The Announcements List widget displays timely updates for your organization or communities. It is commonly used on a site's main landing page and on community Home pages, and it can also be added to Microsites.

• As a Community Admin, you can post announcements to the members of your community. By default, only the members of a community can view that community's announcements.
• As a Super Admin, you can post announcements to either your entire user base or just the members of one community.

Like other widgets, the Announcements List widget uses configurable parameters to control how content is displayed. It also respects security settings, so users see only the content they have permission to access.

NOTE: Announcement posts do not send email notifications automatically. However, users can receive announcement content through Daily and Consolidated Digest emails, and can subscribe via RSS if RSS is enabled.

Default behavior & placement

Unless Announcements have been disabled on your site, the widget is typically already configured for you. By default:

• the site's main landing page includes an Announcements List widget;
• community Home pages typically include the widget; and
• a hidden page listing additional announcements is available through the widget's View More link, when enough announcements exist.

On the main site, the default configuration typically shows public announcements only because the widget is set to filter by the MainHome announcement type. This can be updated if you want the page to display announcements across communities.

Community & Microsite behavior

Community landing pages and Microsites often display community-specific announcements by default. For community Microsites, set:

FilterByMicrosite="True"

When this parameter is enabled, the widget shows only announcements for that Microsite's community. It is also a good practice to add this parameter to the model site used for new community Microsites so the behavior is consistent by default.

With this configuration in place, the same community announcement can appear on both the community landing page and that community's Microsite.

Visibility & security

Announcement visibility depends on whether the announcement is tied to a community:

• Announcements without a community attribution are public and are limited only by the CMS access settings of the page or Content Item where they display.
• Community announcements are governed by the community's Who Can View? setting on the Edit Community Settings page.

By default, only members of a community can view that community's announcements.

RSS support

The Announcements List widget includes built-in RSS support. This allows:

1. users to subscribe to announcement feeds in an RSS reader, and
2. admins to reuse announcement feeds on external, non-Higher Logic websites.

Enable RSS for an announcement

RSS must be enabled per announcements widget.

1. Edit the Announcements List widget.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the settings.
3. Set Show RSS Icon? to Yes.

When enabled, the RSS icon appears below the announcement title and provides the feed URL.

When enabled, the RSS icon appears below the announcement title and provides the feed URL, which can be added to aggregators like Google Reader.

You can also use this URL to display Announcements on external websites (see the How to display announcements on external websites below). This might require reformatting through tools like Pipes or Google Feedburner. Explore the use of these tools for optimal formatting.

Display announcements on external websites

You can use the URL accessed through an announcement's RSS icon as the basis to display announcements on external (non-Higher Logic) websites. Additionally, you can create RSS URLs using common variables and the Content Key for Announcements (the RSS key for Announcements is 767a4236-163e-4c698a93baa7d7762196).

TIP: The two examples that follow are free of line breaks; they can be copied and pasted as is.

To establish an all-announcements feed URL, use the link below as a model. Replace YOURSITEURL to that of your organization.

http://YOURSITEURL/higherlogic/rss/rssfeedpage.aspx?rsscontentkey=767a4236-163e-4c698a93baa7d7762196&showpublicrss=true&showall=true

This can be extended through variables (parts of the URL after the "?" or "and" symbols) as shown below. Again, replace YOURSITEURL to that of your organization and change ANNOUNCEMENTTYPE to the variable from the parameter established for a unique Announcement Type.

http://YOURSITEURL/higherlogic/rss/rssfeedpage.aspx?rsscontentkey=767a4236-163e-4c698a93baa7d7762196&showpublicrss=true&IsNoType=False&ShowAll=False&Type=ANNOUNCEMENTTYPE

Troubleshooting common issues

Stripped formatting

Announcements may display with stripped formatting (e.g., missing bold text or spacing). This issue is often caused by the "Max Number of Characters" setting in the widget. 

Solution:

1. Edit the Announcements List widget.
2. Set the Max Number of Characters field to 0 to render the full announcement body and preserve formatting.
3. Save and publish the changes.

"More" button not displaying

The "More" button will not appear on the Announcements widget if the More Button URL field is left blank. 

Solution:

1. Edit the Announcements List widget.
2. Enter a destination URL in the More Button URL field (e.g., a page listing all announcements).
3. Save and publish the changes.

RSS Content Keys

Use the Content Keys below to generate product-specific RSS URLs. As the first variable in the URL, they generally follow "aspx" in the URL and are preceded by ?RSSContentKey=.

NOTE: All of these must be accompanied by the variable, ShowPublicRSS=true.

Integration write-backs

If your site is integrated with a third-party database, some announcement activities in your Community can be written to that database during the standard activity-sync process.

• Navigate to Settings > External Content > Activity Sync in the Admin interface in order to manage writeback activities on the Subscriptions tab.

To learn about the activity-sync process, see Member Activity Sync.