Create eye-catching announcements in your platform & create easy resource links for employees!
Looking for a way to create a bold announcement on your Employee app or across your foundU Admin platform? The Announcements and Resources function is the perfect solution.
Announcements create a banner message in your admin platform or in the Employee app to communicate to your business in a widespread manner.
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- Announcements can have embedded links for employees or admins to access with ease!
- You'll choose a duration for your message to display.
- For example, a banner message to communicate new government restrictions to your employees or admins.
Resources in the Employee app will help employees avoid the hassle of sifting through numerous emails to access important links that are crucial for their daily tasks.
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- Simplify daily routines for your employees with easy-to-access links at their fingertips.
- Set and forget- employee resources will remain in the Employee app until you remove them.
- For example, a permanent link to your company's intranet or training resource.
In this article, we will cover:
- Creating Announcements
- Adding links to documents or videos in your Announcement
- Creating easy to use Resources for employees in the Employee app
- Use your foundU platform to create a link to Use in a Resource or Announcement
- FAQs
To understand the complete list of options for communication from your foundU platform, see our helpful guide here.
Announcements
Take advantage of the Announcement feature on the foundU platform to share critical information with all admin users or employees. When they log in, they will see a coloured banner at the top of the page that broadcasts your message.
Just remember, announcements will be seen by everyone in the portal you set to display.
Announcements allow you to:
- Send out your Announcement widely to all admins in the portal or to every single employee via the Employee app without restrictions.
- Communicate your message with urgency when needed (select from yellow or grey backgrounds).
- Choose a duration for your message to display.
- Add a link to give your announcement some extra impact!
Common Use Cases
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- Update for managers on new government restrictions
- Update employees on new mandatory items. e.g. all employees who work in food and beverage need to complete their food handler cert as of XXXX date
- Business reminders. e.g. updated business marketing and need to change logos on LinkedIn
- Safety update - embedded link with new map of evacuation points
- Reminder to get roster published or shifts approved by (insert day) each week/fortnight
Creating admin Announcements
Announcements can be created for your admin users in your foundU admin portal, or for employees in the Employee app. We will cover the instructions for both below.
To set up an Announcement for admins or employees:
- Navigate to the main menu, and navigate to Communication > Announcements & Resources > Announcements tab. Here you will see a list of all the announcements ever used on your platform. Use the search tab if you'd like to search for a past announcement to copy and paste from.
- Select Add New to create a new announcement.
- Add the Details of your announcement using the following fields.
- Select the Type.
- General - Will appear grey in either the admin or employee portal.
- Urgent - Will appear yellow in either the admin or employee portal.
- Select your audience in the Announcement for drop-down.
- Admin - Will display to all admins in the admin portal.
- Employee - Will display to all employees in the employee portal.
- Enter a Title for your Announcement. This will be displayed in bold aboce your Announcement.
- Enter the details of your message in the Announcement.
Hot tip: You can embed a helpful link in your message, this can be any external URL. Please refer to the next section of this guide for the instructions and the code to do so.
- Select the Type.
- Select the Start Date for the message to appear on.
- Select the End Date to be taken down automatically. Alternatively, select leave the end date blank for the message to appear indefinitely.
- Save once complete.
To view admin announcements, simply navigate to the Home screen in the admin portal. If you come across a mistake and need to edit the message, there's no need to delete it. You can easily make changes by using the edit icon on the right-hand side!
Creating employee Announcements
To create an employee announcement, you'll follow the same instructions as above being sure to select 'Employee' in the Announcement For section.
To check your message, simply log in as an employee or on your phone use your foundU Employee app.
Your announcement will be more impactful if you link to an external URL with more information! To do so, all you'll need is the following:
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A URL link can be a link to a short video or a hosted document.
- If you don't have a URL but instead possibly a PDF, follow the instructions in 'Creating a link using your Platform files' in the section below in this guide.
- The embed code that is provided below.
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A URL link can be a link to a short video or a hosted document.
To add a link to your Announcement:
- When typing out the details of your message in the Announcement. Insert this code where you would like your link to be. <a href="URL">name of document that is being linked</a>
- Once you have pasted this code into your message, insert the following:
- URL- paste your link within the " ".
- Name of the document- these will be the words displayed that people will click on to view.
- Once this is complete, finish composing your Announcement and be sure to test that your link is viewing and working correctly. Edit the details of your Announcement should you need to fix any errors.
Scenario
Let's use the following example to watch how to use the embed code to place a link in our announcement.
We are creating an Announcement for Safety Month and would like to embed a video link in our message to an insightful video on positive safety attitudes in the workplace. We'll use the embed code to insert the link and test out the Announcement to ensure it is working properly.
