Announcement settings reference

Every field in the Add and Edit announcement dialog, and every column in the announcement list — what each one does, and when it is worth changing.

Updated 25 Sept 2026

The dialog behind Broadcast › Announcements › Add, field by field. It has the same two pages when you add and when you edit, plus an Information page on an existing announcement.

Open Announcements

Content

Field	What it does	When to change it
Always on top	Sorts this announcement above the others everywhere they are listed — the app’s home screen, the notification list, a board. Adds a pinned badge in the admin list.	For a notice that must outrank the rest while it is up. Worth nothing if every announcement has it.
AI writer	Drafts the announcement body from a short instruction and replaces whatever is in the box. Only present when the feature is available to your organisation.	When you know what to say but not how to word it. Always read the result — the first line becomes the heading everywhere.
Announcement	The notice itself: rich text, with bold, italic, lists and links. There is no separate title — the first line is promoted to the heading wherever the notice is shown small.	Always. Put the point in the first line.

Text colour and size are deliberately not offered. A notice is rendered at half a dozen sizes on screens you cannot see, and hand-set colours are the first thing to become unreadable on a dark board.

Conditions

Field	What it does	When to change it
User portal	Puts the notice in the Offision app — browser, mobile and Teams — and notifies the people it targets, once.	Off for a notice meant only for the screens, such as a lobby greeting.
Recipients	Everyone — every account — or Specific, which opens the User(s) / User group(s) picker. Groups are resolved to their members at the moment the notice goes out.	Specific whenever the notice concerns one department, floor team or role.
Devices	Puts the notice on booking panels and signage boards.	Off for anything you would not want a visitor in the lobby to read.
Locations	All — every screen — or Specific, which opens Add building or floor. Type to search; a building chip covers all its floors, and a floor already covered by its building is greyed out. A screen is selected by where it is, which comes from the device, not from here.	Specific whenever the notice is about one building or one floor.
Schedule	Always, or a Period that bounds when the notice is visible.	Period for anything about a particular day. Set both ends — with one end missing the notice is shown for good.

Specific with nothing picked cannot be saved, on either lane.

Information

Present when editing, and read-only: who created the announcement and when, who last changed it and when. It is the audit trail for a notice somebody is asking about.

The announcement list

The list opens with four columns; everything else is opt-in from Sorting / Columns. Sorted by creation order, newest first.

Sorting / Columns, where the audit and identifier columns are turned on.

Column	Shows	Shown by default
Announcement	The notice as plain text, clamped to three lines. Always present and always first.	Yes
Status	A pinned badge when Always on top is set, then one of Showing, Upcoming or Passed, then the period itself. An announcement with no end date always reads Showing. The Sorting / Columns menu lists this column as Always on top.	Yes
Show in user portal	Who the notice goes to in the app — the named users and groups, or everybody. Doubles as a filter.	Yes
Show in devices	Which screens show it — the named floors and buildings, or all of them. Doubles as a filter.	Yes
Branch management	The organisation unit the announcement is filed under.	No
Created by / Created date	Who posted it, and when.	No
Modified by / Modified date	Who last edited it, and when. Useful when a notice on screen does not match what somebody remembers writing.	No
ID / UID / Access ID	The announcement’s identifiers, for support and for the external API.	No

Deleting an announcement moves it to the recycle bin rather than destroying it, so a notice removed by mistake can be restored from the deleted view.

What this does not control

When the notice is sent. There is no send time. The effective period’s start is when it becomes visible and when the notification goes out.
Where a screen is. Floors and buildings here select screens by location; the location itself is a property of the device, in Devices.
Who may post an announcement. That is a permission, in Directory.
Whether anyone read it. A reader can mark their own copy read; nothing aggregates that.