Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

MODX is a web-based Content Management System or CMS that allows you to manage the content of your site.

Check out the website options for information and examples that show different levels of customization.

• View "How Do I Log In?” section for step-by-step instructions.
• Make sure you have completed your MODX training and submitted the form at the very end of the training. Otherwise, your site is not ready and you will not have publisher access to the site yet.
• If the URL of your site starts with https://cmsdev1.pmacs.upenn.edu and you are trying to access the site from outside of the United States, you will need a PMACS account and VPN access via PulseSecure. If you don’t have that already, you will need to submit a ticket to get that set up - https://helpdesk.pmacs.upenn.edu/ or call 215-573-INFO.
• If you have completed training, the site is set up and you're still not able to get in with the correct URL and your PennKey credentials, please submit a MODX ticket with a description of the issue and the error message you receive when attempting to log in, if any. 

Fill out and submit the form to Request Website Editing Privileges. 

The manager URL is easy to remember. The URL is your site URL with ‘/manager’ at the end. For example, https://www.med.upenn.edu/SITENAME/manager (replace ‘SITENAME’ with your accountname)

For sites that are still in development, the URL is https://cmsdev1.pmacs.upenn.edu/SITENAME/manager

Refer your colleague to the form to Request Website Editing Privileges. 

View instructions  on how to get started with setting up Google Analytics.

• All sites set up by the PMACS Web Team are added to the Google Search Console when the sites are launched. After being added, it takes some time for the site to be indexed by Google and for your site to start showing up in search results.  

• If your site is secured using PennKey protection or username and password, the site will not appear in a google search results.  

• For more information on Google’s Search Console, go to their Search Console Help page. 

• We provide a web-based form application called Machform. If you're interested in obtaining an account, have questions about MachForm, login issues, or to embed a form on your site, please use the Request Help with MachForm form.

View instructions on how to rewatch the MODX training videos. 

• The Web Standards for PSOM sites state that “The logo may not be altered from its original form. Its dimensions may not be distorted, and it may not be displayed smaller than 60 pixels in height. It should be placed in the upper left-hand corner of the page for consistency and should link back to the  Perelman School of Medicine home page.” 
• If your organization is more affiliated with Penn or Penn Medicine, please contact us at psom-somweb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu with your request to replace the PSOM logo with one that better defines your organization's affiliation.
• To add another logo to the site, email psom-somweb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu with your request. Please remember that the upper left-hand corner is reserved for Penn/PSOM branding. 

The site title is set at the beginning of the site creation and is not client-editable. To change the title, email psom-somweb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu with your request.

View instructions on how to secure pages.

View instructions on how to secure files.

Email psom-somweb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu with your request. Be sure to include information about how many pages need to be protected, if multiple pages need to be secured with the same credentials or they need to vary, etc. 

In the Resource tab, drag and drop the child page on the container. Be sure to directly place the child page on the container, not below. Any resource that is a container with nested page(s) will display a down caret, folder icon and resource title. The caret icon allows you to toggle the container open and close to view or hide all the nested page(s).

Create a new document with the following fields in the Document tab set/filled in: 

• Title 
• Set Uses Template to ‘(empty)’ 
• Resource Alias 
• Published: box should be checked to have container and nested page(s) visible in the browser 

Go to the Settings tab and check the box that says Container to indicate it is not a web page and just a container navigation item with nested page(s). Click Save. 

A resource that is a container can be identified in the Resources tab with a folder icon in front of the resource title. If the container has nested page(s), it will also have a caret icon in front of the folder icon as well.

If the parent page has no overview content, simply change the field "Uses Template" to "(empty)" and the automatically generated "Overview" link will be removed.

If the parent page has content, but you would like the link text to be different than "Overview", move the content to a new child page and give it the title you would like. Then, set the the parent page "Uses Template" to "(empty)" to remove "Overview" from the navigation.

Cross-referencing your own content helps improve SEO since it helps search engines understand the hierarchy of content on your site and find other pages within your site more easily.

NOTE: when linking to a page within your site, you should never use the full URL (e.g., cmsdev1.pmacs.upenn.edu/...) but link either using the page's resource ID or selecting the page from a list of resources, depending on which rich-text editor you are using. See detailed instructions:

• How to Link to Another Page in your Site
• How to Link to a File in your Site

• If the video you want to display offers iframe code, click the IFrame button in the toolbar, which looks like a globe. 

• If the video is not hosted anywhere, email psom-somweb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu and we'll assist you in adding the video to your site. 

• If the video is hosted but does not provide iframe code, our richtext editor does not support embedding the video. Consider taking a screenshot of the video and linking to the real video from that screenshot.

To reorder accordion items, drag and drop them up and down the list in the order you would like them to display.

Only pages displayed in the Resource tree in the deleted state (red strikethrough text) can be recovered. Otherwise, it is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.

In the Resource tree, contextual-click or right-click on the deleted page and select "Undelete" to recover the page. 

• There is an option to “Show/Hide Photos in Personnel Profiles” on Self Serves. Set to hide the photos in the personnel profiles and all photos will be hidden and the default placeholder photos will not appear.

• If this option is not offered or you would like the option to include photos for only some of the faculty, email psom-somweb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu to request this feature for your personnel page.

The list for Personnel (like other features including accordions) does not have the function to automatically alphabetized. It is default behavior for the new item to be added to the bottom of the list. You can rearrange the list by clicking and dragging individual list items.

View instructions on how to link to email addresses and phone numbers. 

View instructions under the section for "Link word(s) to anchor on a different page within your site."

Check and make sure the file is linked properly by viewing the instructions on Link to a File.

There is no tool in the richtext editor that allows you to resize images. There are several free web-based tools you can use to resize your image and then upload them to your site. View some of our photo editing software suggestions.

You can add a photo to any page using a template that includes a slideshow feature. When you add more than one photo to a slideshow, the photos will rotate on the page.

• Try to compress your file and reduce the file size. The method to do this varies by the program you are using to compress your file i.e. Acrobat, Word, Powerpoint. 

• If you have already tried to compress the file and reduce the size but it still exceeds the file size limit, email psom-somweb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu with your file size and request a larger file size limit.

We do not provide any stock images but there are resources that offer free well priced images. One example is iStockPhoto, who offers royalty free, reasonably priced image that are fairly high quality. Still, often the most relevant images are the ones taken locally by a professional photographer.

For Penn images, check out the public albums in the University of Pennsylvania Flickr Gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/universityofpennsylvania/sets

Contact psom-somweb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu with your request. Be sure to include the old site URL and the new redirect URL.

Our services are currently free of charge.