[Announcements] Publish and Unpublish Announcements

[dhulsey]

I love that Canvas can bring over announcements when I copy content from another Canvas course. This keeps me from copying and pasting announcements I make every semester.  To further develop this feature, it would be nice if Announcements were unpublished on import, meaning the instructor can see them but the students can't. With a "publish button on every announcement, instructors could release announcements quickly when they are needed without the tedious setting of a date and time on each announcement.

This feature would also bring announcements in line with other tools in Canvas that use publish and unpublish functionality and would help instructors who might unintentionally be releasing announcements to students from a past semester.

[marcia_woodard]

Yes, that's correct. I use release dates.

Marcia Woodard

Senior Associate Faculty

English and Engineering Departments

20000 68th Ave. W, Lynnwood, WA 98036

<https://maps.google.com/?q=2000068thAve.W,Lynnwood,WA98036&entry=gmail&source=g>

| edcc.edu

marcia.woodard@email.edcc.edu <marcia.woodard@email.edcc.edu>

[timothy_mckean1]

No, that's not correct at all Kate.    Even if you didn't schedule the announcement initially you can always go into the Edit interface and Delay Posting the announcement for a future time and date.   It's never too late to make use of this. I encourage my faculty to review and schedule out announcements at the start of each term as part of their course prep process.  Works great. 

[don_quick]

I am on a few of these "needed" "must have" Ideas that are over 4 years old, and have several hundred votes, that are really bugs, not enhancements. However, as always we find workarounds because we need fixes now and can't wait for the Canvas PTB's to fix it. I'll be retired before most of these get fixed. 

So, I reread all of these comments and there seems to be a couple of things that we can do to fake the system out if you haven't figured them out, I thought I would summarize them here:

1. Always put an Option + Delay Posting date on it, even if you want to post immediately, so that when you Import it next semester you can use the "adjust dates" feature and get close to where you want them. This is highly recommended to those who have a lot of announcements. 
2. You can also simulate a Hide/Unhide by creating it and put in an Option + Delay Posting date that is in the far future. I just take the default date off the calendar and change the year to 3019 instead (it's easy to change and I figure a 1000 years in the future is far enough. That will "Hide" it from the Students and then when you are ready to "Unhide" it, just change the date to the real one. Not perfect but serviceable. 
3. Even if you don't adjust the dates when you Import, the student won't see them until your course is Published. And they seem to only be posted not pushed to your devices or the ToDo stream after Publishing. This may need verifying but this seems to be what my tests show. 

Yes, I would love to have the Canvas Hide icon and it's Begin/End date function on announcements, but I doubt we will get that any time soon. So until h*ll freezes over these seem like good workarounds.

Don Quick

Colorado State University

[kburkes]

Right.  But the point is not having to go back and edit every,single,announcement to add a date to it.  I just want to be able to hide them with a click.  As the title says, "unpublish" for announcements.

[demosthe]

Exactly! Of course it's possible to do what Timothy is suggesting, but it shouldn't have to involve so much work.

[jpinto]

We're just into our first year of full Canvas use and this is a common stumbling block / complaint from our instructors. The convention in Canvas' UI is that you can save things without publishing them. Showing "save" when in fact it is saving and publishing is understandably confusing users.

[jhart3]

Nearly five years later since the first request now with 609 instructors voting and perhaps just as many who have not entered this site to vote, the programmers have yet to recognize this oversight in their development process.  We have open/close date windows for both discussion boards and quizzes, yet announcements continue to plague everyone who teaches with this system having to circumvent the issue of not having a close date and/or unpublish feature.  I have commented on this several times since Dallas Hulsey initiated the forum in April 2015.  Out of frustration, the letter below was sent in July to Dan Goldsmith, CEO of Instructure asking to help expedite this request.  There has been no response.  It's suggested that others send a letter to see if this obvious omission in programming can be corrected.

[jsharp1]

Please consider adding an 'Ending date' option for Announcements. Some faculty reuse Announcements each semester and must edit each Announcement at the end of the semester to change the Delay posting option. Delaying the posting is an issue if the course is only offered offered periodically and the delay posting date is not an option. Another problem with Delay posting is that announcements may be released inadvertently after the semester has concluded.

I beg Canvas to add this feature. It is available in other LMSs and would be a great enhancement and very beneficial to faculty.

[jsharp1]

Yes, Canvas, please add an Ending Date option for Announcements! This is a common option in other LMSs and surely would not be difficult to implement.

[jsharp1]

I completely agree!