Admin — Announcements

The Announcements tab allows users with Super Administrator and Administrator roles to send messages to any employee in their organization's hierarchy. Communications can be configured to send via email or can be displayed in the Notification Center. This feature is also displayed in the Announcements tile on the Mobile App.

After logging in as a Super Admin or Admin, navigate to the ADMIN tab then select ANNOUNCEMENTS.

Table of Contents

1. Create Announcement
2. View Announcement
3. Duplicate Announcement
4. Search for and Filter Announcement 
5. Announcement Notifications

Create Announcement

In the upper-right corner of the Announcements page, select + CREATE ANNOUNCEMENT.

On the next page, fill out the following fields (anything marked with an asterisk is required).

1. SEND ANNOUNCEMENT TO: Select a group from the hierarchy account level to which the announcement needs to be sent.
   
   

   NOTE: The announcement will be sent to the selected location and any child locations.

    

2. SUBJECT: Set the announcement type for easy identification. The subject should have at least 5 characters and no more than 100 characters.
   
   
3. MESSAGE: Create a message to send to other users. It must include at least 5 characters and no more than 500 500 characters. A hyperlink may be included if applicable and will display on both the Web App and Mobile App.
   
   
4. SEND TIME: Choose one of two options.
   a. Immediately - the message will send instantly after saving
   b. Scheduled - set a date and time to send at a specific period (this will be saved in your local time)
   
   
5. RECIPIENTS: Choose the RECIPIENT ROLE and CONTACT METHOD. You may add multiple recipients by selecting + ADD ANNOUNCEMENT RECIPIENT. If you choose EMAIL under the Contact Method it will deliver an email to the recipient. If you choose BANNER under the Contact Method, the End Date & Time have a few requirements:
   • End Date & Time should be greater than the Announcement Sent Time
   • End Date & Time can’t be empty
   • End Date & Time will be set in the local time.
     
     Alternatively, you can select both Email and Banner from Contact Method.

Select SAVE in the bottom-right corner to apply changes.

View Announcement

Once created, an announcement will appear on the ANNOUNCEMENTS page. By default, announcements will be sorted alphabetically by subject but you can change the view by clicking on the SUBJECT or SCHEDULE column.

Under the STATUS column, you will see one of the following statuses associated with each announcement:

1. SENT: Announcement was successfully delivered to recipients
   
   
2. SCHEDULED: Announcement is set up and ready to send at designated date and time
   
   
3. SENDING: Announcement is in transit
   a. If the send time is Immediately, the announcement will be delivered within 30 seconds
   b. If the send time is Scheduled, the announcement will be locked 15-20 minutes before the scheduled time and cannot be modified or deleted
   
   
4. PARTIALLY SENT: Announcement was delivered but not all recipients received notification via their selected contact method (they can still view announcement in the Web App and Mobile App)
   
   
5. FAILED: Announcement was delivered but recipients did not receive a notification (they can still view the announcement in the Web App and Mobile App)

To View Announcement details, Super Admins and Admins can click on the Subject. Details will open in a new page.

The RECIPIENTS column displays the number of users that received the announcement. The OPENED column shows the number and percentage of recipients who opened the announcement.



If a recipient receives an announcement via email, the percentage will not be calculated or appear under the RECIPIENTS or OPENED columns. This is because an individual's email provider tracks this data. 

Duplicate Announcement

Any announcement can be duplicated by Super Admin and Admin users.

To duplicate an Announcement, click the ELLIPSIS (three dots) under the GROUP column. Select DUPLICATE ANNOUNCEMENT from the dropdown menu and on the page that opens, modify any fields that you wish to change. Make sure to select SAVE to apply changes.

By default, the send time will be set to Immediately, but you can schedule the duplicated announcement to be sent at a future date and time.

Search for and Filter Announcement

Any user can search for an announcement from the Announcement page by entering a keyword in the SEARCH BAR.

Users can select the FILTERS button to locate specific data such as Group, Date Period, and Status. GROUP will show all Announcements sent or scheduled to the selected Group (including sub-levels). PERIOD will show all Announcements within the selected timespan. STATUS will show one or multiple Statuses.

Announcement Notifications

When an Announcement has been delivered, users will receive a notification to their chosen contact method and the Announcement will also appear in the NOTIFICATION CENTER in the Web App (to learn about the notifications in the Mobile App, please see the SmartSense Mobile App User Manual).

If your Admin selects the Banner option from the Contact Method, a blue banner will be displayed to the recipient(s) below the main toolbar. The blue banner can also expire or be hidden even if an Announcement has not been read.

Clicking on the READ button will direct the recipient to the NOTIFICATIONS CENTER (the envelope icon) and the banner will disappear once the Announcement Details ("View more" link) have been opened.

Announcements will be shown as a list of cards. A BLUE DOT indicates the Announcement is unread and unopened. You can still view the subject line, time received, sender name, and the message. You may be able to view shorter messages without clicking the "View more" link, but for longer messages, a limited amount of characters will be displayed and you will have to click the "View more" link to read the entire message.

Clicking VIEW MORE will take you to the Announcement details and will instantly mark the Announcement as "read." The details will open in a new tab. Clicking BACK TO LIST will take you back to the list of Announcements.

When a user receives an email that there is a new Announcement in the Notifications Center, the email will look similar to this example: