[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  To further develop this feature, it would be nice if Announcements were unpublished on import, meaning the instructor can see them but the students can't. With a "publish button on every announcement, instructors could release announcements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.

[peytoncraighill]

I view this as similar in function to Discussions, which is kind of how we're thinking of implementing it. (In other words, publish/unpublish states with available from/until dates, as well.)

[dhulsey]

Yes, that will work quite well for my needs and was my intention in the original request. Thanks, Peyton!

[Jeff_F]

I set up release dates on announcements prior to the course being published.  But I can see where someone might be delayed and need to import after the course is published.  I can only imagine doing so and the system sending students a blast of some 20+ announcements...  ;o)  

[marcia_woodard]

I agree with Dallas Hulsey. Every quarter when I set up my classes, I curse when I remember that I have to go into every announcement and change the publish date if I don't want students to see it at the beginning of the quarter. We need a "one-click" method to unpublish announcements.

[bsr]

Case in point: I just learned about this quirk from reading this thread ... after importing a whole course. I came to the boards trying to figure out how to hide or unpublish the announcements, so that I can edit and release them as we go. I'm pretty bummed to think that the announcements from last year have already been sent out. I would never have guessed that would happen!

[brendaa]

We just discovered this (starting our 2nd semester of using Canvas).  Faculty did not realize their copied announcements would automatically go out in the new class.  This really needs to be fixed so that faculty can copy the content but make the announcements unpublished in the new course. I agree that consistent use of Save and Publish would be the way to go for these.  I'll be updating our start of the semester checklist to add a warning to copy only specific content and not Announcements.

[anns]

A single page with ALL announcements (e.g. by title) and an edit/delay posting date would be great. Please consider opening this suggestion back up again.

[Stef_retired]

anns, it's not necessary to reopen this feature idea for voting. The feature has already received more than enough votes to land on the radar of the product team, and, as  @peytoncraighill 's comment indicates, it is now part of a larger Announcements project. You can follow this idea to monitor its progress.

[tsweoalvarado]

I'm sad to see that it's June 2016, and this still isn't an option. I hate combing through all the Announcements to delay their posting until I can figure out if I will use them during the semester, and when. Please make this an option!

[smnagel]

Apparently, one year later, these necessary functions are still NOT available. This would be an easy change to make. Can you update us on any progress made?!  Thank you.