How do I delay posting an announcement? The delay post option seens to have been removed.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @LynetteSaint ...

Adding a date in the "Available from" field would accomplish the same thing as delaying the announcement.  As you can see from my screenshot, I set this announcement to start on October 15, 2024 @ 7:00 a.m.

[RachelSalmon]

Hi Chris,

Have you heard anything about the fact that when instructors set available from dates they no longer get a notification that the announcement has posted. I guess since it's not reading it as a post but just a change in availability, it's not triggering a notification for instructors. It does for students at least but I've had instructors reach out not liking not getting the notification so they see it definitely posted. 

[Chris_Hofer]

@RachelSalmon ...

I've heard of some rumblings, yes.  In fact, just today, I was talking with my supervisor about something similar.  One of my former team members is teaching a course in Canvas this semester, and her course was published, but the start date of the course wasn't set until today, September 3rd.  She had posted the course announcement prior to today even though the course was published, so she wasn't sure if her students actually received the message or not.  To add further confusion for her (and for my supervisor and I), the "Announcements" course navigation button appeared as hidden (crossed-out eye icon) over the weekend.  However, today, the crossed-out eye icon was gone.  We weren't sure if this is because the course start date had arrived or not.  That's something I need to do some more research on...for my own understanding.

[RachelSalmon]

@Chris_Hofer Thanks for sharing that, I didn't even realize that was happening as well. I definitely need to play around with it a little more to be able to confirm with instructors when they should expect to see a notification versus not and look at if there is any unexpected behavior with the start of the course when it comes to announcements. 

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

@Chris_Hofer , that is the way it worked before new discussions.  Announcements posted before the course is available to students did not send notifications.  If the course is published, teacher could use the inbox which will send notifications even if the start date is in the future.  We always told teachers to delay announcement posting until the start date (in our school, students normally can't enter a course until the start date).  Testing, we found that if students were not restricted from viewing the course before it started, they would get an announcement notification, if their settings allowed it of course.  

Maybe some schools allows students to enter courses before they start by default.  Many settings in play.

Now we have to test with Announcements Redesign to see what's changed.  it's good engineers are aware that using an available from date stops instructor notifications of their own posts, because that needs fixing.

[Chris_Hofer]

@Nancy_Webb_CCSF ...

Thank you for this information!  I am going to share it with my supervisor tomorrow.

[lshulman]

I have also noticed that I (teacher role) am not getting email notifications for ANY  announcements (with or without availability dates). I was concerned that students might also not be getting them. 

I sent a "help" message to Canvas. Got following response:

"Unfortunately, this is an issue on our end, but the software engineers are aware of it and working on ironing it out.

"Please keep in mind, that this only affects the person who sets up the announcement.
Therefore, your students are receiving the announcement notifications set up by you."

[RachelSalmon]

@lshulman Thanks so much for sharing that. I appreciate it.

[KM1543]

Yes, we are experiencing the same issue. It is certainly an issue I hope Canvas corrects soon.

[KM1543]

Be aware that with the new update, students can now see the timestamp for when you created the announcement, as well as the timestamp of when the announcement was released, which they are calling the "Edited" timestamp. Canvas Support says that there is no way to hide the created timestamp from students, which really defeats the purpose of delaying the announcement in the first place. 

[kwilliams21]

I have the same question. Has anyone received an answer? 

[Nancy_Webb_CCSF]

Hi @kwilliams21 , I just tested today, and as the person who wrote the announcement I did get a notification at the same time students did, at the available from time.  So, that is working!  I have the "Announcement Created By You" notification set to immediate.  

In student view, I only see the date/time the announcement was posted, not the time it was written.  As Instructor, I can see both times, when written and when posted. That is also good, 

From my end, all is working as expected.  One other thing, if there are no announcements, then Announcements is grayed out on the course menu, that's how it always worked.  If there is a delayed announcement it will stop being grayed out at the time the announcement is posted, not before.