Announcements Support Doc

Introduction

Welcome to TINYpulse Announcements! We know that keeping your entire organization informed and aligned can be a challenge, especially with crowded inboxes and busy daily schedules. That's why we've created a dedicated space right inside TINYpulse to help you share your most important company news and updates.

Whether you are looking to celebrate a team milestone, share essential policy updates, or share survey results, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know to create engaging announcements to your employees and ensure your communications are seen and heard.

What are Announcements: 

TINYpulse Announcements is a communication tool that allows administrators to broadcast updates directly to employees within the TINYpulse platform. Think of it as a dedicated internal newsfeed for your organization. As an admin, you can draft messages with a clear title and body text, and then bring them to life by adding rich media like images, GIFs, and file attachments.

Once published, these updates appear in a centralized space for your employees. To make sure the right people see the right information, you can choose to send an announcement to your entire organization or target specific employee segments by using employee attributes. Employees can then read the updates and interact with them by leaving likes and comments, turning a simple memo into an active conversation.

Why Use Announcements?

Using Announcements helps your most critical information cut through the daily digital noise. When important company news is sent via email or chat applications, it often gets buried under project updates and day-to-day task messages. By housing your updates directly in TINYpulse, you create a reliable, distinct channel where employees know they can find organizational news without distractions.

Additionally, Announcements are designed to foster a stronger sense of community and transparency. Because your team can like and comment on your posts, you get immediate visibility into how your message is being received. It transforms one-way broadcasting into an interactive experience, giving your team a voice and a shared space to react to company happenings.

When Should You Use Announcements?

You should use Announcements whenever you have information that is important, relevant to a specific group or the whole company, and deserves to stand out. It is the perfect tool for highlighting positive moments, such as celebrating company-wide wins, welcoming new hires, or sharing details about upcoming culture events and team-building activities.

It is also the ideal channel for structural or administrative updates that require visibility. Use Announcements to inform your team about HR policy changes, open enrollment periods for benefits, or strategic updates from your leadership team. If it is something you want to ensure your team reads and has the opportunity to engage with, Announcements is the right place for it.

Creating an Announcement

To create an announcement first navigate to the Announcements page in the Admin View. From there click on the “Create Announcement” button in the top right corner of the page. This will bring you to the Announcement creation page.

There are three required fields you must fill out to publish an announcement; the announcement content, the audience, and the publishing schedule. You can complete these steps in any order, but they must all be filled out in order to publish the announcement.

Create Announcement:

To create a new announcement, click "Create Announcement" and add the following components:

• Title: This should be fun and descriptive, offering a quick summary for employees. It's the first thing they see in the announcement email and push notification.
• Message: This is the main content you want to send. You can include text, images, GIFs, and file attachments (up to 5 files, 5MB each).
• Comments and Likes Setting: This setting allows employees to like and comment on the announcement via their TINYpulse Employee Dashboard. Keep it on if you want to start a discussion and gather feedback. If the announcement is sensitive and you prefer no feedback, you can turn this setting off.

Set Audience:

You can precisely target the recipients of your announcement with the following audience options:

• All Company: The announcement will be sent to every active employee within your organization.
• Custom Audience: Define a specific audience using the employee attributes saved in TINYpulse.
• Saved Groups: Select from any predefined Saved Groups already stored in TINYpulse.
• Individuals: Choose specific employees to receive the announcement.

Schedule Announcement:

To schedule an Announcement, select the desired publication date and time. The Announcement will be sent to employees at this time, based on the organization's time zone.

You also have the option to pin the Announcement. Turning on this feature will keep the Announcement at the top of the Employee Dashboard for a specified duration. Use the "pin announcement" setting for important announcements to guarantee visibility before they are moved down the feed.

How to Manage Announcements

Managing your announcements, whether published or scheduled, is simple and centralized within the Admin View.

Go to the Announcements page in the Admin View. You will see two tabs to help you organize and manage your messages: "Published" and "Scheduled".

Managing Scheduled Announcements

For any announcement listed under the "Scheduled" tab, you have complete control before the designated publish time:

• Edit: You have full editing capabilities to modify any field—including the content, audience, and schedule—before the announcement is sent. Simply click the 3-dot menu next to the scheduled announcement and choose "Edit."
• Remove: If you no longer need to send the announcement, you can permanently delete it from the queue by clicking the 3-dot menu and choosing "Remove."

Managing Published Announcements

Announcements under the "Published" tab have already been sent to your selected audience. While you cannot change the audience or schedule, you can still:

• Edit Content: You can edit the title, message body, attached media, and the comments/likes setting at any time. Any changes will update instantly for employees viewing the announcement on the Employee Dashboard.
• Change Pin Status: You can turn the "pin announcement" setting on or off to ensure critical updates stay visible at the top of the Employee Dashboard.
• Remove: If the announcement is no longer relevant or accurate, you can remove it by clicking the 3-dot menu and choosing "Remove." This will immediately delete it from all employee dashboards.

Set Pin Priority

If you have multiple pinned announcements published at the same time, you can set the priority order they appear in on the Employee Dashboard by clicking the "Set Pin Priority” button. Here you can drag and drop to set the correct order that the employees will see the pinned announcements. Managing multiple high-priority communications is crucial for effective internal communication. When several important announcements are published and simultaneously pinned to the Employee Dashboard, the platform allows administrators to precisely control the order in which these items are displayed.

Employee Experience Viewing and Interacting With an Announcement

When an announcement is published, all recipients immediately receive an email and a push notification within TINYpulse. Clicking on either the email or the notification directs them to the TINYpulse Employee Dashboard, where they can view the announcement.

From the Employee Dashboard, users can engage with the announcement by viewing the content, images, and GIFs, as well as commenting, liking, and downloading any attached files.

Important Note: Currently, announcements can only be viewed in the TINYpulse Employee Dashboard.

Mobile Application: Available on both iOS and Android

When you send an announcement and include multiple images, only the first image will be visible in the mobile application. 

FAQ

Q: Can Announcements be removed after they’re published?

A: Yes. Announcements can be removed any time from the Announcements page by clicking on the 3-dot menu and then choosing “Remove”. Removing an announcement will immediately delete it from the Employee Dashboard of all employees who received that announcement. Please note that we cannot rescind the announcement email once it’s already been sent out, but when they click the button in the email to view the announcement it will no longer be there. 

Q: Can Announcements be edited after they’re published?

A: Yes, the content of the announcement can be edited at any time; this includes after it’s already been published. Just go to the announcements page and click on the 3-dot menu and choose “Edit”. 

Q: What can be edited after the Announcement is published?

A: Once the Announcement is published you can edit the content and the pinned status of the announcement only. This means you cannot change the audience after it’s been published. If you need to change the audience we recommend you remove the announcement and send a new one.

Q: Can announcements be viewed through a Slack or Teams integration?

A: No. Currently Announcements can only be viewed from the Employee Dashboard inside of TINYpulse. We have plans to add Slack and Teams integration support in the near future.