How do I show civic alerts like power cuts and water supply on my home page?

Before you start

• This feature is made for Local and Hyperlocal sites, where it is on by default. A site of another kind can't add it.
• Your template must have the alert strip on its home page. The Local templates have it.
• You need permission to write and publish stories.

Steps

1. Open Stories and choose New story.
2. Under Start from, pick Civic alert.
3. Write a short headline that names the place and the problem. Name the ward, street or landmark.
4. Put the story in the Civic issues section.
5. Publish it, or schedule it. See Publish and schedule a story.

The alert shows in the strip on your home page. Each row has the time and a link to the story. The strip shows 3 alerts by default.

Good to know

• Alerts expire. In the standard setup the strip shows only alerts from the last 72 hours. The time counts from the later of two moments: when you first published, or the last time you updated the story.
• To keep an alert showing, update the story with new facts, for example "Updated 18:20". Do not edit it only to refresh the time.
• When the problem is over, add a line to the story that it is resolved. It then leaves the strip when its 72 hours are up.
• No alerts, no strip. If nothing is fresh, the strip does not show at all.
• The label is plain text, so it does not depend on colour alone.
• Civic alerts are stories. They also appear in the story lists, search and your feeds like any other story.

Questions

Related

• Local and hyperlocal
• Write a new story
• Sections & tags
• Publish, schedule and review