Community staff have two ways to reach the whole community. The Message of the day is a banner that stays on the dashboard. A mass announcement is a one-time email and push notification. You find both in Settings. By default, only the Admin role can use them.
Message of the Day
The Message of the Day shows as a banner on the dashboard of each community member, residents and staff alike. It stays there until you turn it off or change it. Use it for standing notices, such as office hours, roadwork or the dates of the pool season.
1. Go to Settings > Profile.
2. In the Message of the day card, turn on Enable message of the day.
3. Type the message in Message of the day. The message can have up to 200 characters.
4. Select Save.
To remove the banner, turn off Enable message of the day, then select Save. MyWatchtower keeps the text for the next time that you turn the message on.
Mass announcements
Go to Settings > Announcements. The Mass announcements page has two tabs: New announcement and Announcement history.
Send an announcement
1. On the New announcement tab, choose one or both channels in Delivery channels:
- Email sends a formatted email to each user who has an email address. Type the Email subject line, from 5 to 50 characters, and the Email message, from 20 to 1,000 characters.
- Push notification sends a notification to the phones of users. Type the Push notification title, from 5 to 50 characters, and the Push notification message, from 10 to 150 characters.
2. Look at the Live preview card. It shows how the email and the push notification will look.
3. Read Estimated recipients, then select Send announcement.
4. In the Confirm mass announcement dialog, type SEND, then select Send announcement.
MyWatchtower puts the name of your community before the email subject and the push title. The announcement goes out immediately to each member of the community, staff included. You cannot recall it. A person gets it only on the channels that they allow in their notification settings, and only when your community has notifications on. A push notification also adds an item to the in-app inbox of the person.
Announcement history
The Announcement history tab lists each announcement that was sent. Each row shows the title, the date and time, the channels and the number of recipients. Select an announcement to see its email, its push notification and its recipients. To find a person, type a name or an email address in Search recipients.
Need help?
If a tab is missing, your role cannot use it. Ask your community Admin for help.