The Announcements Dashboard Widget (AnnouncementsWidget) is a Registry Dashboard plugin that manages and renders Announcements.

Once enabled, Announcements can be viewed either via the main menu Announcements link, or via the Dashboard widget. The widget only renders active announcements (as determined by the valid from and valid through dates), while the main menu link can be used to view archived announcements as well.

Announcement Channels

Announcements are published via Announcement Channels, which in turn have Author and Reader groups attached. Members of the Author group can publish Announcements in the Channel, Members of the Reader group can read Announcements in the Channel.

  • To make an Announcement Channel visible to all members of a CO, simply use the CO:members:active group.
  • An Announcement Channel can be made public by leaving the Reader group blank. This is only useful in conjunction with a widget attached to a Registry Dashboard configured for Unauthenticated visibility.
  • To make a subscription Channel, attach an open group as the Reader group.

Channels can be configured to generate Notifications when an Announcement is posted or updated. (This does not apply to public Channels.)

Each Channel can be configured to allow HTML to be published. This should only be enabled when the members of the Authors group can be well trusted, as otherwise it is possible for posters to add potentially malicious HTML. When in doubt, leave HTML publishing disabled.

HTML publishing is subject to change in a future release (CO-1639).

Announcement Validity Dates

Announcements may have valid from and valid through dates attached. These dates impact which Announcements are rendered in the Dashboard widget (only currently valid Announcements are displayed), and by the default view via the main menu. However, if a person has permission to see Announcements in a channel, then that person can see any Announcement in the channel, regardless of validity date. In other words, setting a valid from date in the future will prevent the Announcement from rendering by default, but it will not prevent the Announcement from being viewed at all.

Configuration

  1. This is a non-core plugin, see Installing and Enabling Registry Plugins for more information.

  2. Each instantiated widget can be attached to an Announcement Channel. In this case, the permissions of the Dashboard will override the Reader group (if set). If no Channel is set, all Announcements are rendered according to the normal Reader group permissions of the viewer.