Announcements Available Dates

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

I carry over many announcements from semester to semester. Unfortunately, I can't easily see which announcements are set to delay posting and which are not.  If the Announcements page offered the same view as the Assignments page, for example, I could, at a glance, spot which announcements need to have their posting dates updated.  As matters stand, I must access each individual announcement for review.

Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-14284 .

12 Comments
RobDitto
Community Champion

 @edward_miller ‌, you might be interested in voting for a very similar feature idea which is currently open for voting:

And in case you haven't already seen them, here are a few other currently open ideas about the Announcements feature:

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

Thank you,  @RobDitto , for directing  @edward_miller ‌ to the existing idea! Edward, please add your feedback and vote to https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/9333-start-and-end-dates-for-announcements , and consider supporting the related ideas to which Rob linked.

In the interest of avoiding vote dilution and keeping comment threads unified, we've archived this idea as a duplicate.

edward_miller
Community Explorer

Stefanie and Rob,

Thank you for directing me to Theresa Jackson's suggestion. With all due respect, my suggestion isn't a duplicate. My suggestion relates to making "availability dates" visible on the Announcements list page, so users can see at once the dates delayed announcements are to become available (and whether those dates need to be adjusted). As it stands, each individual annoucement must be accessed separately to view the availability date.

Ed

Stef_retired
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

 @edward_miller ‌, you are correct! I had inferred displayed start and end dates from the linked idea, but as you note, it does not specify that. We've opened your idea for voting.

maule
Community Novice

Edward,

Yes, I agree 100% that your idea should be a priority. One of the benefits of Announcements is that I can create a unique announcement each week and all the announcements will copy over to the next semester. I can then use Delayed Posting to schedule each Announcement in the future semester. But the Announcements display window does not show me which Announcements have been scheduled for Delayed Posting, or what the scheduled Posting date is. If you have scheduled Delayed Posting the following two columns should appear on the Announcements screen:

>>> Date of last edit

>>> Date scheduled to send

Also, it would be really nice if we had a spreadsheet-like format so that we could select the Delayed Posting dates all on one screen instead doing it one at a time (open each message).

Bruce

edward_miller
Community Explorer

Thanks, Bruce. Your spreadsheet enhancement would streamline things even further.

maule
Community Novice

Edward,

Thank you for your email!

I agree that your recommended enhancement should be a high priority. I have talked with several Canvas tech support staff members who agreed that the change would be helpful, and they recommended that I post it on the ideas page. I am glad you got there first.

Since the ideas page asks that each post only describe one idea I submitted my spreadsheet format idea today. I copied the text below.

If you or any of your colleagues would like to vote for the idea below I would greatly appreciate it.

Best wishes,

Bruce

Delayed Posting Announcements: Spreadsheet format to select posting dates

This idea is an extension of the idea created by Edward Miller<https://community.canvaslms.com/people/edward.miller@scccd.edu> on Dec 18, 2017. However, this idea is different, so it needs a separate idea space.

Every semester I send an announcement to my online classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The Monday email is "your assignment for the week"; the Wednesday email is "additional info that will help you with the assignment" and the Friday email is a "summary of what we covered this week." By the end of the semester every online class will have 50+ emails.

Canvas copies these 50+ plus emails into the following semester. That is good. But before the semester begins I must open every announcement and select a delayed posting date. This is bad. I have four different online classes, so I must open 200+ announcements and select the delayed posting date one at a time.

It would be much better if Canvas would display all the announcements for a course in a spreadsheet and allow me to go down a column in the spreadsheet and set the delayed posting date in one step for all course announcements.

dea_mcfarland
Community Member

Bruce, I had this same idea but thought about it being an option to drag and drop announcements to a new date like you can do for assignments in the calendar. There could be a toggle off and on switch on the calendar for class announcements when you select a class and you could see the date they are scheduled to post and then drag and drop them to a new date if needed. I think this (or spreadsheet) would be a huge help!

(I will post this on your idea thread also).

dhelms802
Community Explorer

I noticed on the Canvas teacher app (iOS) when viewing the Announcements area, the date when announcements are "delayed until" is visible-- this is immensely beneficial as I copy announcements from previous semesters.  In the web version of Canvas the 'delay until' date is not visible within the Announcements area.  I have to go into each individual announcement to see when they will be posted.

I would hope the visibility of 'delay until' would be made available in the Announcements area within the web browser version of Canvas as well.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team
This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas 

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2018-03-10) .