Creating and editing an announcement
How to publish an announcement to the whole school or to specific groups, and how to change it later.
Ask ClassyStep by step
- 1
Open Announcements under Admin Actions in the menu.
- 2
Press New announcement.
- 3
Fill in Title and Description.
- 4
Under Audience, choose Entire organisation or Specific groups and pick the groups.
- 5
Optionally add Tags and attach files.
- 6
Press Publish announcement.
How it works
Lets you tell the school's members something, with text, tags and up to 10 files, and choose exactly who sees it. Members it is meant for get a notification.
To publish you need the Publish announcements permission. The school owner always has it.
The window has a title and description (required), an audience, tags and files. When you press Publish announcement, the announcement appears at the top of the feed, just below pinned ones, and you see "Announcement published! Click to scroll to it."
Who gets notified: every member of the chosen groups, or of all groups in the school if the audience is Entire organisation: except the author. Parents are notified for groups their child is enrolled in. People who turned off notifications for new announcements in their profile settings are not notified, but still see the announcement in the tab.
Editing: only the person who published an announcement can edit it. Editing does not send a new notification, and the card gets an "Edited" label.
Good to know
An employee whose access is limited to certain groups doesn't see Entire organisation and can only publish to their own groups.
If saving fails, the window stays open and an error message appears, nothing you typed is lost.
On this screen
Create announcement window
The form where you write and publish a new announcement.
Create announcement window
The form where you write and publish a new announcement.
Brings together everything an announcement is made of before you publish it.
Opens from the New announcement button or from the Create announcement button in the empty feed on the Announcements page in the admin area. Title and Description are at the top, followed by the Audience, Tags and Files sections. The Cancel and Publish announcement buttons stay visible at the bottom even on a long form.
The form starts empty every time you open the window. If you close it without publishing, what you typed is not kept.
Title field
The announcement's short headline, shown to everyone in large type.
Title field
The announcement's short headline, shown to everyone in large type.
Says in a few words what the announcement is about, it also shows in the pinned list and in notifications.
Required. It must be between 2 and 75 characters. If it's empty, "Announcement title is required!" appears below the field. If it's shorter or longer than allowed, the announcement is not saved and an error message appears. Spaces at the start and end are removed.
Description field
The main text of the announcement.
Description field
The main text of the announcement.
Where you write the actual message, details, times, what children should bring and so on.
Required. It must be between 10 and 2000 characters. If it's empty, "Announcement description is required!" appears. Line breaks are kept, and website addresses (starting with http://, https:// or www.) become links readers can open.
Audience section
Where you choose whether the announcement is for the whole school or for specific groups.
Audience section
Where you choose whether the announcement is for the whole school or for specific groups.
Decides who sees the announcement and who is notified about it.
There are two options: Entire organisation and Specific groups. Entire organisation is selected by default, unless your access is limited to certain groups, then you only see Specific groups.
Entire organisation option
The announcement is for everyone in the school.
Entire organisation option
The announcement is for everyone in the school.
Sends the announcement to every member of every group in the school.
Below the switch it says "Everyone in the organisation will see this announcement." Every member and employee of the school can see it, and members of all groups are notified. Only shown if your access covers all groups.
Specific groups option
The announcement is only for the groups you choose.
Specific groups option
The announcement is only for the groups you choose.
Lets you write only to the people the news concerns.
Shows the Select groups picker. You must pick at least one group, otherwise publishing shows "Pick at least one group, or switch to entire organisation." Members of the chosen groups and the school's staff can see the announcement; only members of those groups are notified.
Select groups picker
A dropdown where you tick one or more groups.
Select groups picker
A dropdown where you tick one or more groups.
Chooses the groups the announcement is aimed at.
Press the field to open the list of the school's groups and tick one or more. Selected groups appear below the field as labels with an × to remove them; the field itself shows the group name or how many are selected (for example "3 groups").
When there are more than six groups, a Search groups box is at the top. At the bottom of the list you see the number selected and a Clear button that removes them all. Close the list by pressing outside it or with Esc, this does not close the window itself.
If the school has no groups, the list says "This organisation doesn't have any groups yet."
Files section
Attaching images, documents, video, audio, spreadsheets, presentations and archives.
Files section
Attaching images, documents, video, audio, spreadsheets, presentations and archives.
Lets you share files along with the announcement, a schedule, a consent form or competition photos, for example.
Optional. Drag files onto the "Drag files here or click to browse" area, or press it to choose them. While you drag files over it, it says "Drop to attach".
Limits:
- up to 10 files per announcement;
- up to 10 MB per file;
- allowed are images (JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, SVG, BMP, TIFF), PDF, Word, plain text, Excel and CSV, PowerPoint, archives (ZIP, RAR, 7z, GZIP, TAR), video (MP4, WebM, MOV, AVI, MKV, MPEG) and audio (MP3, M4A, WAV, OGG, WebM, AAC, FLAC).
Selected files are listed with their name, size and an × button to remove them, and the count appears next to the section title. Spaces in image file names are replaced with underscores.
On an error a message appears below the area: "You can attach a maximum of 10 files.", "File … exceeds the maximum allowed size of 10MB." or "File … has an unsupported format." When that happens none of the files you just picked are added, pick them again without the problem file.
Cancel button
Closes the window without publishing.
Cancel button
Closes the window without publishing.
Abandons the announcement.
Closes the window. What you typed is not kept. The button is disabled while the announcement is being saved.
Publish announcement button
Publishes the announcement and notifies its audience.
Publish announcement button
Publishes the announcement and notifies its audience.
Makes the announcement visible to the chosen audience and sends notifications to its members.
The title, description, audience and files are checked first. While uploading, the button reads "Saving...". On success the window closes, the announcement appears in the feed and "Announcement published! Click to scroll to it." pops up, press it to jump to the announcement.
Members of the chosen groups (or of all groups for Entire organisation) are notified, except the author and anyone who turned off notifications for new announcements.
Frequently asked questions
Can I send an announcement to just one group?
Yes. Under **Audience** choose **Specific groups** and tick the group. Only its members and the school's staff will see the announcement.
Why can't I edit an announcement a colleague published?
Only the author can change an announcement's content, tags and files. If you try with someone else's announcement, you'll see an error message.
Does editing an announcement notify people again?
No. A notification is only sent once, when the announcement is published.