Announcements

The Announcements feature lets you communicate with your entire school community or specific groups. You can create rich text announcements, target them to specific audiences, schedule them for future publication, and track how many recipients have read them.

Accessing Announcements

1. Log in as a school administrator.
2. Navigate to Announcements from the sidebar.

The page opens on the Feed tab — a read-only, chronological view of announcements. Switch to the Manage tab to create an announcement, filter by status, or take action on one.

1. 1Open Filters to narrow the feed by category or date.
2. 2Refresh fetches any new announcements.
3. 3Feed — the read-only view shown by default.
4. 4Manage — switch here to create, edit, or filter by status.

Announcement Statuses

Announcements move through a lifecycle:

Status	Description
Draft	Created but not yet visible to anyone. Can be edited freely.
Scheduled	Set to publish automatically at a future date and time.
Published	Live and visible to the targeted audience.
Archived	Removed from active view but preserved for records.

Creating an Announcement

1. On the Manage tab, click the New Announcement button.
2. Fill in the announcement details:
   • Title — A clear, descriptive title.
   • Content — Use the rich text editor to compose your message. You can format text, add links, and embed images.
   • Priority — Choose from Normal, Important, or Urgent. Higher priorities are displayed more prominently.
   • Category — Select a category (e.g., General, Academic, Administrative).
3. Configure the target audience:
   • All School — Visible to everyone.
   • By Role — Target specific roles (teachers, students, guardians, staff).
   • By Grade Level — Target a specific grade.
   • By Class — Target a specific class.
   • By Subject — Target users associated with a specific subject.
   • Individual Users — Target specific people.
4. Optionally set a scheduled publication date to publish the announcement automatically at a future time.
5. Choose to either:
   • Save as Draft — Save without publishing.
   • Publish — Make it immediately visible to the target audience.

Managing Announcements

All of the actions below are performed from the Manage tab, not the read-only Feed.

1. 1New Announcement opens the creation form.
2. 2Filter the list by status — All Announcements, Drafts, Scheduled, Published, or Archived.
3. 3Select announcements to use the bulk action bar.
4. 4Unpublish returns a published announcement to draft.
5. 5Archive removes it from the active feed but keeps it for records.

Filtering Announcements

Use the tab bar to filter announcements by status:

• All Announcements — Shows all announcements.
• Drafts — Announcements not yet published.
• Scheduled — Announcements set for future publication.
• Published — Currently live announcements.
• Archived — Announcements that have been archived.

Editing an Announcement

1. Find the announcement in the list.
2. Click the Edit button (available for draft and scheduled announcements).
3. Update the content, targeting, or schedule as needed.
4. Save your changes or publish directly from the editor.

Editing Published Announcements

Published announcements cannot be edited directly. To make changes, first unpublish the announcement, edit it, and then republish.

Publishing a Draft

1. Find the draft announcement.
2. Click the Publish button.
3. Confirm the publication.

The announcement will immediately become visible to the targeted audience and trigger notifications.

Unpublishing an Announcement

1. Find the published announcement.
2. Click Unpublish.
3. Confirm the action.

The announcement returns to draft status and is no longer visible to the audience.

Archiving an Announcement

1. Find the published announcement.
2. Click Archive.
3. Confirm the action.

Archived announcements are removed from the active feed but preserved for record-keeping.

Deleting an Announcement

1. Click the Delete button on any announcement.
2. Confirm the deletion.

Permanent Deletion

Deleting an announcement removes it permanently. If you want to keep a record, archive the announcement instead.

Bulk Actions

You can perform actions on multiple announcements at once:

1. Select announcements using the checkboxes.
2. Use the bulk action bar to Publish, Unpublish, Archive, or Delete the selected announcements.
3. Confirm the bulk action when prompted.

Tracking Readership

Published announcements display read counts so you can monitor engagement:

• Read count — How many recipients have viewed the announcement.
• Target count — The total number of targeted recipients.

Both figures appear together as Read Count: X / Y in the Manage tab's list view, next to each published announcement.

Tips

• Use priority levels wisely — Reserve "Urgent" for genuinely time-sensitive communications. Overusing high priorities reduces their impact.
• Target carefully — Rather than sending everything to the whole school, target specific groups to reduce notification fatigue.
• Schedule ahead — Use the scheduling feature to prepare announcements in advance and have them publish at the right time.
• Archive old announcements — Keep your active list clean by archiving announcements that are no longer relevant.