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Announcements let you push time-sensitive information to the right audience — whether that’s your entire institution, students in a specific course, or a targeted group by role.

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Announcement types

DeanDesk supports three announcement types. Choose the one that matches your audience.
TypeAudienceWho can post
System-WideEvery user on your platformAdmin only
CourseEnrolled students in a specific courseAdmin or the course instructor
GroupUsers who share a specific role or groupAdmin only

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Post a system-wide announcement

Use system-wide announcements for information that applies to your entire community — closures, policy updates, or major events.
1

Open the Announcements page

In your Admin Dashboard, navigate to Communication → Announcements.
2

Click New Announcement

Click New Announcement in the top right corner.
3

Set the type to System-Wide

Under Audience, select System-Wide. This will deliver the announcement to every active user on your platform.
4

Write your message

Enter a Subject and your message body. Use {{firstName}} to personalize the greeting — DeanDesk replaces it with each recipient’s first name on delivery.
5

Schedule or send

To send immediately, click Send Now. To schedule for later, toggle Schedule and choose a date and time.

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Post a course announcement

  1. Open the course from your instructor dashboard.
  2. Select the Announcements tab within the course.
  3. Click New Announcement.
  4. Write your subject and message.
  5. Click Send — all enrolled students in that course receive the announcement.

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Post a group announcement

Group announcements let you target users by role — for example, sending a message only to instructors, or only to students enrolled in a specific program.
1

Open Announcements

Go to Admin Dashboard → Communication → Announcements.
2

Create a new announcement

Click New Announcement and set the type to Group.
3

Select the target group

Use the Group dropdown to choose the role or group to target. You can select multiple groups.
4

Write and send

Enter your subject and message, then click Send Now or schedule the delivery.

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What students receive

When an announcement is sent, students receive up to three notifications depending on their preferences:
  • Email notification — delivered to their registered email address
  • In-app notification — appears in their notification feed when logged in on the web
  • Push notification — sent to their mobile device if they have the DeanDesk app installed
Students control which notification types they receive. See notification preferences for details.

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Personalizing announcements

Use merge tags in your subject or message body to personalize at scale.
TagReplaced with
{{firstName}}The recipient’s first name
{{lastName}}The recipient’s last name
Example:
Subject: Important update, {{firstName}} Body: Hi {{firstName}}, we wanted to let you know about an upcoming schedule change…

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Scheduling and history

  • Scheduled announcements appear in the Scheduled tab on the Announcements page. You can edit or cancel them before they send.
  • Sent announcements are stored in the History tab. You can view delivery details and re-send if needed.

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Best practices

Reserve announcements for important or time-sensitive information. If you send announcements too frequently for minor updates, students may start ignoring them.
  • Be concise. State the key information in the subject line. Students often read only the subject.
  • Personalize with {{firstName}}. Addressed messages have higher open rates than generic ones.
  • Use course announcements for course-specific updates. Don’t use a system-wide announcement for something that only affects one course.
  • Schedule in advance. For recurring events like exam reminders, schedule announcements ahead of time rather than posting them manually.

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Onboarding tip

Create a dedicated Student Onboarding course and enroll all new students in it automatically. Use course announcements in that course to share welcome materials, platform guides, and orientation resources — so new students always have a structured starting point.