Announcements

An announcement goes out — one message to an audience you choose, with a record of who received it, who opened it, and who confirmed they’d seen it.

What this does

Announcements are for things people need to know, not things they need to discuss: a closure, a deadline, a policy change, a reminder that enrolment closes on Friday.

Announcements are sent from an Announcements space, and the Announce button appears only there. A feed, chat or Q&A space doesn’t offer it.

They’re separate from spaces because the jobs are different. A space is a conversation; an announcement is a statement with a delivery record.

Choose who receives it

The audience builder combines as many of these as you need:

This space’s members — everyone currently in a space. This replaces the other choices rather than adding to them.
By role — learners, instructors, administrators, and so on.
By group — any group you’ve defined.
Also their guardians — adds the guardians of everybody matched above, where a communications relationship exists.

As you build it, the screen tells you how many people will receive this, so you know the size of what you’re about to send before you send it.

An announcement can name people with an @mention, the same way a post can.

While it sends, the reach bar fills in — a large audience takes a moment, and you can watch it rather than waiting on a spinner.

Each recipient’s row later records why they were included — by role, by group, enrolled, by sub-organization, named individually, or as somebody’s guardian. When somebody asks why they got a message, the answer is on the record.

Ask people to confirm they’ve seen it

Where your organization allows it, an announcement can ask recipients to acknowledge it — a deliberate confirmation, not an open receipt.

Use it for things where “I didn’t see it” matters: a policy change, a safeguarding notice, a mandatory deadline. Don’t use it for everything, or it stops meaning anything.

See who got it

Community → Announcements lists everything sent from your organization with its status — Queued, Sending, Sent, Failed or Cancelled — and its reach.

Open one for the detail:

Figure	What it counts
People	The size of the audience
Delivered	How many it reached
Read	How many opened it
Acknowledged	How many confirmed they’d seen it

Reach is also broken down by audience, so you can see whether it was the guardians or the learners who didn’t open it — which is usually the useful question.

Remind nudges the people who haven’t acknowledged yet. There’s a limit on how many reminders one announcement can send, and the button tells you how many you have left. Where everybody has already acknowledged, it says so and sends nothing.

Export the list downloads the recipients. Where you hold community access but not the audit permission, names and addresses are hidden in the export and the file says so — you can see the shape of the reach without taking a copy of everybody’s contact details.

Reference

Thing	Behaviour
Audience	Roles, groups, a space’s members, plus guardians — combined
Space members	Replaces the other selections rather than adding to them
Recipient record	Stores why each person was included
Acknowledgement	Optional, and only where your organization allows it
Reminders	Capped per announcement; the button shows what’s left
Export	Names and addresses masked without the audit permission
Status	Queued · Sending · Sent · Failed · Cancelled

Troubleshooting

The audience count is smaller than I expected. Guardians are only added where a communications relationship exists. Roles and groups are counted as they stand right now.

“Also their guardians” added nobody. No communications relationships exist for the people you matched. See Guardians.

I can’t see reach for an announcement I didn’t send. Reach is for the sender and for people with the audit permission.

The export has no names. You don’t hold the audit permission. The counts are real; the identities are withheld.

Nobody is acknowledging. Check your organization allows read acknowledgement — without it, the option isn’t offered and nothing is ever confirmed.