Goal

After reading this article you'll able to

  • customise channel icons and websites

  • publish different website types

  • understand website visibility and tab configuration   

  • create appropriate search results

  • create past articles

Summary

Websites/News Channel is a dedicated channel that emulates an internet browser. In this familiar format, players can use the web channel just like the regular web.


Name
Websites/News Channel
 Benefit
Reproduce an online ecosystem based on websites from a secure and protected environment for training.
 Features
  • Personalize you websites
  • Create posts individually for each website, with text, images and videos
  • Old posts are automatically added to a featured section in the right-hand column
  • Real websites can also be added to published as URLs and browsed to increase realism
  • Configure tabs 
  • Add descriptions and keywords to websites

Customizing Channel Icons 


You can change the icon or name of the channel in the Scenario Editor, in Style > Virtual Desktop > Websites / News




Website Configuration





Create a new persona or select an existing one.

1. Mark as Organisation.

2. Go to Website section from the list of available channels. 

3. Put in the website name and description. (The description you add here will appear in the search results.) 

Add keywords to boost the visibility of the website. (The keywords will not be revealed to the players but are included in the web search)

4.You can type in the url you want as well as use the toggle to determine whether you want it to say 'https://'  

5. Tick the paid promotion checkbox if you want the website to appear on top of the search results marked as an ad. 

6. The ranking of website can be adjusted by setting the priority.

7. You can boost the website views as per your liking. However, note that boosting views here will affect
the metrics shown in the social map.


Website Types

There are two types of websites you can add to your scenario:
1. URL-based websites

2. Article-based websites


1. URL-based websites


These websites use a working URL that gets embedded on the Websites channel. These are useful for highly customized websites that you have created in a website builder (such as Mobirise) or real websites that you can find a real browser (i.e. https://www.conducttr.com)


1. Create a new persona or select an existing one.

2. Follow the steps mentioned in the website configuration above and then scroll down to 'Display Options' and select 'Use URL' on the toggle button. 

3. Click on Add website (Change website if you had a previous one). 
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4. In the Manage media window, click New

5. Click From URL and type your desired destination.

6. Insert the URL into Asset ID too.

7. Hit Save.
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8. To publish a new URL website during your exercise, in the Scenario Editor go to Scenario.

9. Select your persona or click +Add inject (bottom left) and select your persona.

10. Then under 'What method?' select the website channel

11. Click on 'Default website' dropdown if you do not wish to publish your default website and select change website. (For example, if you want to display a hacked version of the same website).

12. Click on save and close. 
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2. Article-based websites


These websites create a blog-style framework, where you will be able to publish different articles during your exercise so they are all displayed in a familiar format. This is particularly useful for News organizations. 

1. Create a new persona or select an existing one. 

2. Follow the steps mentioned in the website configuration above and then scroll down to 'Display Options' and select 'Use article type' on the toggle button. 
 
3. Click on Style (pencil icon)

4. Customize header, fonts and colours to make it look like your desired website. Alternatively, you can import from a News style file with a .txws extension (check some examples on Ventura). 

5. Hit the Back arrow in the top left corner, then Save.
 
 6. To publish a new article during your exercise, click Scenario in the Scenario Editor.
7. Click +Add inject (bottom left corner) and select your persona and the website channel. 

8. Add Title, Subtitle, Body and images or video for the news article. Use AI assistant by giving text prompts to save your time. 

9. You can also add a website description that will be visible in the web search. The words used in the content will also be useful for enhancing search results.

10. Update the inject by adding a question if it is relevant to your scenario, as well as past comments to make the article more authentic. 
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 Website Visibility and Tab Configuration 


In the Scenario Editor, you can select websites visibility. Go to Style > Customize channels > Websites



Show websites: New articles will be published and visible depending on your configuration in your Master Event List.

Hide websites: New articles will not be visible when published, players will need to find them using search terms in the Search engine (see below)

You can also upload an image that will appear upon searching for content on the web. 

In the tabs configuration, you can set websites to active or inactive as well as to open once the exercise starts. 






 In the 'Order of tabs', you can add the order of your preference suitable for your exercise. You can choose to do it manually or have to arrange based on the number of views, alphabetically or disposition. 
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Searching and Search Results


Searching in the Websites/News channel also includes results from social media channels you have enabled and will find personas as well as content.

The following examples illustrate how you can use logic operators in your search.

News agencies
This will find all mentions of "news agencies" where the words are together. It won't find "news and other agencies"

News AND agencies
This will find "news and other agencies" because both search terms exist in the content.

News OR agencies
This will find articles, websites and social media with either "news" or "agencies".

You can use parenthesis to group search terms.

News AND (agencies OR outlets)
 This will find all articles and social media mentioning "news" with either "agencies" or "outlets"

Past articles


In article-based websites, you can prepare a set of articles to be available when the user first logs in, so the website, news page or blog feels lived in.

1. In the Scenario Editor, go to Personas > Select your desired persona. Make sure this persona is marked as Organization.

2. Select the Website section and make sure your website is article-based.

3. Scroll down to find 'Past Articles' section. 

3. Click the green plus button and create as many articles as you require.

4. You can use the AI assistant by giving it text prompts to save time. 

5. You can also set the date of the past articles to make them more realistic. 




Alternatively, you can upload your pre-defined articles from a .csv file by clicking on the green box next to the green plus. 

The save symbol next to 'Past articles' can be used to download a blank template for .csv upload. If past articles section is populated, use it to download predefined articles in .csv format.