বাংলা

Journal Automation — getting started

Publish a story and the news card writes itself, then goes to your Facebook Page and Telegram channel. Set this up once; there is nothing to do afterwards.

Which one you need

It depends on what your site is built with. Both do the same work.

Your siteWhat to install
WordPressThe plugin (a zip file)
Laravel, custom PHP, or anything elseThe bridge (a single PHP file)

Download the WordPress plugin (v1.9.8) Download the bridge

Either one starts a 7-day free trial on its own — cards, Facebook, Telegram and video all switched on. No card details, nothing to pay.

Installing on WordPress

Three minutes. Needs WordPress 5.8 or later and PHP 7.4 or later.

  1. 1Download the zip

    Use the Download the WordPress plugin button above. You will get journal-automation.zip. Do not unzip it.

  2. 2Upload it to WordPress

    In your admin, go to Plugins → Add New Plugin, then Upload Plugin at the top. Choose the zip and press Install Now.

  3. 3Activate

    Press Activate Plugin. On activation your site registers itself with our server and the 7-day trial begins — there is no key to paste and no code to edit.

  4. 4Open the panel

    Journal Automation appears in the left-hand menu, with eight pages: Dashboard, Cards and design, Categories, Ads, Daily automation, Connections, Settings and Licence.

  5. 5Add your masthead

    On Settings, enter your paper's name, logo and web address — these go on every card. On Cards and design you can upload your own artwork or keep ours.

The plugin updates itself. When a new version ships, WordPress offers it — or installs it — like any other plugin.

Installing on any other site (the bridge)

Laravel, CodeIgniter, hand-written PHP — anything that runs PHP. Five minutes.

  1. 1Download the file

    Use the Download the bridge button. It is one file, journal-bridge.php, with nothing else to install.

  2. 2Upload it beside index.php

    Put it in the folder that holds your site's index.php, using your host's file manager or FTP.

    • Plain PHP site: public_html/journal-bridge.php
    • Laravel: public_html/public/journal-bridge.php

  3. 3Open it and set a password

    Visit https://your-site.com/journal-bridge.php. The first time, it asks you to choose a password; that is what you sign in with from then on.

  4. 4Tell it where the news is

    Under 2. Where the news comes from, give your site's RSS feed — usually https://your-site.com/feed. It looks for new stories every five minutes.

    No feed? Your own code can POST a story instead; the panel shows the address and an example.

  5. 5Name, logo, design

    Fill in 3. Your name and logo, then pick a card design under 1. Card designs or upload your own.

Worth knowing: the first time the bridge reads your feed it marks everything already in it as seen. Old stories can never be posted by surprise — only what you publish from then on goes out.

Connecting a Facebook Page

The same for the plugin and the bridge. Your password never reaches us — Facebook asks you itself.

  1. 1Open the connections page

    In WordPress: Journal Automation → Connections. In the bridge: section 8. Facebook Page. Press Connect with Facebook.

  2. 2Log in to Facebook

    Facebook's own page opens. Sign in with the account that manages your Page.

  3. 3Choose the Page and grant access

    Facebook asks which Page you are sharing. Pick your paper's Page, grant the permissions and press Continue.

  4. 4Pick where the cards go

    Our page then lists the Pages you manage. Choose the one the cards should be posted to.

  5. 5Check it took

    Back in the panel you will see Connected: [your Page] and, under it, the Page's recent posts. Disconnect removes it whenever you like.

To send to a Telegram channel as well, put the bot token and channel name on the same page. Leave them empty if you would rather not.

Send the first card

The quickest way to know everything works.

  1. 1Publish a story

    Publish as you normally would. Give it a featured image — that is the photograph the card is built around.

  2. 2Watch it go

    The card is drawn and posted to your Page within seconds. On the bridge it can take up to five minutes, because it reads your feed on a timer.

  3. 3Or force it now

    In the bridge, section 9. Test and licence, press Send the newest story from the feed now. In WordPress, use Send now on any story from the dashboard.

Daily automation

Besides the news cards, these can go out on their own every day.

Set the times under Daily automation in WordPress, or section 6 in the bridge. Switch off whatever you do not want.

The newsroom monitor, at your own address

Switching the plugin or the bridge on gives your site one more address.

Open your site address with /monitor at the end — for example yoursite.com/monitor. It shows the day's news from hundreds of outlets across the country on one page, filtered by district and by subject, and who published a story first.

If you lose the address of your panel

On WordPress the panel is in the menu. With the bridge you have to remember the address — and there is a way back if you do not.

Open automation.journalist.bd/mypanel and type your site address. It gives back your panel, your monitor, and how many days the licence has left.

Bookmarking the bridge address is the simplest cure.

Trial and licence

If something is wrong

What you seeWhat it means
No card is madeThe story has no featured image. Cards are built around the photograph.
Nothing reaches FacebookCheck the connections page. Changing your Facebook password breaks the connection — connect again.
The bridge page will not openThe file is in the wrong folder. It belongs beside index.php.
Old stories went outThis can happen if the feed address changes. Tell us and we will put it right.

Anything else — emranhasan.rabbi@gmail.com · +880 1970 111247