Platform Announcements

Platform Announcements are TimelyChurch-wide messages broadcast by the TimelyChurch team (super admins) to every church on the platform. They are how we tell you about new features, scheduled maintenance, service incidents, billing changes, and other things that affect the whole platform.

This article explains what platform announcements look like to a church admin, how the read/dismiss tracking works, and what super admins can configure when they create one.

What Church Admins See

When TimelyChurch publishes a platform announcement, it appears as a colored banner at the top of your admin dashboard (and, depending on the audience setting, on the teacher dashboard too). The banner includes:

• A short title
• A brief excerpt or summary
• An optional action link (e.g., "Read More", "Open Status Page")
• A dismiss button (X)

The banner color reflects the announcement's style:

Tip: If you ever see a banner at the top of your dashboard you don't recognize and didn't create, it's almost certainly a TimelyChurch platform announcement -- not something added by your church staff. The banner is generated automatically by the platform.

Audience Targeting

Each platform announcement is targeted to one of three audiences:

• All Users -- Both church admins and team members (teachers/volunteers) see the banner.
• Church Admins Only -- Only people with church admin access see it. Teachers and members do not.
• Teachers Only -- Only team members see it; church admins do not.

Super admins can also limit a single announcement to specific churches using the "target churches" field. If your church is not in the target list, you won't see the banner at all.

Read and Dismiss Tracking

TimelyChurch tracks each user's interaction with each announcement individually:

• Read -- Recorded when you click through the announcement's action link (or open the full announcement page).
• Dismissed -- Recorded when you click the X to close the banner.

Once you dismiss a banner, it does not reappear on future page loads for your account. Other users in your church (other admins, other teachers) still see the banner until they dismiss it themselves.

Note: Dismissing a banner does not delete the announcement -- it simply hides the banner from your view. If you need to re-read it later, ask a TimelyChurch team member or check the announcement's permanent URL (if one was provided).

Lifecycle and Status

Platform announcements have one of three statuses:

• Draft -- Saved by a super admin but not yet visible to anyone.
• Published -- Visible to its target audience starting at the publish time.
• Archived -- No longer displayed; preserved for record-keeping.

Each announcement also has optional publish and expire timestamps:

• If publish time is in the future, the banner stays hidden until that time.
• If expire time has passed, the banner disappears automatically (no manual action required).

Priority Levels

Super admins assign one of three priorities:

• Normal -- Routine announcements (default)
• High -- More prominent display
• Urgent -- Reserved for service-impacting issues

Higher priorities are sorted to the top when multiple banners are active.

Announcement Types

Three types help categorize the content:

• General Announcement -- Most announcements use this type
• System Alert -- Service-related advisory (e.g., "Email delivery delays")
• Maintenance Notice -- Planned platform maintenance windows

The type controls the icon shown in associated in-app notifications.

What Super Admins Manage

If you are a TimelyChurch super admin, platform announcements are managed in the SuperAdmin panel under Announcements. Each announcement supports:

• Title, excerpt, and full content (rich text)
• Type, priority, and banner style
• Target audience and (optional) target church IDs
• Publish and expire dates
• Action URL and action text
• Show-banner toggle (lets you create announcements that only appear on a permanent page, with no banner)

Publishing an announcement automatically:

1. Sets the published_at timestamp if not already set
2. Creates an in-app notification for every targeted user (so they see the bell-icon counter increase, even before the banner is dismissed)

Quick FAQ

Q: I'm a church admin -- can I create platform announcements? No. Platform announcements come only from the TimelyChurch team. To send a message to your own congregation, use the Announcements module.

Q: Why am I seeing a banner that mentions other churches by name? You're not -- platform announcements are platform-wide and don't reference individual churches by name. If you see a real church name, it's probably from your own church's Announcements module.

Q: Can my staff see platform announcements I dismissed? Yes. Dismissal is per-user. Other admins and teachers in your church see the banner until they dismiss it for themselves.

Q: Do platform announcements ever email me? By default, platform announcements create an in-app notification (bell icon) but do not send an email. The TimelyChurch team can send a separate email for major incidents using the support email channel.

Related Articles

• Communication Overview
• Announcements -- Your own church-level announcements
• Notifications