How to Use Announcements

Employee View (View-Only)

Employees can access announcements on the web to stay up to date with company communications. The employee view is read-only - employees can browse, search, read, react, and comment, but cannot create or manage announcements.

What Employees See

• All published announcements targeted at them (company-wide, their department, or them specifically).
• Search bar to find announcements by title.
• Reactions and Comments (if enabled by the author).
• Unread indicators (blue dot) for announcements they haven't opened yet.
• Attached images, PDFs, and linked forms.

What Employees Do Not See

• New Post button - only admins can create announcements.
• Seen by analytics - the "Seen by X of Y" badge and reader list are hidden.
• Edit / Delete controls - the three-dot menu does not appear.
• Department and employee filters - only the search bar is available.

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Creating an Announcement

1. Click New Post in the toolbar.
2. Enter a Title (up to 200 characters).
3. Write your Body using the rich text editor (up to 500 visible characters). A formatting toolbar lets you style your text with bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, lists, alignment, and hyperlinks. A character counter shows how much space remains (it counts only visible text, not formatting markup).
4. Choose your Audience (see below).
5. Optionally attach forms for employees to fill in (see Linking Forms below).
6. Optionally attach images and PDF documents (see Attachments below).
7. Toggle Allow Reactions and Allow Comments on or off.
8. Click Publish.

A push notification is automatically sent to all targeted employees when the announcement is published.

Formatting Your Announcement

The announcement body uses a rich text editor with a toolbar above the text area. You can format your content without knowing any code.

Available Formatting

• Bold - highlight text and click the B button (or press Ctrl/Cmd+B).
• Italic - click the I button (or press Ctrl/Cmd+I).
• Underline - click the U button (or press Ctrl/Cmd+U).
• Strikethrough - click the strikethrough button to cross out text.
• Numbered list - click the numbered list button to create an ordered list.
• Bullet list - click the bullet list button to create an unordered list.
• Text alignment - align your text left, centre, or right using the alignment buttons.

Adding Hyperlinks

1. Select the text you want to turn into a link (or place your cursor where you want a new link).
2. Click the link button in the toolbar.
3. Enter the URL (e.g. https://example.com).
4. Optionally enter Display text to change what readers see.
5. Click Apply.

To remove a link, click on the linked text, open the link popover, and click Remove link.

Good to know:

• Links open in a new browser tab when clicked by readers.
• Only http, https, and mailto links are supported.
• Existing plain-text announcements (created before the rich text editor) continue to display correctly. Any URLs in older announcements are still auto-linked.

Formatting on Mobile

Announcements with rich text formatting display correctly on the Timecloud mobile app. However, if you need to edit a formatted announcement, you will need to use the web app. The mobile app shows a notice: "This announcement uses formatting. Edit it on the web app."

Draft Autosave

Timecloud automatically saves your work as a draft while you create a new announcement. If you navigate away, close the dialog, or your browser refreshes, your progress is not lost.

How It Works

• As you type or change any part of the form - title, body, audience, linked forms, attachments, or engagement toggles - your draft is saved automatically in the background.
• Drafts are stored locally in your browser and are tied to your admin account. Other admins on the same device will not see your drafts.

Restoring a Draft

• When you click New Post, Timecloud checks for a previously saved draft.
• If a draft is found, it is restored automatically. A "Draft restored" banner appears at the top of the form, showing when the draft was last saved.
• All fields are pre-filled - title, body, audience, linked forms, attachments, and engagement toggles.

Closing Without Publishing

When you close the announcement form before publishing:

• If you have made changes, a "Keep this draft?" dialog appears with two options:
  • Keep draft - saves your current work so you can pick up where you left off next time.
  • Discard draft - permanently deletes the draft. Your changes will not be recoverable.
• If the form is untouched, it closes without a prompt.

Good to Know

• Drafts apply to the New Post form only - editing an existing announcement does not use drafts.
• Drafts expire after 7 days. If you reopen the form after that, you will start fresh.
• If your saved draft targeted a Clocked In audience, the audience cannot be fully restored. The banner will let you know - simply re-select your audience before publishing.
• If your saved draft targeted Everyone but you are a Sub Admin, the audience will reset to User Groups so you can select a valid audience.
• Once an announcement is published, the draft is automatically cleared.
• Drafts created before the rich text editor was introduced will be discarded automatically. You will start a fresh draft instead.

Attachments (Images & PDFs)

Attach images and PDF documents to your announcements. You can combine up to 10 attachments per announcement (images and PDFs combined), with each file up to 10 MB.

Adding Attachments

• When creating or editing an announcement, click Add Attachment below the body field.
• Select one or more files from your device. Supported formats:
  • Images: JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, WEBP
  • Documents: PDF
• A preview thumbnail appears for each file. PDFs show a rendered first-page thumbnail.
• An attachment counter shows how many files are attached (e.g. 3/10).
• To remove an attachment, click the x button on its thumbnail.
• Attachments begin uploading immediately when selected - the Publish button is disabled until all uploads finish.

Viewing PDF Attachments

When an announcement has PDF attachments, they appear below the body text as individual cards showing:

• File icon - a PDF icon or image icon depending on the file type.
• File name and file size.
• Expand/collapse button - the first PDF shows an inline preview by default. Click the arrow to collapse or expand it.
• Full-screen viewer - click the expand icon to open the PDF in a full-screen modal with page-by-page navigation.
• Download - click the download icon to save the file to your device.

