Story Cards and External Story Cards enable content authors to promote stories from the same or other websites within a webpage. Mixed Content components can also be used to link to additional website content. Featured News and Events components may automatically update when new content is published.
Website content authors often need to feature one or more news stories on a webpage. These stories could come from within the same websites, such as showcasing recent news on a home page. They could also come from other websites, such as highlighting an MSUToday story or a media hit. MSU’s Sitecore has a few different options for featuring news stories on a webpage, including a new option released in September 2026. Read below to learn more about the various options.
The Featured News and Events component enables content authors to highlight a feed of recent news stories and upcoming events from within the same website or from one or more other MSU Sitecore websites. Different variants allow for combinations of manually curated featured stories and recency-based story feeds. Feeds can be further controlled using filters.
The Featured News and Events component is an ideal solution for showcasing recent news on a unit home page or subunit-specific news on a landing page. To learn more about this component, see “Featured News and Events” in the Sitecore Component Guide.
Story Card components enable content authors to highlight one or more story pages from within the same website. A story’s template and Open Graph data populate the story card, reducing the effort required to feature a story. Up to three story cards can appear in a single row on desktop.
The Story Card component is a good solution for showcasing a more curated selection of story cards within a webpage, provided all stories live within the website. To learn more about this component, see “Story Card” in the Sitecore Component Guide.
External Story Card components enable content authors to highlight one or more story pages from any website, provided the source (“destination site”) includes the Open Graph data necessary to populate the External Story Card fields. A story’s Open Graph data populate the story card, reducing the effort required to feature a story. Missing data will lead to empty fields in the card, resulting in a poor user experience. Content authors are encouraged to verify all necessary data is present before publishing an External Story Card component. Up to three story cards can appear in a single row on desktop.
The External Story Card is a great choice for featuring MSUToday content on a unit page. It can also be used to feature stories from other MSU websites or from external websites, such as stories about MSU research featured in the media. To learn more about this component, see “External Story Card” in the Sitecore Component Guide.
To promote a story or website on a webpage with full editorial control of how the promotion appears, content authors may opt to use a Mixed Content component. These components can include a customizable headline, description and customizable call-to-action button, as well as an image. All content in a Mixed Content component must be created by the content author; no content pulls automatically from the destination source’s Open Graph data. These components have a slightly different appearance than the standard story card layout.
Mixed Content components are good options when linking to an external site and when authors need more control over the appearance, such as adjusting the headline and description to provide framing context. To learn more about this component, see “Mixed Content” in the Sitecore Component Guide.