How do I add an announcement?

You can add an announcement to post a message to your entire site or to specific groups or rosters within your site. You can send an announcement via email to its recipients by selecting one of the Email Notification options while creating the announcement. Announcements can also be scheduled to be displayed and sent at specific dates.

Go to Announcements.

Select Announcements from the tool menu in your site.

Select the Add tab.

Title your announcement and add content.

  1. Give your announcement a title.
  2. Enter the content of your announcement into the announcement Body using the Rich-Text Editor.  You may use the formatting options in the editor to modify the font size or color, add images or links, or embed other content.  

Under Access, select who can view the announcement.

By default, all members of the site see the announcement.

Making the announcement publicly viewable means that you can send a link to the announcement to people who are not members of the site, including those who do not have accounts on UVACollab, and the announcement will be viewable by them.

You can also limit the announcement to specific group(s) or roster(s) in the site.

Display an announcement to group(s). (Optional)

After choosing Display this announcement to selected groups only, a drop-down menu will appear that says You must select at least one group. Open this menu.

Select the desired group(s).

In the group selection menu:

  1. You may use the Search box to search for groups by title,
  2. Use the Select All Groups checkbox to select all groups listed in the site,
  3. Or select the checkbox for each group.
  4. Once groups have been selected, the menu lists their titles. In the example pictured above, the menu name has changed from You must select at least one group to 21F CIS 103-3 (UNKX) (A Test Section), 21F CIS 103-4 (UNKX) (A Test Section).

Note: Only people in the selected groups and site owners/administrators will see this announcement.  If you send email notification for the announcement, students (in a course site) or members (in a collaboration site) who are not in those groups will not receive the email notification.

Select when the announcement will be displayed.

By default, the announcement is displayed immediately upon posting.  You can also choose to Hide it (saving as a Draft until you are ready to post it), or you may Specify Dates when the announcement will be available.

Select availability dates. (Optional)

To display the announcement during a specific time frame:

  1. Select Specify Dates.  
  2. Check the box to indicate the Beginning and/or Ending date.
  3. Enter the date(s) into the field(s) provided.  You may type a correctly-formatted date and time into the appropriate field or use the date-picker (calendar window) to select a date and time. If you enter a date manually, it will need to be in the following format: month/day/year hours:minutes am or pm.  For example, to make an announcement visible on March 25, 2022 at 5:00 PM, you would enter 03/25/2022 05:00 pm into the Beginning Date field.  Alternatively, follow the steps below to use the calendar to insert the date and time.

Note: If you send email notification for an announcement with a Beginning Date in the future, the email will not be sent until the specified date.

Use the calendar to insert the date and time.

You may select the calendar icon to open the date-picker.  You can choose a date by clicking on it in the calendar, or by clicking Now.  Select a time using the Hour and Minute sliders.  When your date is selected, click Done.

Add attachments. (Optional)

Select the Add Attachments button to browse for and attach a file.

Notify participants of announcement by email. (Optional)

If the Email Notification option has not been modified in your site, the default setting is None - No notification.  You may also select:

  • High - All participants to send an email to everyone in the site.
  • Low - Not received by those who have opted out to send to everyone except people who have intentionally changed their settings so that they do not receive low priority messages.

Note: If you have elected to make the announcement available to specific group(s), the available option for high priority notifications will be High - All group members. Only the members of the group(s) and site administrators will receive the email notification.  Students (in a course site) or members (in a collaboration site) who are not in those groups will not receive the email notification.

Tip: If you often use Announcements to send email to site participants, you may change the Email Notification option in your site to your preferred default.  That way, it will be selected automatically when creating and editing announcements. You can find steps in How do I change options for Announcements (e.g., default email notification)?

Select Post Announcement.

At the bottom of the page, select Post Announcement.