and use the buttons above the box for bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, bullet or numbered lists, size, color, or a link (🔗).
   • Bullet list — type one item per line.
   • Photo — pick from photos you've uploaded, or paste an image link.
   • Button — a big clickable button (e.g. "Sign up now") that links somewhere.
   • Divider line — a thin line between sections.
   • Embed — drops in a Google Form, Google Calendar, or a YouTube video. Paste the share link.
4. If it's for an event, open Event details & flyer and add the date, start time, and location (these show in a highlighted box near the top, and the location becomes a Google Maps link). You can also Upload a flyer image here — it appears as a big picture at the top of the page.
5. Watch the Live preview on the right — that's exactly what visitors see.
6. Press Save draft as you go. Nothing is public yet. Use the 👁 Preview button any time to open the real page in a new tab exactly as it will look once live.
7. When it's ready, press Publish. You'll get a link like schalmontpto.com/jefferson/fun-run to share by email or Facebook. (The prefix matches the school: /jefferson/ Jefferson, /ms/ Middle School, /hs/ High School, /woestina/ Woestina, /pto/ PTO-wide — and if a page has no school ticked at all, it publishes with no prefix, just schalmontpto.com/….)
8. To take it down later, open it and press Unpublish. To fix a typo, just edit and press Update live page.

Reordering or removing blocks

Each block has small ▲ ▼ arrows to move it up or down, and an ✕ to delete it.

Files & Photos (link library)

Each school keeps a saved list of photo and document links you can reuse. You add items by pasting a link — the file itself lives wherever it already is (Google Drive, a website, an image host).

1. Open your school → Files & Photos tab.
2. Get a link to your file or photo:
   • A photo already online — right-click it → Copy Image Address.
   • A PDF / flyer / order form — put it in Google Drive, Share → Anyone with the link → Copy link.
   • A photo from your computer — upload it free at postimages.org and copy the Direct link.
3. Fill in a Name, paste the Link, tick "This is a photo" if it's an image, press Add to library.
4. Use Copy link to paste it into a page block, an email, or Facebook. Photos in the library also show up in the page builder's Photo block.
5. Remove only takes it off your list — it does not delete the original file, and pages using it keep working.

Sign-up sheets

Use the built-in Sign-Up Sheets tool (under each school in the left menu, including PTO-wide — it's the same single list everywhere, just pre-filtered to whichever school you clicked in from):

1. Open Sign-Up Sheets → ＋ New sign-up sheet.
2. Add your dates, time slots, and how many spots each slot has.
3. On the Share & embed tab, use Copy link to share it anywhere, or Copy embed address to drop it into a page with an Embed block.

Other forms

For anything that isn't a slot/spot sign-up, build a free Google Form, click Send → the link icon → Copy, then add an Embed block on your page and paste the link.

Fundraising

Open your school → the 💰 Fundraising tab. Add a fundraiser with its name, dollar goal, and notes.

If the fundraiser has a prize / sponsor tracker in a Google Sheet (like a calendar raffle), paste the sheet link in the Tracker spreadsheet link box. The sheet must be shared Anyone with the link → Viewer. Then on the fundraiser card you'll get Show tracker — a live, read-only view of the sheet with a quick summary (prospects, secured, dollar value). To make changes, use Open in Google Sheets ↗, then Refresh here.

The Calendar

Open Calendar from the left menu (or a school's Calendar tab). It shows every event, program, and fundraiser and switches between Month, Week, Day, and List views (buttons top-right).

1. Add — click any day, or press ＋ New event. Fill in the name, type (Event / Program / Fundraiser / …), date, and anything else you know.
2. Edit or delete — click the event on the calendar.
3. Flyer & social-media dates — every event automatically gets four dates counted backward from the event: when to start planning, when the flyer / take-home goes out, the first social post, and a reminder post. They show in the edit window and (tick Show flyer & social dates) on the calendar itself. Adjust any date, and check it off when it's done.
4. Planning spreadsheet — the calendar loads every row from the PTO planning spreadsheet automatically the first time it's opened. If you change the sheet later, open the top-level Calendar (left menu, not a school tab) and click ↻ Re-sync from planning sheet. It adds new rows, refreshes synced ones, and never touches events you added by hand.

Yearbook photos

Each school collects event photos from families for its yearbook. Open your school → the 📸 Yearbook Photos tab.

1. Make event folders — one per event you want pictures of (Back to School, Trunk or Treat, Field Day…). These are the choices parents see.
2. Share the link shown at the top of the tab (schalmontpto.com/yearbook-upload) in a newsletter or on Facebook. Parents pick the school + event, type who's in the photos, and upload. Photos go straight into the folder — no approval step.
3. Photos are grouped by folder at the bottom, each with the names the parent gave, a Download link for the yearbook team, and a Remove button to delete a bad or duplicate shot.

Ideas & To-Do

Each school has two shared tabs, seen by everyone who helps that school:

• 💡 Ideas — a quick place to capture "maybe we could…". Any idea can be pushed to the To-Do list with Move to To-Do.
• ✅ To-Do — real tasks. Each can be assigned to a person (the dropdown lists this school's admins) and given a due date. Overdue tasks show in red. Tick Show only tasks assigned to me to focus your own list.

The AI Assistant

Ask it how to do anything here, or ask it to write things for you — reminder emails, newsletter blurbs, social posts, thank-you notes, event ideas. It gives you words and steps; you still do the clicking. It never sees private student or family data.

Parent Directory approvals (officers only)

Open Parent Directory from the left menu. New families who sign up land in Pending. For each one: click 🔍 Check Registry (opens the national sex-offender site pre-filled with their name), then Approve or Reject. You can Revoke an approved family later if needed.

Officers & administrators

Open People & Roles (owners only). It lists officers and administrators — each with an Organization (Woestina / Jefferson / Schalmont PTO Officer), a Title, and a back-office role.

• Create a login for someone (owners) — makes the account + password so they can sign in right away, or updates an existing one. There's a Quick-fill list for known officers.
• Or the person signs up themselves at the sign-in page, then an owner finds them (turn on Show all directory accounts) and sets their role/title.
• For a School administrator, tick the school(s) they manage, then Save.

Common questions

I published a page — where is it?

At schalmontpto.com/ + your school's prefix + the Page link you chose (e.g. schalmontpto.com/ms/spring-concert). It's also listed (with a View button) on your school's Pages tab.

Can I put my page in the top menu of the website?

Not yet from here — ask the site owner to add it to the navigation. You can link to it from any existing page or from Facebook right away.

I made a mistake on a live page.

Open it, fix it, press Update live page. Changes are instant.

Did I break the website?

No. The back office can only add new pages (at /ms/, /jefferson/, etc.) and library links. It can't touch the existing site pages.