---
sidebar_label: Announcements
toc_max_heading_level: 3
doc_id: 357bb560-24eb-4a62-ab9d-7ac58123c72e
description: >-
  Publish announcements to your organization from Platform Settings >
  Communications, and choose whether they show in the bell's Announcements tab,
  as a banner, or both.
keywords:
  - communications
  - announcements
  - banners
  - maintenance
  - incidents
title: Announcements
canonical: 'https://docs.nullplatform.com/docs/communications/announcements'
---
# Announcements

Announcements let platform leaders tell everyone in the organization about a release, a maintenance window, or an incident. An announcement shows in the **Announcements** tab of each person's bell, as a banner across the product, in your Slack channels, or any combination of them.

:::info
Announcements always reach their audience. People can't turn them off in their [inbox settings](/docs/communications#inbox-settings).
:::

:::note
Only platform leaders can create, edit, close, or delete announcements.
:::

## Create an announcement

Go to **Platform Settings > Communications > Announcements** and click **New announcement**. Walk through the form below:

<GuidedTour
  alt="The Announcements page and the New announcement form, recreated as an HTML scene with a step-by-step walkthrough"
  steps={[
    {
      title: '1. See what is live',
      body: 'Every announcement with its state, when it shows, where it shows, and who it reaches. Click New announcement to write one.',
      anchor: 'announcements-list',
      placement: 'bottom',
    },
    {
      title: '2. Write the message',
      body: 'A one-line title and an optional body, both with basic Markdown. Severity sets the icon and color, and the category labels it in the Announcements tab.',
      anchor: 'announcement-message',
      placement: 'bottom',
    },
    {
      title: '3. Choose who sees it',
      body: 'Pick roles to reach only people who hold them. Leave it empty to reach everyone in your organization.',
      anchor: 'announcement-audience',
      placement: 'bottom',
    },
    {
      title: '4. Choose where it shows',
      body: 'In the bell, as a banner, in Slack, or several of them. A banner also needs the sections it shows in, and Slack the channels it is posted to.',
      anchor: 'announcement-where',
      placement: 'top',
    },
    {
      title: '5. Check the preview',
      body: 'See the banner and the announcement in the bell as you type, then publish.',
      anchor: 'announcement-preview',
      placement: 'left',
    },
  ]}
>
  <AnnouncementsScene />
</GuidedTour>

Without a schedule, an announcement is published right away and stays until you close it. Its category is one of **Release**, **Changelog**, **Maintenance**, **Incident**, **Advisory**, or **Other**, and its severity sets the icon and the color everywhere it shows, as listed in [Severity levels](#severity-levels).

:::warning There's no undo
Once published, an announcement lands in every matching **Announcements** tab at once. Closing it later hides it, but not from anyone it already reached.
:::

:::tip
Planning a maintenance window? Set a schedule so the announcement goes up ahead of time and expires on its own when the window closes.
:::

### Severity levels

| Severity | Color | Use it for |
|----------|-------|------------|
| **Informational** | Blue | General announcements, feature updates, or tips |
| **Maintenance** | Yellow | Planned maintenance windows or scheduled changes |
| **Degraded** | Orange | Partial service degradation or intermittent issues |
| **Outage** | Red | Critical incidents or full service outages |

## Show it as a banner

A banner is an announcement shown as a strip across the top of the product. To show one, turn on **Banner** under **Where it shows** and pick the sections it shows in: **Development**, **Platform settings**, or **Insights**.

- **Target a resource**: a banner shown only in **Development** can target one resource. Only people with the selected roles on that resource, on what contains it, or on what it contains see it.
- **Dismissal**: people can dismiss a banner unless you turn off its switch. Dismissal is saved to each person's account, so a dismissed banner stays hidden in every browser.
- **Expiry**: a banner disappears on its own once its schedule expires.

:::tip
Two active banners rotate every 10 seconds, so each one gets about half the attention. The form warns you when another banner is already live.
:::

## Post it to Slack

Turn on **Slack** under **Where it shows** to also post the announcement to up to 10 channels.

<AnnouncementsScene view="slack" />

If Slack isn't connected yet, the block offers **Connect Slack**: it installs the nullplatform app in your Slack workspace, and you only do it once per organization. Invite the app to each channel you post to.

:::warning Everyone in the channel reads it
Slack doesn't know about roles. If the announcement is only for some roles, everyone in the channel still reads it.
:::

Editing the announcement updates its Slack messages, and closing it keeps them. Deleting it also deletes them. Removing a channel stops new posts there, and what was already posted stays.

## Manage announcements

The list shows each announcement's state:

| State | Meaning |
|-------|---------|
| **Scheduled** | Its publish date hasn't come yet. Nobody has seen it, so you can edit it freely. |
| **Active** | It's showing now. |
| **Expired** | Its expiry date passed, and it stopped showing on its own. |
| **Closed** | You closed it by hand. |

From an announcement's row, you can **Edit**, **Close**, **Reopen**, **Duplicate**, or **Delete** it. Closing hides it without deleting it, and whoever already saw it keeps it.

:::tip
An expired announcement can't be reopened. Duplicate it to publish a fresh one with new dates.
:::

## Next steps

- [Post inbox rules to Slack](/docs/communications/inbox-rules#post-inbox-rules-to-slack): connect Slack and send inbox rules to your channels
- [Inbox rules](/docs/communications/inbox-rules): decide which notifications reach each person's inbox
- [Communications](/docs/communications): the inbox and inbox settings