An Announcement on the Audience Web App.
What are Announcements?
Announcements are messages an organiser can send to attendees during an event. When an attendee is using the Audience Web App, Announcements appear as pop-up messages. This feature helps organisers send important information and updates to attendees at any time during the event, even during ongoing sessions. Attendees can be alerted and get directed to targeted activities to enhance engagement.
Through our pre-launch trials with valued customers, Announcements proved to be very successful in increasing participation in Polls and Surveys at a much quicker rate.
Organisers can send a One-off announcement message which appears on the Audience Web App as a single pop-up message. They can also save the announcement to resend multiple times. We advise organisers to send multiple messages through Saved Announcements if they want to resend the exact same message.
Types of Announcements
Redirect
This is a highly effective way to nudge attendees to participate in a poll, or to complete a feedback survey. When announcements have a redirect action, attendees don't have a way to dismiss and not load the specified session or page. If attendees are in the midst of typing a question, a comment, or survey response, they will not receive the announcement until they have completed that activity. This is to prevent them from losing any unsent data.
A Redirect Announcement on the Audience Web App.
Saved
This is useful for organisers who want to send pre-set messages at different times. These messages can be created and saved before the event day, and they only appear on the Audience Web App when the organiser clicks Send. Saved announcements remain in the Saved tab, and an organiser can send the same message multiple times. Learn how to create Saved Announcements.
A Saved Announcement on the Admin Panel.
Pinned
Pinning an announcement lets the announcement persist as a banner in designated sessions. It can serve as a reminder after attendees in the session dismiss the initial pop-up message, and it can allow attendees outside of the session to view the announcement when they enter the session. Redirect actions can be enabled as well, to guide attendees to the next designated session. Learn how to pin announcements.
Note
- Announcements that are dismissed by an attendee on the Audience Web App can only be retrieved if an organiser unpins and pins the same Announcement.
A Pinned Announcement on the Audience Web App.
How to send Announcements
- Go to Workspace > Pigeonhole > Admin Panel, then click the Controls icon on the top right of the screen
The Admin Panel.
- Next, click Announcement.
- On the Compose tab, type your message into the Announcement message box.
- Note: Links added in the message box will be hyperlinked on the Audience Web App.
Composing an Announcement.
- Select the session where you want the message to be sent.
- Note: Announcements sent to parent sessions will also be sent to their respective nested sessions.
Send Announcement to Sessions
- Select where you would like to redirect attendees from the drop-down list.
- Note: If you do not wish to redirect attendees from the Announcement, leave Do not redirect selected.
Options for redirecting attendees
- To send a one-off Announcement, click Send.
- Note: The message will be sent to everyone in the selected sessions on the Audience Web App. Within a one-minute interval, any new attendees to the Pigeonhole or session will also receive the pop-up message. To resend an Announcement more than once, click Save for later to save the Announcement.
- To confirm sending your Announcement, click Send.
- Note: You will be prompted to confirm the details of your Announcement in an additional dialog box before it is launched.
Send the following Announcement confirmation.
How to Pin Announcements
Pin setting for unsent Announcements
Admins can designate announcements that they want to pin by going to Admin Panel > Controls > Announcement > Compose and checking the Pin box.
Pin to selected sessions
Pin setting for sent Announcements
Once an unpinned announcement is sent, and attendees dismiss the pop-up, it is not visible on the Audience Web App. Admins can bring the visibility of the announcement back by Pinning a Sent message. The message will then reappear as the latest message in the announcement banner.
A sent Announcement that has been pinned
Note
- Multiple Pinned Announcements will display with the latest message at the top of the Audience Web App.
Multiple pinned Announcements at the top of the Audience Web App.
How to reorder Announcements
Organisers can reorder saved announcements manually or by pre-set sort orders. This is useful for organisers who have created saved announcements before the event day that may need to add additional information or adjust the cadence of pre-saved messages. It can also be helpful if more than one Admin is making changes to an event. Sort options allow users to sort through recent changes or newly created announcements quickly.
Learn more about creating Saved Announcements.
Navigate to Saved announcements
Admins can choose which announcements they would like to reorder by going to Admin Panel > Controls > Announcement > Saved
Saved Announcements in the Control Panel
The default order to sort Saved Announcements is from newest created to oldest created. The sort order can be modified by manually resorting, using pre-set sort options, or clearing the sort filter.
Manual resort
Using the cursor, drag and drop saved announcements into any order. Once at least one announcement is reordered, the new order will be automatically saved as a Custom sort order.
Note: This sorting method will impact the order of Announcements for all users. New instances of the Admin Panel will open up with Custom Sort as the default for viewing Saved Announcements.
Custom sorting Saved Announcements
Note: If you are making multiple changes, you may be asked to confirm your selection
Confirmation dialog to reorder Custom selection
Pre-set sort
Using the dropdown list, Admins can sort Announcements by when they were Created or Modified from newest to oldest or vice versa. The Created filter sorts based on the creation date of the announcement, while Modified sorts based on the creation and edited time, whichever is later.
Drop-down list to sort Announcements
Note: This sorting method will only impact the order of Announcements for the user who adjusts the filter. New instances of the Admin Panel will not reflect this sort order.
Clear sort
To clear a manual resort and return announcements to default order (newest created first), click Clear to the left of the sort filter box.
Clear Custom sort order
Note: The clear function only applies to manually sorted Announcements.