AX1503

Managing announcements

NOTE: The ability to manage announcements is only available to administrators and to users with the Administer Announcements security permission. Users without these permissions only see announcements within the component; they do not see any of the editing controls.

Adding announcements

You can add announcements using any Announcement component in an Axiom form. All announcements created using a component are saved to the same central repository and are available to all Announcement components in the system. It does not matter whether the current Announcement component is filtered to only showing certain categories; you can still use the component to create a new announcement for any category.

To add an announcement:

1. Click the plus icon in the top right corner of the Announcements component.

2. In the Add Announcement dialog, complete the following announcement properties:

   Item	Description
   Category	The category for the announcement. All announcements must have a category. Categories can be used to display different announcements to different audiences, by configuring Announcement components to only show announcements for certain categories. By default, the first category in the list is selected. If you want to use a different category, select it from the list. If you need to create or edit a category, click Manage Categories. If your organization is not using different categories, then all announcements are assigned to the default General category.
   Start Date	The date that you want the announcement to start displaying to users. By default, this is today's date. If you do not want the announcement to start displaying until some point in the future, then you can select a future date. The announcement will not display in any Announcement components until that date is reached (unless Show All Announcements is enabled for the component).
   Expire Date	Optional. The date that you want the announcement to stop displaying to users. You can specify a date so that the announcement is automatically hidden once the expiration date is reached, or you can leave this blank so that the announcement continues to display until it is deleted by an announcement administrator. The expiration date must be after the start date, and cannot be today's date.
   Title	The title of the announcement. The title text is what displays to users in the announcement component. The title text may be the entirety of the announcement. For example, you could define a title such as "Reminder: All budgets due today!" with no additional message text. If the title text is too long to display in the Announcement component (this depends on the current width of the component in the form), then an ellipses displays at the end of the visible text. Users can click the view link to see the full announcement text.
   High Importance	Optional. Select this check box if you want the announcement to display with high importance. In the Announcement component, a red exclamation point displays next to the announcement.
   Message	Optional. The message text of the announcement. Use the text box to define the message text. The text can be multiple lines and can use bold, italic, and underlined text. Message text does not display within the Announcements component. If message text is defined, the announcement has a view link. Users can click this link to view the full announcement text (title and message).

3. Review all announcement settings to ensure they are as you want them, and then click Save.

If the start date is today, the saved announcement is immediately available to all Announcement components, and will be visible in any components that are configured to display the announcement's assigned category. If a user is currently viewing a form with an Announcement component, the new announcement will not display until the form is updated by using a Button component or any other component configured to auto-submit.

Editing announcements

You can edit any announcement that is currently displayed in an Announcement component in an Axiom form. It is recommended to use an Announcement component that is configured with Show All Announcements enabled, so that you have access to all available announcements.

If the Announcement component that you are using for editing does not have Show All Announcements enabled, then you will not be able to edit the following announcements because they do not display in the component:

• Announcements with start dates in the future
• Announcements that have reached their expiration dates
• Announcements that have been filtered from display by using the Limit Categories To option.

To edit an announcement:

1. Hover your cursor over the row of the announcement that you want to edit, so that the editing icons display on the right side of the row. Click the pencil icon to edit the announcement.
2. In the Edit Announcement dialog, edit the announcement settings as desired. See the previous section for more information on the announcement settings. Note the following:
   • Changing the announcement category may cause the announcement to no longer display in certain components, and to start displaying in other components, depending on which categories those components are configured to show.
   • Changing the start date to the future will cause the announcement to stop displaying in any components (except components with Show All Announcements enabled).
   • It is not possible to change the expiration date to today to hide the announcement immediately. You must delete the announcement if you want it to stop displaying today.
3. Review all announcement settings to ensure they are as you want them, and then click Save.

Changes to announcements take effect immediately. If a user is currently viewing a form with an Announcement component, the changes will not display until the form is updated by using a Button component or any other component configured to auto-submit.

Deleting announcements

You can delete any announcement that is currently displayed in an Announcement component in an Axiom form. It is recommended to use an Announcement component that is configured with Show All Announcements enabled, so that you have access to all available announcements.

If the Announcement component that you are using for deletion does not have Show All Announcements enabled, then you will not be able to delete the following announcements because they do not display in the component:

• Announcements with start dates in the future
• Announcements that have reached their expiration dates
• Announcements that have been filtered from display by using the Limit Categories To option.

If you delete an announcement, it is not recoverable. Be sure that you no longer need the announcement before you delete it.

NOTE: When an announcement expires, it is not deleted from the Axiom Software database. Expiration simply means the announcement no longer displays in the component (except for components with Show All Announcements enabled). In order to remove the announcement from the database, you must delete it.

To delete an announcement:

• Hover your cursor over the row of the announcement that you want to delete, so that the editing icons display on the right side of the row. Click the trashcan icon to delete the announcement.

The announcement is deleted immediately. If a user is currently viewing a form with an Announcement component, the announcement will not be removed until the form is updated by using a Button component or any other component configured to auto-submit.

Managing announcement categories

All announcements must belong to a category. If you are not using multiple categories, then all announcements are assigned to the default category of General. If you want to use other categories, you must create them.

Categories can be created, edited, and deleted from the Add Announcement or Edit Announcement dialog. Click the Manage Categories link above the Category drop-down list.

In the Manage Categories dialog, all existing categories display in a grid at the top of the dialog. Within this dialog, you can do the following:

• To add a new category, click Add a New Category. Define a Name and Display Text for the category, then click Save. The new category is added to the grid. The category name must be unique.

• To edit a category, click the category name in the grid, so that the name and display text display below. Edit the display text as needed and then click Save. The category name cannot be changed.

• To delete a category, hover your cursor over the category row until the editing icons display in the right side of the row. Click the trash can icon to delete the category.

  You cannot delete a category if active announcements are assigned to that category—you must delete these announcements or assign them to another category first.

The name of the category is used to identify the category, whereas the display text displays to users. You could define a category name of Cap and then display text of Capital. You can later edit the display text as needed, such as to Capital Planning, without changing the underlying ID of the category.

NOTE: When configuring an Announcement component to filter by category, the list of categories is loaded when the file is opened. If you add or remove a category, you must close and reopen the file in order to see the changes.