Website owners should regularly review their site’s editor group to ensure that only current, authorized users have access. A simple approach is to check your group’s membership twice a year, for example, on the .

For sites in the cuTheme template

To locate your site’s security groups:

1. Log in to your website.
2. Go to Appearance > User Access.
3. Review the membership of your editor group.

For example, carleton.ca/kittens might have a security group named kittens-cuTheme_e.

For CCMS Sites

Similarly, for sites in the CCMS template:

1. Log in to your website.
2. On the dashboard, click your site’s security group.
3. Review the list of members.

As an example, a CCMS site might have a group called kittens-CCMS_editors.

What to Check

Look for:

• Former staff members who no longer need access.
• Student employees who have completed their work term.
• Team members who should be added or removed.
• Any accounts that no longer have website responsibilities.

Need Changes?

If you need to add or remove people from your website’s editor group, submit a request through the ITS Service Desk using the .

Taking a few minutes twice a year to review your editor group helps keep your website secure, ensures access reflects current responsibilities, and supports good web governance across the university.

The post A sense of security: review your website editing group today! appeared first on cutheme docs.

If your department manages a website with its own domain, be aware of a common deceptive scheme currently targeting domain owners at 杏吧原创. Specific domain registration companies are claiming that different domain names are about to expire and must be renewed immediately.

These may look legitimate, but they are often marketing solicitations disguised as renewal notices, with false information about the date of renewal. They frequently charge five times the average price of renewal, and may come via email or via surface mail. Paying the invoice will lead to your domain being transferred to the malevolent company. They then charge even more exploitative renewal rates.

The surface mail notices they send might look like this:

These companies often have several subsidiaries they use.

Always . A legitimate renewal notice should come from your current domain registrar electronically, or from an approved service provider.

You can often find information about the domain by and searching for your domain.

Common warning signs include:

• Unexpected renewal notices from companies you’ve never worked with.
• Claims that immediate payment is required to avoid losing your domain.
• Invoices that look like bills but contain fine print describing them as solicitations.
• Offers to renew a domain years before its actual expiration date.
• Requests to transfer your domain registration to a different company.
• A quoted price that is multiple times the market rate for a renewal.

If you receive a suspicious domain renewal notice, forward it to your website administrator or for verification.

Protect your website, your budget, and your peace of mind by staying alert to deceptive domain renewal practices.

The post Beware of deceptive domain renewal practices appeared first on cutheme docs.

For that reason, we ask that all support requests be submitted through Jira and that all communication related to those requests remain within the Jira ticket whenever possible.

Why Not Email or Teams Messages?

It may seem faster to send an email or Teams message directly to someone you know on our team, but in practice, this often has the opposite effect.

Individual mailboxes and chat conversations are not designed to manage support requests. Messages can be missed, buried among other work, delayed while someone is away, or become disconnected from the broader context of a request.

Most importantly, direct messages create an invisible queue. While the sender and recipient may be aware of a request, the rest of the team is not. If that individual is unavailable or working on higher-priority issues, the request may sit unnoticed when it could otherwise be reviewed and assigned through our normal support process.

What feels like a shortcut can actually result in slower resolution times.

Why Jira Works Better

Jira provides a single source of truth for every support request.

When a request is submitted through Jira:

• The work is tracked and prioritized appropriately.
• All team members can see the request and assist when needed.
• Decisions, updates, and technical details are captured in one place.
• Requesters have visibility into the status of their issue.
• Historical information is available for future reference.
• Work can continue even if a team member is unavailable.

This is particularly important because support is a team function, not an individual function. While you may have worked with a specific team member in the past, requests are often reviewed by multiple people and may be assigned based on expertise, workload, availability, and current priorities.

By using Jira, your request becomes visible to the entire team rather than relying on a single person’s inbox.

Keep the Conversation in the Ticket

Once a ticket has been created, we ask that all ongoing discussion remain within Jira comments.

This ensures that everyone involved has access to the same information and that a complete record of the request is maintained. If questions are asked or updates are provided through email or Teams, those details may not be visible to everyone working on the issue.

Support requests often involve multiple conversations, technical investigations, and decisions over time. Keeping those discussions within the ticket allows anyone working on the request to quickly understand its history without having to search through emails or chat messages.

There are some exceptions. In situations where files, screenshots, documents, or other materials cannot be attached directly to Jira, a Service Desk agent may ask you to provide them through another method. Even in those cases, the outcome of the discussion should be documented in the ticket so that the full history remains available.

Fair and Consistent Support

Using Jira also helps ensure that support requests are handled fairly and consistently.

Our team receives requests from across the university, many of which compete for the same resources. Jira allows us to review, prioritize, and assign work based on urgency, impact, complexity, and available capacity.

When requests are managed through email or private messages, it becomes much more difficult to track workload and ensure that all requests are receiving appropriate attention.

A centralized queue helps us provide consistent service to everyone rather than relying on who happened to contact a particular individual.

Helping Us Help You

Using Jira is not about creating extra steps or bureaucracy. It is about ensuring that requests are not lost, that work can be tracked effectively, and that our team can provide the highest level of service possible.

