Website AnnouncementsCopy Anchor Link

Any message you send can also be posted on your website as an announcement. This guide covers turning that on, choosing who can see the post, and what visitors actually see on the public Announcements pages.

For writing and sending the message itself -- audience, email and SMS content, scheduling -- see Sending Messages. For putting a news feed on a page you build yourself, see Page Templates.

Putting a Message on the WebsiteCopy Anchor Link

1. Open the message in the composer, either a new one or an existing draft.
2. Go to the Website tab under Message Content.
3. Pick a Website Visibility level. Not on Website is the default, so nothing is published to the website unless you change it.
4. Publish the message. Only published messages appear in the Announcements list or on a News-template page.

There is one exception to that last step, and it applies only to admins. Once you have picked a Website Visibility other than Not on Website, anyone who can manage messages for that group can open the draft's own announcement address directly and preview how it will look. It still will not appear in the Announcements list or on a News page until you publish it. A draft still set to Not on Website shows "Announcement Not Found" even for an admin -- that check runs first.

There is also a shortcut. Choosing the Everywhere delivery tile sets Website Visibility to Public for you -- unless you have already chosen a visibility yourself on the Website tab, in which case your choice is kept and the tile leaves it alone. The composer shows a short notice under the tiles whenever it changed the visibility on your behalf.

Who Can See It: the Four Visibility LevelsCopy Anchor Link

A few details make those precise:

• "Not on Website" is invisible, not merely hidden. Someone who has the direct address of such an announcement gets the same "Announcement Not Found" page as for an address that never existed.
• Group Members Only means the message's own group. Being a member of a different group in the same organization is not enough.
• People authorized to receive notifications about a member of that group can also see it.
• Organization Members means any group in this organization, as long as the visitor is signed in.
• On the Announcements list, restricted announcements a visitor cannot see are simply absent -- but the page adds one honest hint line above the list when something was filtered out. There are three versions of it:
  • Not signed in: "Some announcements may only be visible to logged-in members."
  • Signed in, but not a member of this organization: "Some announcements are limited to members of this organization."
  • Signed in and a member, but not of every group: "Some announcements are limited to specific groups within this organization."
• Restricted announcements the visitor can see carry a Members Only badge with a padlock.
• Opening a restricted announcement's direct address gives one of three explanations:
  • Not signed in: "Sign In to View This Announcement", with a sign-in link that returns the visitor to the announcement.
  • Signed in but not a member: "Members-Only Announcement", naming the group when the restriction is a group one.
  • Signed in with no member profile in this organization: "We Couldn’t Find Your Profile", advising the visitor to contact their group administrator.

CategoryCopy Anchor Link

Once you have picked a visibility other than Not on Website, a Website category select appears with three options: Announcement, Achievement, and Event Recap. A message saved without a category is treated as Announcement.

The category only matters if you are using a News-template page, where it sorts the post into an Announcements, Achievements or Event Recaps tab. That page also opens on an All Updates tab, which shows every post regardless of category -- so a post is never hidden by its category, only filed under it. The built-in Announcements page does not group or filter by category at all.

What the Post Says (Website Content Source)Copy Anchor Link

Underneath the category are two options for where the website post's body comes from:

• Use custom content for website display -- you write a separate body in the Website Content box below. Use this when the email is long, or is written to be read in an inbox rather than on a page.
• Use email content for website display -- the email body is reused as-is.

The website shows your custom website content if there is any, otherwise the email content, otherwise nothing at all.

Where Announcements AppearCopy Anchor Link

There are three places a website announcement can show up, and all three obey the same visibility rules:

1. The built-in Announcements page at /announcements. It always exists at that address -- you do not create it. To make it findable, add a menu link pointing at /announcements; see Menus and Navigation.
2. Any page you build with the News template, with an optional group filter. See Page Templates.
3. The Announcements section of a Group Homepage template page. It shows the three newest of the group's announcements, each headlined by the message Title with its published date. See Page Templates.

A News card's Read more and a Group Homepage announcement's link both open the same announcement page that the Announcements list links to.

Reading the Announcements PageCopy Anchor Link

The page is headed Announcements, with the subheading "Stay up to date with the latest announcements!". Below that:

• The page opens already filtered to one group -- it does not show everything at once. It defaults to the alphabetically-first parent group that has announcements, and within that group to the first entry that actually has something to show: the group's own announcements when it has any, otherwise its first sub-group that does. A visitor has to change the filter to see announcements from any other group or sub-group. This is the single most likely reason someone thinks their announcement is missing.
• A two-level group filter. The top level lists each parent group that has announcements, its own or a sub-group's. The second level lists that group plus its sub-groups. Anything with nothing to show is disabled.
• A search box ("Search announcements..."), which matches the announcement's title, its email content, and the group and parent-group names. Note that it does not search custom website content -- only the email body. A post written with custom website content that differs from its email is not findable by any text a visitor can actually see on the card.
• A sort control offering Newest First and Oldest First, which orders the cards by the date each message was published.
• The announcement cards. Each card is headed by the message's own Title, with the Members Only badge alongside it when the announcement is restricted. Under that is the group the message came from -- shown as Parent → Sub-group for a sub-group -- followed by the published date, then a short preview of the content and a Read More button. The detail page is laid out the same way.
• Your filter and search choices are kept in the page address, so a filtered view can be linked or bookmarked.

Texting a Link Instead of the Whole MessageCopy Anchor Link

When a message is going to the website and SMS is turned on, the SMS tab offers A link to the website post. Hubara generates a single text -- the message's Title plus a link to the announcement's own page -- and the link is created when you publish.

It is one of three ways to send the text. The other two are One text message (about 160 characters, or 70 with an emoji) and A longer text, sent in several parts (up to 10 parts, which most phones rejoin but which can arrive out of order). Texting a link stays the tidiest option for anything long, because the whole message lives on the website and the text stays short. See Sending Messages for the full rules.

TroubleshootingCopy Anchor Link

My message isn't on the website. Work down this list:

• It is still a draft. Only published messages appear in the Announcements list or on a News page. An admin who can manage the group's messages can still preview a draft at its own announcement address.
• Its Website Visibility is Not on Website. Check the Website tab, or the Website Visibility value under Status & Settings on the message's own page.
• It is restricted and the person looking does not qualify -- not signed in, not a member of the organization, or not a member of that group.
• You are on a News-template page whose group filter excludes the message's group.
• You are on the built-in Announcements page and the group filter has defaulted to a different group. Change the filter.
• You are looking at a Group Homepage template's Announcements section, which only ever shows the three newest of the group's announcements. The rest are still on /announcements and on any News page.
• The message has no published date. A handful of very old messages were published before Hubara recorded a publish date. Every list -- the Announcements page, News pages and the Group Homepage section -- sorts and shows that date, so a message without one is left out of all of them. Its own announcement address still works, so an existing link keeps working.
• The message has neither website content nor email content, so there is nothing to show.