How to hide announcements in Canvas.

[kveilleux]

I would like to hide old announcements in my courses. I do not need them deleted, I just want to hide them if that is possible.  If so, directions on how to do that are appreciated!

[kblack · Accepted solution]

Hi  @kveilleux ​ - You and about 137+ other people would love to do this, and unfortunately this is currently not possible in Canvas.  I got that number from this Feature Idea:  , and you can see that although it's a year old and HAS received a response from Instructure, this has still not been developed yet.  What you basically want to do is be able to "unpublish" old announcements that have imported over from a previous course site, similar to the way other things can be unpublished elsewhere.  You may want to scan through that discussion under the Feature Idea for some ideas.  The always-resourceful and great stefaniesanders​ suggests one common workaround of doing a selective import rather than a total import.  Even if you do not have a sandbox course site, that's a good idea to at least remove ones that you KNOW you will not be using again.  I hear this many times from my own faculty, and everyone agrees this ability is overdue, but I'm afraid there's little that can be done right now.  Let's hope soon!

[jhurley · Accepted solution]

Yes, I would love to be able to hide old announcements from a previous semester, so I can reuse these comments, editing them when necessary. Why can't we do this?

[retzlaffgr · Accepted solution]

What I did was delay the posting until later.  Announcements that I will use next fall for example I pick a date in August and then they will not show up.

[kblack · Accepted solution]

Hi  @kveilleux ​ - You and about 137+ other people would love to do this, and unfortunately this is currently not possible in Canvas.  I got that number from this Feature Idea:  , and you can see that although it's a year old and HAS received a response from Instructure, this has still not been developed yet.  What you basically want to do is be able to "unpublish" old announcements that have imported over from a previous course site, similar to the way other things can be unpublished elsewhere.  You may want to scan through that discussion under the Feature Idea for some ideas.  The always-resourceful and great stefaniesanders​ suggests one common workaround of doing a selective import rather than a total import.  Even if you do not have a sandbox course site, that's a good idea to at least remove ones that you KNOW you will not be using again.  I hear this many times from my own faculty, and everyone agrees this ability is overdue, but I'm afraid there's little that can be done right now.  Let's hope soon!

[cantvas]

I'm curious: does Canvas ever make changes in response to this kind of user feedback?

[ctr_amachsonca]

Can you link to this feature idea? 

[Stef_retired]

Can do, @ctr_amachsonca !  Publish and Unpublish Announcements

[chad_cameron]

Stefanie— I'm confused. You wrote "can do" but it looks like it links to a thread from 2015 that just relates to publish/unpublish.

Are we collectively not requesting a way to keep them published but just place them further down the page, or "close for comments" like in Discussions?

Seems to me it would be good to reduce the clutter of announcements even by simply being able to color-code them would be better than nothing, but I think a way to just put them in an "old announcements" area (like closed discussions) would be PERFECT! 

Thanks!

Chad

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @chad_cameron ...

The link that @Stef_retired provided is a link to the existing Feature Idea which is "Open for Conversation".  Instead of voting "up" for the Feature Idea (as we used to be in the old Canvas Community interface), we now can give individual Feature Ideas a star rating.  (By the way, this is just one of the ways that Instructure collects feedback from us on things we would like to see implemented in Canvas.)  You can also post a message to that thread with your own feedback and real-world examples ... letting Instructure know why this would be important to you in Canvas.  They do read our comments here in the Community.  Here's a Guide that detail the rating system:

How do idea conversations work in the Instructure Community?

I hope this will help, Chad.  Let Community members know if you have any other questions about this...thanks!

[jhurley · Accepted solution]

Yes, I would love to be able to hide old announcements from a previous semester, so I can reuse these comments, editing them when necessary. Why can't we do this?

[retzlaffgr · Accepted solution]

What I did was delay the posting until later.  Announcements that I will use next fall for example I pick a date in August and then they will not show up.

[jeldridge · Accepted solution]

This was exactly what I needed! Thanks for the suggestion!

[larak]

yes, while this also my "work around," it takes so much time to click into each announcement and edit! I send a lot of announcements and I have many classes. I don't know why they won't just let us hide the announcement from a previous semester and then edit when we need to make them visible (i.e. change dates and links, etc...). Thank you for the suggestion to delay! I'm sure that will help many people until Canvas resolves this issue. 

[Shag]

Can we get a moderator to give us an update on this feature already?

[cantvas]

I'd also like to hide or archive old announcements, so students no longer are distracted by them but I have a record of them.   I believe there is high demand for this feature.

[chad_cameron]

Piling on here but a simple "archive" or "hide" button —or— like we have for Discussions "close for comments" button would be great, where the announcements that are not open are just placed lower on the page in teacher view and hidden from students.

[BexConranDunham]

It seems the only work around is to delay out the posting - then it is hidden

[chad_cameron]

@BexConranDunham How can one "delay" the posting once it's posted? I think the challenge is archiving or unpublishing an announcement so you have a record of it or so you can reuse it. Is there a way to go into an —already posted— announcement and then just delay the posting (setting the date to the year 4000 or something?) thus "unpublishing" it?

[nwilson7]

@chad_cameron if you click on the announcement and then the "Edit" button you can delay the posting which will remove it from student view.  It would take forever to click through to year 4000 but as long as you made it post the conclusion of the course, it should not be an issue.  

Something to think about is the "why" you are hiding the old announcements.  They stay there as they are meant to be referenced by the students.  (I think of cases where your announcement is a reminder for a test, then you can prove you sent it out when someone says "I never saw that") Also, unless it is disabled, students get emails and notifications when an announcement is posted so technically they could always reference them through that.  If you are just trying to keep it a little cleaner assuming you use announcements frequently then this method should work fine.

-Nick

[chad_cameron]

Nick— sorry I never replied!

I agree that changing the post date would hide them and certainly, I do delay announcements for things that are coming up so I use that feature often. The idea of having to go into each announcement and then change the release date AFTER it was posted just got confusing and of course, here in the suggestions I was hoping to not hide it but just "close for comments" like Discussions or ANY other way to organize them (color code them, put them into folders/modules/groups/lists, or even just simply have a button that said "archive" that would still allow students to reference them but not obliterate them!

I also tend to repeat some of the same announcements from semester to semester as I'm sure is quite common, so deleting them is also not helpful— in addition to your point about students referencing them and also being able to "prove" you posted stuff later! So, like Discussions, just the ability to hide them from the students, or turn them off was a feature a LONG TIME coming! 

Thanks again, for your thoughts on this!

-Chad

[cantvas]

I take screenshots of old announcements and save them.  This is for CYA purposes only: to deal with students who complain they weren't informed about things.