Global announcements allows you to contact all or specific users within an account or subaccount using one message. For example, if there will be a time period of updating or downtime for the account, you may want to let the users know ahead of time so they can plan accordingly.

Global announcements are shown to a user from all their associated accounts. If a user has an account with multiple institutions, the user can view multiple announcements. To help differentiate announcements at the account and subaccount levels, the message also indicates which account or subaccount sent the global announcement.

You can create five different types of announcements: warning, error, information, question, or calendar. When a new global announcement is created, information will display as the default announcement type. To learn more about the announcement types and how they appear to users, view the Global Announcement Types PDF.

Global announcements can be shown during a specific date range. Once an announcement passes its start date, the announcement is immediately visible in each user's dashboard and can be dismissed by the user.

If necessary, you can also edit the text in a global announcement, such as to fix spelling errors. The start and end dates can also be edited until the actual start or end date for the announcement.

Notes:

• Global announcements do not appear in course announcements.
• When users are not enrolled in any courses, they can view announcements from the root account. They can only view sub-account announcements once they have been added to a course within the sub-account.
• The Theme Editor primary color is associated with information, question, and calendar notifications. However, warning and error colors cannot be changed.
• Any edits made to an existing Global Announcement after its start date will not force the message to reappear for users who have already dismissed it. Any substantial changes to the global announcement should be created as a new Global Announcement so that it reappears for all users.
• Global announcements do not appear in the Canvas iOS app.

As an admin, you can use your account settings to manage settings for your entire institution. Depending on your permissions, you can edit differing levels of the account settings.

Note: In sub-accounts, not all account settings may be available.

View a video about Account Settings.