Announcements
Broadcast messages to your program's audience. Compose, scope the audience, optionally schedule or publish to the website, then post — recipients see it in their Webmail Inbox and the Announcement Portal.
Purpose
The Announcements sub-tab lets you broadcast a message to the people in your program. Each announcement is delivered to recipients' Webmail Inbox and shown in their Announcement Portal, and can optionally be published on the public conference website.
In the Program Chair Console the scope is locked to the program you selected — every announcement you post here goes to that program, not the whole conference.
The sub-tab opens on a list of your program's existing announcements, showing each one's scope, audience, status, when it was posted, and how many people it reached.
When you use it
Use Announcements for one-to-many broadcasts: a reviewing-deadline change, a notification to authors, a call for camera-ready submissions, or any logistics update your program's participants need in their inbox. For ongoing two-way conversation, use Channels instead.
Walkthrough
- 1
In the Communications tab, open the Announcements sub-tab. You'll see the list of your program's announcements with their status (Draft, Scheduled, Posted, or Withdrawn).
- 2
Click New Announcement to open the composer. Optionally click Insert from template to prefill the title, body, audience, and priority from a lifecycle template.
- 3
Enter a Title (up to 200 characters) and write the Body in the rich text editor. Both are required.
- 4
Choose the Audience: Everyone in scope, Committee only, Authors only, Registered attendees, or Specific roles (pick the role types). The scope is locked to your program.
- 5
Set Display options — Priority (Normal, High, or Urgent), Pin to top of Portal, and Publish on conference website if you want it public too.
- 6
To send later, tick Send later under Schedule and pick a date and time.
- 7
Finish with Post Now to broadcast immediately, Schedule to send at the chosen time, or Save Draft to keep editing later.
- 8
Back on the list, use Edit to revise a draft, scheduled, or posted announcement, or Withdraw to retract a posted one (you can add a reason recipients will see).
Tips
Tick Pin to top of Portal for announcements people should keep seeing — like a standing deadline reminder — so they stay at the top of the Announcement Portal instead of scrolling away.
Once an announcement is Posted, you can fix typos and wording, but the scope and audience are locked. To change who receives it, Withdraw the announcement and re-post a new one. Edited posts show "(edited)" to recipients in the Portal.
Withdrawing a posted announcement shows recipients a "Withdrawn" overlay; the webmail message stays in their inbox so it doesn't silently disappear.