Publishing an announcement on the dashboard

Announcements appear on your employees’ dashboard: practical information, an event, an urgent instruction. You choose who sees them, for which period and with what level of importance. This article explains how to create, publish and manage an announcement. It is for administrators and the people in charge of internal communication.

Before you start #

• Announcements are managed in Settings › Manage Illizeo › Dashboard, Announcements tab.
• To open the page, you need the “Dashboard settings” permission (role matrix, Platform administration section, Dashboard group).
• The “Announcements — Create / edit / delete” permission (same section, Announcements group) at the Access level shows the tab and the list; at the Execute level, it lets you create, edit and delete an announcement.
• The “Announcements — View” permission (Announcements group, Access level) shows every announcement of the company in the list. Without it, the list only shows the announcements targeting your own roles or groups.
• To choose target groups, you also need the “Groups (employees/roles) — CRUD & members” permission (Roles & permissions section, Groups group) at the Access level. Groups are created in Settings › Manage Employees › Groups.
• By default, only the Administrator role holds these permissions.
• To read announcements, an employee needs the Dashboard — Widget « Internal announcements » permission (Dashboard section), granted by default to all supplied roles, and the Announcements tile in their role’s dashboard layout.

Creating an announcement #

1. In the Announcements tab, click Add new.
2. Choose the Level: Info, Important or Urgent.
3. Fill in the Start Date and End Date: the announcement is shown from the first to the last day inclusive. The end date must be later than the start date.
4. Choose the Target Groups and Target Roles: the announcement is for people who have one of these roles or belong to one of these groups.
5. Enter the Title and the Message, both required.
6. If needed, add a Video (link): a YouTube, Vimeo, Loom or Tella link is shown as an embedded player, any other link stays a link.
7. If needed, fill in the Action button (optional): the button label (for example “Learn more”) and the address it leads to.
8. Tick Pin to top to put the announcement ahead of the others.
9. If needed, add an Image (optional): paste its address (URL) or upload a file (Upload), which you can crop. The Preview shows it.
10. Click Publish, or Save draft to save it without publishing it.

An announcement saved as a draft is shown nowhere. To publish it, open it with Edit and click Publish.

Where employees see it #

• The Announcements tile on the dashboard shows the three most recent announcements, pinned ones first, with their level, title and the start of the message. View all opens the full list, with a search, a level filter and sorting.
• Clicking an announcement opens its details: the image, the video, the full message, the action button and the expiry date.
• A pinned Urgent announcement appears as a banner at the top of the dashboard of the people targeted, with its title and action button. It does not take one of the tile’s three places, but is listed under View all. Everyone can close the banner; it stays closed for them, on all their devices.

An announcement is only shown between its dates, and only to the people targeted. An announcement with no target role or group is shown to no one.

The tile must be in the role’s dashboard layout: it is placed in the Layout tab of this same page, under the name “Internal announcements”.

Managing announcements #

The Announcements tab lists the 15 most recent announcements, from the most recent to the oldest. Each shows its title, message, dates (Start:, End:) and a status:

• Scheduled: the start date has not come yet;
• Active: the announcement is within its period;
• Expired: the end date has passed;
• Draft: the announcement has no target role or group.

Edit reopens the form; Delete erases the announcement after confirmation. View Link opens the address of the action button.

Good to know #

• Publishing an announcement sends no email and no bell notification: it appears on the dashboard.
• An announcement is written in one language and shown as it is to all its readers.
• An uploaded image must be a JPEG, PNG or GIF file of 2 MB at most.
• The end date must be at least the day after the start date.

FAQ #

An employee cannot see the announcement. #

Check that the announcement was published and not saved as a draft, that it is within its period, and that the employee’s role or one of their groups is among the targets. Finally, check that the Announcements tile is in the dashboard layout of their role.

How do I show an instruction at the top of the dashboard? #

Choose the Urgent level and tick Pin to top: the announcement appears as a banner for the people targeted.