When all requests and communication remain within the ticketing system, we can respond more efficiently, collaborate more effectively, and provide better support for everyone.

The best way to ensure your request receives the attention it deserves is simple: submit it through Jira and keep the conversation in the ticket.

The post Why We Ask You to Use Jira for Support Requests appeared first on cutheme docs.

As part of our move to cuTheme, all public websites will be migrated to the university’s new web theme. If your website has one or more sub-sites, please focus on those first.

Why Are We Migrating Sub-sites First?

Once a main site is migrated to cuTheme, any connected sub-sites that haven’t been migrated may become inaccessible. That means students, faculty, staff, and members of the public may no longer be able to reach that content.

By migrating sub-sites first, we can ensure they remain available and properly connected when the main site moves to cuTheme.

What You Need to Do

Before your migration:

• Identify all sub-sites associated with your website.
• Confirm which ones are still needed.
• Review content for accuracy and relevance.
• Remove outdated or duplicate content.
• Archive anything that is no longer required.

A Little Preparation Goes a Long Way

Taking time to prepare your sub-sites now will help:

• Keep content accessible throughout the migration.
• Avoid disruptions for your users.
• Reduce delays during the migration process.
• Make your transition to cuTheme smoother and faster.

If your website includes sub-sites, please make them your first priority as you prepare for migration to cuTheme.

The post Preparing for cuTheme: Start with Your Sub-sites appeared first on cutheme docs.

When editing content in WordPress, you may need to view or update custom meta fields attached to a specific content type. These fields used to be visible by default, but recent updates by WordPress mean they are now hidden. But are available through the Meta Fields panels located below the main content editor.

To access them:

1. In the back end of your site, open the page, post, or content item you want to edit.
2. Scroll down below the content editor.
3. If the section is collapsed, click the arrow on the right side of the panel heading to expand it and view all available fields.
4. Look for the relevant meta field section to edit.

The meta fields displayed will vary depending on the content type you’re editing. Common content types include:

• Page: Standard website pages.
• Post: News articles and blog posts.
• Event: Event listings with date, location, and registration details.
• People: Staff, faculty, or profile pages.

The post Finding Meta Fields in WordPress Pages and Posts appeared first on cutheme docs.

Launching your website is an exciting milestone鈥攃ongratulations! To help you transition smoothly, we鈥檝e created this quick checklist. Follow these steps before submitting your go-live request:

Steps to Launching Your Site

1. Update All Content

Double-check that all your website content is present and up to date on your staging site. This includes recent pages, posts, events, media (like images and documents), and any other updates.

For example, if you added an event to your old site while your cutheme site was on staging, you will have to recreate that content. The sites are not connected.

Blank Installs

If you had a blank site installed (versus a migration), please ensure that you have uploaded any required media from your old site to your cutheme site on staging (images, PDF files, docs etc)

2. Export Form Entries

If your old site includes active forms,聽export any recent submissions聽to ensure you don鈥檛 lose important data collected during the migration period.

3. Submit Your Go-Live Request

Once everything is ready, submit your go-live聽. Please allow up to a week for the team to schedule and complete the process.

4. No Further Changes

After submitting your request, avoid making additional changes to your site. This ensures that everything you鈥檝e worked on is accurately reflected during deployment and helps us deliver a smooth launch.

By following this checklist, you鈥檒l help set your website up for a successful launch. If you have questions or need support, we鈥檙e here to help鈥攋ust reach out!

The post cutheme Go Live Checklist appeared first on cutheme docs.

Uploaded a PDF last year and just spotted a typo? Need to update someone鈥檚 bio photo?

In the old version of our theme (cms), you could delete the file and upload a new one with the same name. That doesn鈥檛 work anymore.

Deleting and re-uploading on cutheme creates a new URL, which can break links on your site.

Instead, use Smart Media Replacement. It lets you update the file while keeping the original URL exactly the same.

Why This Is So Helpful

Replacing media using this method allows you to:

• Replace media files while keeping the original URL
• Preserve all existing links (internal and external)

In other words, you can update the file without breaking your site!

It works for PDFs, images, Word documents – basically any file type uploaded to the media library.

How to Replace a Media File (Step-by-Step)

1. In the dashboard, go to Media 鈫� Library
2. Click the icon at the top left to view your library in list mode

3. Find the file you want to replace.
4. Hover over the file name and click Replace.

5. Select your new file (with a matching filename)

Important Requirements

Before replacing a file, make sure:

• The filename is exactly the same
  If the original is “document1.pdf,” the new file must also be “document1.pdf.”
• The file type is the same
  You can鈥檛 replace a PDF with a Word document, or a PNG with a JPG.
• Image dimensions match (images only)
  The width and height must be identical to avoid layout issues.

That’s it! No broken links. No re-embedding. No hunting through pages.

Questions?

• If you have questions about replacing your files, 鈥� we鈥檙e happy to help.
• This feature uses the Smart Media Replacement plugin. For more information, visit the .

The post How to Replace a Media File in cutheme (Without Breaking Anything) appeared first on cutheme docs.

We鈥檙e excited to share a new way to highlight your media mentions 鈥� the In the Media block!

This new feature makes it easy to showcase articles, interviews, and news stories featuring your team or department. Whether you鈥檝e been quoted in a local paper or featured in a national publication, this block brings those stories front and center.

Why you鈥檒l love it:

• Quick and easy to set up
• Clean, organized design
• Perfect for sharing your latest press coverage

Curious to see it in action? Check out how the newsroom uses it in their 杏吧原创 in the News section.

Ready to give it a try? Explore the full guide here:

The post Introducing the 鈥淚n the Media鈥� Block! appeared first on cutheme docs.

This change provides you with more flexibility in terms of how your content appears and its performance in search engines.

Page Title

• The page title is the main title of your page.
• It appears in your browser tab, search engine results (like Google), and may also be used by screen readers for accessibility.
• From an SEO perspective, the page title is critical鈥攊t helps search engines understand what your page is about, and it鈥檚 often the first thing people see when deciding whether to click through to your site.
• Best practice: make sure your page title is clear, descriptive, and includes relevant keywords.

Page Banner

• The page banner is the large, visual header that displays at the top of your page.
• It鈥檚 meant for design, branding, and creating a strong first impression for visitors once they land on your page.
• Unlike the page title, it doesn鈥檛 directly affect SEO, but it plays a big role in user experience.

Why We Separated Them

In the past, the page title and the banner title were always the same by default. This could limit flexibility鈥攆or example, you might want a shorter, keyword-rich page title for SEO, but a more descriptive or welcoming banner title for readers.

By separating them, you now get the best of both worlds:

• Strong, optimized page titles that improve search optimization.
• Custom banner titles that match the tone, style, or design of your page without being tied to SEO rules.

Best Practices

To get the most out of this update, keep these tips in mind:

Page Titles

• Aim for 50鈥�60 characters so your title doesn鈥檛 get cut off in search results (Google).
• Place the most important keywords near the beginning.
• Make sure each page has a unique title.

Page Banners

• Use them to set the mood or theme of your content.
• Choose wording that feels welcoming and clear to your audience.
• Keep it short and easy to read at a glance.

Together

• Think of your page title as your SEO tool and your banner as your design tool.
• They don鈥檛 have to match (but can), and should complement each other.

How to add page and banner titles

1. Add the page title at the very top of the web page next to “SEO Title.”
2. Add the banner title in the first content block (Text & Image or Wide Image) at the top of the page.

The post Page Titles and Page Banners: What鈥檚 the Difference? appeared first on cutheme docs.

Good website navigation is key to a great user experience. cutheme was designed to make navigation more intuitive and accessible, especially when it comes to top-level menu items with subpages.

How Top-Level Menu Items Work in cutheme

In cutheme, top-level menu items with subpages are not clickable landing pages. Instead, clicking the top-level item opens a drop-down menu with the subpages. This widely used design makes navigation easier and more accessible by letting users go straight to the content they need.

What to Do If You Used to Have a Landing Page

If you’re migrating to cutheme and previously used top-level landing pages (like an “杏吧原创” page), here are a few ways to restructure that content:

1. Use a Custom Link

This is the simplest option and closely mimics your old setup.

• Create a Custom Link with # as the URL (go to Appearance > Menu > Custom Link).
• Label the custom link with the same name as your original landing page – “杏吧原创” in this case.
• Then, take your former 杏吧原创 page and move it under the custom link with a new label like 鈥淥verview鈥� or 鈥淥ur Mission.鈥�

2. Reorganize Under a New Heading

You can create a new top-level heading, such as “Our Department”, using the custom link method described above. Then nest the original 杏吧原创 page (and any other relevant content) underneath.

3. Break Content into Multiple Pages

If your original page was long, consider splitting it into several shorter, focused pages.

• For example, the used to have a single, long 杏吧原创 page.
• During the migration, it was broken into five distinct subpages, all listed under a custom link called “杏吧原创.”

4. Add a “Stealth” Landing Page

If you want to preserve an overview page for SEO or content flow, you can create a hidden or 鈥渟tealth鈥� page that doesn鈥檛 appear in the menu.

• For instance, Finance and Administration uses an 杏吧原创 page to display introductory content from its former landing page.
• Keeping the title 杏吧原创 can support SEO, even if the page isn鈥檛 linked in the main navigation.

Note: Use this option carefully. Hidden pages can be forgotten during updates and may clutter your site over time.

Final Thoughts

cutheme is built to support a more user-friendly and accessible navigation experience. With top-level items acting as containers for subpages, you have a few flexible ways to restructure your content. Whether you’re breaking up long pages, adding custom links, or reorganizing under new headings, these strategies will help your users find information easily 鈥� and keep your site clean and intuitive.

Need a hand figuring things out? We’d be happy to help!

The post Where Did My Landing Page Go? Navigating cutheme Menus appeared first on cutheme docs.