PDF Viewer

The full-screen PDF viewer lets you:

• Browse through pages using the left/right arrows at the bottom.
• See the current page number (e.g. 1 / 5).
• Download the file using the download button in the top-right corner.
• Close the viewer with the close button.

Attachments on Mobile

The Timecloud mobile app fully supports PDF attachments in announcements:

• Creating announcements: Tap Attach PDF to add PDF documents. Images and PDFs share the same 10-attachment limit.
• Viewing announcements: PDF attachments appear as cards with an inline preview. Tap to open the full-screen viewer or download the file.

Good to know:

• The 10-attachment limit is shared across images and PDFs.
• Each file can be up to 10 MB.
• Announcement cards in the list show a paperclip icon when they have any attachments (images or PDFs).

Linking Forms to an Announcement

Attach forms directly to an announcement so employees can fill them in without leaving the noticeboard.

Attaching Forms (Admin)

1. When creating or editing an announcement, look for the Forms section below the audience picker.
2. Click Add forms to open the form picker. All active form templates for your company are listed.
3. Search by form name or group name to find the right form quickly.
4. Select up to 10 forms. A counter shows how many are attached (e.g. 3/10 forms attached).
5. To remove a form, click the x on its chip.

Good to know:

• Only active form templates appear in the picker - archived forms are excluded.
• Forms display their group name in brackets if they belong to a form group (e.g. "Induction Form (Onboarding)").
• When editing an existing announcement, the currently linked forms are pre-loaded. Changes only save when you click Save.

Filling in a Linked Form (Employee)

1. Open the announcement card. Any linked forms appear as buttons below the announcement body.
2. Click the form button (e.g. Induction Form) to open the fill-in dialog.
3. Complete the required fields and click Submit.
4. A success message confirms your submission. The dialog closes automatically.

Good to know:

• Required fields are marked - the Submit button stays disabled until all required fields are filled.
• File uploads are supported for form fields that accept attachments.

Choosing an Audience

Use the toggle at the top of the audience section to pick who sees the announcement:

• All - every active employee in your company. Available to Company Admins only.
• User Groups - one or more departments (or whatever your company calls them). Select the groups from the dropdown. Use Select All to quickly pick every group, or Clear All to deselect them all.
• Specific Employees - hand-pick individual employees using the chip selector.
• Clocked In - target employees who are currently clocked in, filtered by job and/or shift (see below).

Company Admin vs Sub Admin Audiences

Only Company Admins can send an announcement to All (the entire company). Sub Admins must target a narrower audience - User Groups, Specific Employees, or Clocked In.

• When a Sub Admin creates a new announcement, the audience defaults to User Groups with no groups selected. At least one group must be chosen before Publish becomes available.
• If a Sub Admin opens an existing announcement that was originally sent to everyone, a notice appears: "Currently sent to Everyone. Pick an option below to change who receives it."
• The Sub Admin can still edit other details (title, body, attachments) of a company-wide announcement without changing the audience. However, if they do change the audience, they must choose a narrower option.

Targeting Clocked-In Employees

The Clocked In option lets you send an announcement only to employees who are on the clock right now, optionally narrowed by what they're working on.

1. Select Clocked In from the audience toggle.
2. Filter by job - a dropdown appears for each of your job layers (e.g. Project, Location). Select one or more job items within any layer.
3. Filter by shift - if your company uses shift templates, a Shift dropdown appears. Select one or more shifts.
4. Timecloud finds all employees currently clocked in who match your selections. A resolved list shows exactly who will receive the announcement and how many there are.
5. If no employees match, you'll see a message letting you know. Adjust your filters and try again.

Good to know:

• You must select at least one job item or one shift.
• If you filter by both job and shift, an employee must match both to be included.
• If you filter by only one (just jobs, or just a shift), only that filter applies.
• The employee list is a snapshot - it captures who is clocked in at the moment you publish. If someone clocks out before reading the announcement, they will still see it.

Editing or Deleting an Announcement

1. On the announcement card, click the three-dot menu.
2. Choose Edit or Delete.
3. When editing, update any field - including attachments and linked forms - then click Save. Edited announcements show an (edited) label.
4. Deleting shows a confirmation dialog - this action cannot be undone.

Authors can edit or delete their own announcements. Company Admins can edit or delete any announcement. Employees cannot edit or delete announcements.

Reactions & Comments

• Reactions - click the heart icon to like an announcement. Hover over the count to see who reacted.
• Comments - expand an announcement to view and add comments. You can also reply to comments one level deep, and like individual comments.
• If the author disabled reactions or comments, those controls will not appear.

Tracking Who Has Seen It

Each announcement shows a Seen by X of Y badge. Click it to see the full list of employees who have viewed the post.

This feature is only visible to administrators. Employees do not see seen-by analytics.

Filtering & Searching

• Search - type in the search bar to find announcements by title. Available to both admins and employees.
• Filter by department - use the department dropdown to show announcements targeting a specific group. Admin only.
• Filter by employee - select an employee to see announcements that reached them. Admin only.

Results are sorted newest first, with page sizes of 10, 20, or 50.

Unread Indicators

Announcements you haven't opened yet display a blue dot next to the title. The dot disappears once you expand the card. If an announcement has comments, a comment count badge appears next to the title. Announcements with any attachments (images or PDFs) show a paperclip icon next to the title as well.