CA State - Announcement Module - Genius Enterprise Legacy/Custom

*Please note that if you have customized your instance of Genius, your site might operate differently.

The Announcements Module allows administrators to post important updates and notifications that appear on the learner dashboard. These announcements ensure that learners receive timely information regarding training, system updates, and other critical notices.

Key Features

• Visibility Control – Set start and end dates for announcement display.
• Custom Display Settings – Choose between showing the message once or on every login.
• Targeted Messaging – Restrict visibility to specific user groups or departments
• Rich Text Customization – Format announcements with images, colors, and styles for emphasis.

By utilizing the Announcements Module, administrators ensure that learners stay informed and engaged with essential training updates.

Learner View - Accessing Announcements

Learners can view announcements upon login to the learner dashboard, if any have been created and are available to the learner. All announcements are stored in the "Announcements" or "Information" widget of the dashboard. The exact name of the widget depends on the organizational preferences. 

• If multiple announcements are active, learners can click through them to review all messages as many times as needed within the period of the announcement validity. Once the dates have passed, the announcement will disappear from the list.

  

• Some announcements will only be shown one time as a pop-up, while others may persist and appear on every login. This configuration is set by the administrator when  the announcement is created. 
• To close of the pop-up, learners should click on the 'Close' button in the right-hand lower corner of the pop-up. Learners cannot delete or modify announcements in any way. 

Administrator View - Managing Announcements

Administrators can create and manage announcements by navigating to: Administration > Announcements.

This page displays all active and past announcements, along with their ID, start date, end date, display type, and content.

Creating a New Announcement

1. Click "Add New Announcement"  link to open the configuration window.
2. Enter the Start Date and End Date to define the visibility period. If only a start date entered, the announcement will be available until it's archived by the administrator. 
3. Select the Display Type:
   • On Every Login – Displays the announcement each time the learner logs in in a pop-up window.
   • Show Once – Displays the announcement only on the first login during the visibility period.
4. (Optional) Target Specific Audiences by selecting an affiliation or sub-affiliation to limit visibility. If no affiliation is selected, the announcement will be available to all groups of learners. 
5. Use the Rich Text Editor to format the content:
   • Customize text size, color, font
   • Add bold, italic, underline, and images
   • Add links to the outside content
6. Click "Save" to publish the announcement.

Once announcement is saved, it becomes available based on the dates and affiliations set by the administrator. 

To deactivate an announcement an admin can follow one of the following processes:

1. Set an end date that is in the past. This will remove the announcement from the active list of the announcements on the learner dashboard. This method may be preferred if the announcement needs to be kept for historic records. 
2. Delete an announcement completely. This action can be used for the announcements that do not require historical records. Deleting an announcement is permanent.  

At this time there's not a way to easily copy or duplicate an announcement. An admin should copy the existing announcement content and paste it into the new announcement to create a copy. 

To rename or hide the Announcement widget on the Learner Dashboard, the admin needs to follow these steps: 

1. As an Admin follow to Administration > Themes
2. Scroll to the section Front End Pages - Widgets (Label, visibility and position for each widget in Learner Dashboard (front-end) page.)
3. Find Announcements and type in another label for the widget, e.g. 'Information'. To hide the widget completely, use the Show widget Yes/No drop-down menu next to the Announcements. Change it accordingly. 
4. Save changes at the bottom of the page. 

Note that these changes are specific to the chosen theme. If only one theme is being used in the system then this update will suffice, however, if multiple themes have been created and assigned to different affiliations, then the admin will need to update the module name and visibility in each theme accordingly.  

Giving access to other roles

The announcement module is located under Administration menu, if another role needs access to the module to manage the announcements, the admins should manage permissions for a given role to enable access to the module. This is done under Administration > Access Setup.

1. Access the Access Setup page and select the role that needs to have access to the module. Current role permissions will be displayed. 
2. Scroll down to the Administration module and expand the menu, if needed. 
3. Locate Announcements and expand the menu to make sure that all actions should be included.
4. Tick the box for the Announcement module only, this will automatically include the top menu Administration module. This is expected, as the role needs to have access to the main menu in order to see and manage the Announcements. 
5. Click Save Changes at the bottom. 

Now the selected role can view and create announcements as needed. Repeat the steps as needed for other roles.