Using an Announcement is a fast way to get important information in front of your users e.g. notice about a scheduled fire drill, reminders about national holidays, instructions on changes in processes etc

Announcements has a front end and an administrative side allowing for more in-depth configuration and tracking of these notices users are pushed; specific groups/roles/users can now also be targeted.

There are 3 styles of Announcements to choose from, appearing in different locations on the screen. Each can be set to require acceptance which may be desired for certain types of information needing to be shared.

Statistics are now also available on each Announcement created giving percentages on the view and acceptance rate by end-users (if applicable)

The Admin side

To access Announcements from the admin side, a user must be an Application Administrator.

This can be set by a sysadmin for any users required in Admin > System > Administrators > Announcements just like any other Intranet application.

Once permission has been given an application administrator user can access this area via Admin > Announcements.

The landing page of the admin side will list all previous Announcements in a table with various information given about each. 

(This area will be blank upon first use!)
 

Check box: Select this to delete an Announcement (delete button at bottom of the screen)

Title: The subject of the Announcement

Language: The language the Announcement was written in

Publish date (from-to): The date the Announcement was created and will display (until dismissed/accepted by the end-user)

Target Users: Users/roles/groups that were sent the Announcement

Statistics on views and acceptance (If applicable): Percentage totals on view and acceptance rates amongst the target users, this updates as users view/accept.

Actions: The pencil icon allows edits to the Announcement itself, which will push it to end-users once saved again - The edited version will not re-appear to the users who have already clicked 'Dismiss'.

Please note: The pencil icon will not be available for announcements that require formal acknowledgement. This is to maintain the integrity of the initial acceptance. Any edits required would need to be created as a new Announcement and sent to users again to accept.

Creating a new announcement

An application administrator can configure an Announcement by clicking on the plus icon from the administrative or front ends of the application.

The setup screen for a new Announcement has numerous fields to configure, all of which are detailed below.

1. Language: Choose a language from the dropdown to target only those users with that language set on their Intranet profile. Selecting 'All languages' will push the Announcement to all target users regardless of the language they have set.

2. Title: Text entered here appears at the top of the Announcement in a larger font size.

3. Abstract: The main body of the Announcement which should contain the most important details it needs to give and expand on the title.

4. Publish date: How long does this Announcement need to be pushed to target users? (Once the user has dismissed/accepted the notice once, they aren't pushed it again within this duration but can still view it from the front end of the application if required)

5. Style: There are 3 types of Announcement displays to choose from, each will remain on the screen until the end-user acts to accept and/or dismiss the notice. Users can still navigate the Intranet despite the Announcement unless a modal style is used.
 

• Banner (shown with acceptance required) appears at the bottom of the screen

• Modal (shown with acceptance required) appears in the middle of the screen. Prevents users from navigating away, this style is recommended if you wish to ensure users have accepted/viewed very important information.

• Overlay (shown with the default dismiss required only) appears at the top of the screen

6. Acknowledgment required?: Check this box if you require users to formally accept the Announcement. If unchecked the option given in the Announcement pop-up will be to 'Dismiss' only. 

7. Acknowledgment text: This option will appear if acknowledgement has been enabled. Enter text here that will appear alongside the acknowledgement checkbox. ("I accept" is an example of this shown in Banner and Modal styles above)

8. Target users: The users/groups/roles entered here will be pushed to the new Announcement once saved. This will be upon their next login or intranet page refresh.

9. Send email to targeted users: Select this option if you would also like the target users to receive email notification of the Announcement to the address entered on their user profile. Announcements cannot be controlled by user preferences so this option is the only way to ensure users are emailed.

10. Add announcement: Click to save the Announcement and make it live, targeted users will receive this on screen. Statistics will also begin to be collected and populated in Admin > Announcements.

The front end

Accessible from the application menu.

The landing page will list all Announcements to the end-user that they were the target audience for when originally configured. 

This acts as a reference area if a user needs to re-read the Announcement or check the details of it.

Audit log

A filter is available for Announcements in Admin > Audit > View logs.

Information on the actions below can be searched in Claromentis and/or downloaded in a CSV for further analysis/reference.