Send an announcement to the right people

An announcement is a short notice that people see when they sign in — on the board under Announcements, on their home page noticeboard, and in the parent and student app. Until now a notice could only go to a whole role: Everyone, Teachers, Students, or Parents. You can now narrow it further, so a notice about Class 6 — B reaches that batch's families and nobody else, and a notice about the fee counter reaches the fee desk alone.

When to narrow a notice

Leave Narrow to empty and the notice behaves exactly as before — everyone in the audience sees it. Narrow it when only some of that audience needs to act:

• A changed dismissal time for one batch — not every parent in the school.
• An exam-duty roster for the Science department — not every teacher.
• A reminder about a new receipt format — only the staff who collect fees.
• A private note to three named colleagues.

A board where everything goes to everyone is a board people stop reading. Narrowing keeps each person's noticeboard short and relevant.

Posting a targeted announcement

1. Open Announcements from the dashboard. The New announcement panel sits beside the board.
2. Type a Title (short and scannable) and the Message.
3. Pick the Audience — Everyone, Teachers, Students, or Parents — and a Topic. The topic still hides module notices from staff who cannot open that module.
4. Under Narrow to, open the Add a filter select and choose Department, Batch, Role, Specific people, or Module users.
5. A checklist appears with a Search… box. Type to find what you want and tick it. Each choice becomes a chip; click the × on a chip to remove it.
6. Add another filter if you need one — filters of different kinds can be combined, for example a Batch and a Department on the same notice.
7. Tick Pin to top if the notice must stay visible, then click Publish announcement.

The notice is published straight away to everyone who matches.

Who a filter reaches

With one or more filters set, a person sees the notice only if they are in the audience and match at least one filter. Filters widen each other — a notice with both a Batch and a Department filter reaches the batch's people and the department's staff, not just the overlap.

• Department — staff whose HR record is in that department.
• Batch — the batch's students, their parents (the parent login), and the batch's class teacher.
• Role — staff holding that custom role from Roles & Permissions.
• Specific people — the exact staff logins you pick by name.
• Module users — staff who can open that module. For example, Fees & billing reaches only the fee desk. Administrators always count as module users, so they see every module notice. Use this for notices about a module's workflow — a new receipt format, a changed exam-entry deadline, a payroll cut-off.

Remember the audience still applies. A Batch filter on a notice to Parents reaches only that batch's parents; the same filter on Everyone reaches its students, parents and class teacher together.

What readers see on the card

Every card on the board shows the audience badge, the topic, and a chip for each filter, so readers always know who a notice was meant for. Chips read, for example:

• Department · Faculty
• Batch · 6 — B
• Role · Accounts
• People · 3
• Module · Fees & billing

Cards still show the publish date and "Posted by".

Notifications

Publishing sends a bell notification, and a push notification to the parent and student app, to the people who will see the notice — and only them. A notice narrowed to one batch does not ping the whole school. Nobody outside the filters is notified, and the notice does not appear on their board or home page either.

The From CloudSchool badge

Product news posted by CloudSchool itself — a new feature, a change to a screen — now carries a From CloudSchool badge and is aimed at the staff who use the module concerned. A note about fee challans reaches the fee desk; a note about report cards reaches the exam staff. It no longer lands on everyone's board. These notices are addressed to staff, never to parents or students; an administrator with the manage-announcements permission can delete one like any other notice.

Housekeeping

• Pin to top keeps a notice above newer ones until it is unpinned. Unpin notices once their moment has passed — if everything is pinned, nothing stands out.
• Delete removes a notice from every board and noticeboard at once. Deleting needs the manage-announcements permission; teachers can post but not delete.
• Administrators and anyone with the manage-announcements permission see the whole board, including notices narrowed to people other than themselves, so they can check what has gone out.
• To change who a published notice reaches, delete it and post it again with the right filters.