Send Announcements to notify users

Note: This article is about the new beta Admin App, which is still in development. Changes may occur. Please provide feedback directly in the beta app.

With the Announcements feature, you can send notifications and share in-depth updates with your users instantly. Of course, you can also spread recognition and coaching love, but we recommend you use it just for sending valuable information. Announcements can include rich text and Showpad content. It's automatically pushed out, and users won’t need to update the content to see the message.

If users have push notifications enabled on their device, the Announcement will appear on their device, even when they are not inside the Showpad app. Don’t worry about waking up sales reps working across different time zones. You can share the Announcements at their local time.

See how it looks

Key features

• Share elaborate updates with your sales reps at their local time in-app and via email
• Users receive the notification even when they're not in the Showpad app
• Use the rich text editor to style your text, and browse Experiences to add documents
• See an overview of sent, scheduled, and archived Announcements
• See how many % of users read your Announcement

You need this to succeed

• The beta Admin App enabled
• Feature availability depends on your subscription package
• A valuable Announcement to send

The quick way

• Navigate to the Announcements tab under Collaboration
• Click New Announcement and compose a message to your users
• Schedule the message if you prefer
• Publish
• Check the insights to how many users read the Announcement

Do this step by step

• Create an Announcement
• Get insight into your Announcement
• Manage and archive Announcements

Create an Announcement

1. Click Collaboration in the top menu, then go to the Announcements tab and click New Announcement.
2. Enter a Subject.

   Tip: Use a descriptive subject that gives an overall idea of your Announcement's topic. Push notifications can only be viewed in about 110 characters.

3. Compose the Announcement with the rich text editor. You can add bold or italic text and create a list.

   Note: If you include a longer string of text, such as a URL, when the Announcement is opened on Outlook, it will appear wider and become horizontally scrollable for users without text wrapping. This ensures the format is easy to read and words won't be cut off.

4. To add an image, click the Picture icon. Click Upload and select a .jpeg, .png, or .gif from your device, or add an image URL. Click Insert Image. You can add multiple images, each up to 10 MB.

   Note: GIFs are not supported on iOS Announcements.

5. To include content from your Libraries, click Add Content. Browse or search for content within Experiences and select it. Click Insert Items. The links to the content are added automatically.
   Keep in mind the users will need to have access to that particular content. Assets used  Experiences are available to include in the Announcement. Coach content is not available.
6. Click the Send to field and select the users who will receive the Announcement. You can select All Users, Selected Experiences, or User Groups. When choosing an Experience, the Announcement will be sent to all users assigned to that Experience.

   Note: When you use Divisions (Divisions will be renamed Libraries when the Admin App replaces the Online Platform.) and send an Announcement to all users, all user groups in all Divisions will receive your message. If you want to send an Announcement to a specific Division, you can select the corresponding user group.

7. Optionally, select the Request user to update content check box. This is useful when you want to emphasize your request that users update their content on a Showpad mobile app or the Windows Desktop App.
   When selected, the Announcement will include an action button for the user to click, which will update their assets. See the screenshot below for an example of what users will be prompted.

   

8. You can choose to Notify users by email to avoid delays and ensure that they will receive the message if the notification is not delivered. Your email address must exist on your organization’s domain since that's the address used for user replies.
   Just like standard emails, you receive out-of-office email replies when users are not available.
9. To schedule the Announcement, select Send later and set the date and time on which the Announcement should be sent. Scheduled Announcements will appear in the Scheduled view.

   Note: Your system's timezone is used when creating a scheduled Announcement. If you set an Announcement for tomorrow at 10:00 AM, it will go out at 10:00 AM local time for users, relative to their system settings.

10. Click the Send button when ready.
11. Your users will see the Announcement on their devices, and when set up, they can also receive it via email. A link to view the content in our Web App is automatically included. See an example of an Announcement sent by email:

    

    See an example of an Announcement in the Showpad's Web App:

    

    Clicking an Announcement opens up the Announcement details.

Get insights into your Announcements

To get insights into how your Announcement is performing, click on the Announcement you're interested in.

In the Announcements Details screen, you can see the Announcement's settings and the read rate, which is the percentage of users who opened the Announcement.

The read rate is calculated like this: if you send out an Announcement to 10 users, it will result in a read percentage of 60% if:

• Two users open the email and click on the 'View in Showpad' button
• One user taps the Announcement on his iPad
• Three users click on the Announcement in the Web App

Manage and archive Announcements

The Collaboration page's Announcements tab displays all the Announcements you have access to. From the left menu, you can view Sent, Scheduled, or Archived Announcements.

Promoted Members with permission to manage Announcements will see any Announcement assigned to an Experience or user group within the Division they are promoted. Any Announcement sent by the Promoted Member will be visible here, even if they no longer manage the user groups or Divisions that received it.

To edit scheduled Announcements, click on the Scheduled tab and then on the Announcement you want to edit. Modify your Announcement and click Save Changes. Or click Delete Announcement to cancel sending it. This will completely delete your Announcement. You will not be able to retrieve a deleted scheduled Announcement from the Archive tab.

You can archive Announcements by clicking Archive when hovering over the Announcement you'd like to archive. Archiving an Announcement will remove it from your users' notification view. Archived Announcements will be moved to the Archived tab.

Learn how to send and manage Announcements on the Online Platform.