Send Account- or Sub Account- level Announcements to Inbox

It would be great if you could send an announcement to a students inbox - so they get urgent messages quicker. So there'd be EITHER a tickbox to say 'send this annoncement to all inboxes or all student inboxes', or a Notifications setting which meant, BY DEFAULT, all announcements went to their inbox and ergo their email notifications immediately (non - overridable would be my preference, as you only send out announcements if they're urgent or important).

The use case has come up where we're sending announcements out to entire sub-accounts (i.e. an entire Faculty or provision type e.g. all HE), and right now not all students are actively using canvas (this is our transition year).

But going forward, it would save staff having to use an email list to get the same effect.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For details, please refer to https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-18049-canvas-release-notes-2019-12-21 

13 Comments
med5431
Community Novice

Yes. It seems the most important information on canvas goes unnoticed. Whereas I get mostly non-crucial emails to my inbox. A feature like this would be helpful.

kmeeusen
Community Champion

Hi  @dave_perry  

You do understand that you can set your notification preferences to send you a notice any time an announcement has been posted. Learn how at https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-10624-4212710344 

Also, for the record, it is just as easy to check the announcements in a course as it is to check the Canvas Inbox.

While I am not going to vote in favor of this idea, it might be nice to have all communications funneled to one spot.

Kelley

cms_hickss
Community Coach
Community Coach

 @kmeeusen  - I think he's talking notifications for Account and Sub-Account Global-type Announcements and not Course Announcements. And unless something has changed recently, Global Announcements of any kind do not send notifications --though sometimes I wish they did.

dave_perry
Community Explorer

You're right, I am - thanks. I've tweaked the idea title to clarify this (it might come up on searches better too).

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Tweaks for clarity are appreciated,  @dave_perry —but this is now effectively an idea that touches upon two separate features (Global Announcements are entirely different from Course Announcements), and each one would need to be considered and evaluated for potential prioritization separately. Would you please edit the idea to request one or the other—ideally on the order of "send account and sub-account global announcements directly to the Canvas inbox"?

dave_perry
Community Explorer

Done

mkollman
Community Participant

Our institution could definitely use both sub-account and global announcements/inbox messages.  This has been a need for a number of years that still hasn't been addressed.  Something that doesn't seem to get voted up enough over time.

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni
Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-18049-canvas-release-notes-2019-12-21 

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

 @dave_perry  Thank You for submitting this idea, as well as cms_hickss Thank You  @kmeeusen  Thank You med5431 Thank You  @mkollman  Thank You for your contributions. Your investment in this idea helped refine a feature that is now a part of Canvas!

cms_hickss
Community Coach
Community Coach

Oh my Panda! Happy Dance!