The message and code we used is:
"Let's start the year with our Annual Safety Awareness Month! Lead by example and show great awareness with your team by having a great attitude to a safe workplace! Start by viewing this short video on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_IFz7FEZ9E>Safety attitudes at work!</a>"
Please note this Screen Navigation has no sound, please watch and follow along to see a link embedded in an Announcement.
This process can be followed to do the same thing in an Employee Announcement. See the example image below.
Hot tip: If you have multiple links to add to an Announcement in the Employee app, consider using Resources to link other valuable resources.
Resources in the Employee app
Resources provide employees with a convenient link to a preferred website, form, or company intranet complete with an attractive image. This will appear as a clickable image and link on their Employee app, simplifying their daily routine. Allows employees to access frequently used links without looking through emails to find them.
Just remember, resources will be seen by all employees in the Employee app.
Common Use Cases
There are a multitude of options to use as Resources. It can be anything you'd like your employees to have quick access to in a centralised location. Here are some resources you may like to have as quick links in your platform:
- A permanent link to your company's intranet.
- Link to non-mandatory training/growth/skill-building opportunities.
- Link to internal Job boards for internal recruitment.
- Link to Microsoft or Google Forms to capture information from employees
- Editable PDF forms that can be accessed by employees to fill out and either saved or emailed to a manager (e.g. TOIL applications, incident reports)
- Link to the notes of a recent team meeting.
- Link to an external website for a team-building activity.
- Linking to another portal that your business uses frequently or seasonally such as registering for flu shots.
Creating Resources
Resources can be created for your employees in the Employee app, but not in the admin portal. If you require a similar option for admins, consider embedding a link in an announcement to share these resources.
To set up a Resource for employees:
- Navigate to the main menu, and navigate to Communication > Announcements & Resources > Resources tab.
- Select the Resources tab.
- To add a new resource, select Add New.
- Name the Title of the Resource. This will be displayed in the Employee app.
- Add the URL link.
- Hot tip: Do you need an external link but don't have one? Create one using your Platform files. Refer to the section below in this guide.
- Select the Start Date for the Resource to appear on.
- Select the End Date to be taken down automatically. Alternatively, leave the end date blank for the message to appear indefinitely.
- Optionally, upload an image that displays next to the link.
You can Edit or Delete resources using the associated icons. It may be a good idea to leave seasonal resources once the end date has expired so that you can simply Edit the details (such as the date) and reuse them again.
When an employee logs into their Employee app they will see the Resources Section. Once an employee clicks a link, they will be taken to a new tab to the appropriate website link.
Tools and FAQS
If you would like to link to a PDF from either an Announcement or Resource, the PDF can be hosted in your platform! Once uploaded into Platform Files, your PDF will have an online link available for you to use.
Please refer to the instructions on how to do this here in our Platform files guide.
Can an Announcement be displayed exclusively for my managers?
Depending on which portal you select, Announcements will appear for all employee or admin users. However, if you're looking to target specific individuals, consider beginning your Announcement with "Attention Managers" to ensure it's seen by the right crowd. Alternatively, you can send out a bulk email with your message.
Can I set a duration for my Announcement so that I don't have to take it down?
Totally! Each Announcement lets you pick how long it'll stay up, so you can forget all about it later!
I would like to capture information from my employees in a centralised form like a Google doc. Is this possible?
Absolutely. Link the form in a Resource and your employees will be able to easily click on it and provide you with information. This could be used in use cases such as Incident forms, dietary preferences for upcoming events, site inspection, etc.
Is there a limit to how many characters I can use in an Announcement or Resource?
Announcements have a character limit of approximatley 300 characters. If you have a large message to convey, consider sending these updates out as an email as your best option.
This can be actioned via People > Approved People > Bulk Actions > Send Email to All Filtered.
I don't have a link for my resource, only a PDF, can I just upload this for my employees to view?
Attachments are not supported in either Resources or Announcements. Instead, host the file online and link to it. For instructions on creating a link, refer to the 'Creating a link using your Platform files' section above.
How many Announcements can I have set up on my platform at one time?
It's possible to have several Announcements set up and running simultaneously, we have seen some customers having as many as six at a time. However, keep in mind that having too many Announcements could consume a significant amount of space on the top of your platform, particularly in the Employee app.
Use end dates on your Announcements so that your messaging is not diluted!
Am I able to see which of my employees have viewed an Announcement that I have posted in the Employee app?
No. It isn't possible to see who has or has not viewed the announcement. If you need to verify that an employee has seen your message, you'll need to choose another form of communication. For other options please view this helpful Communication guide.