# How do I send, schedule and manage notices?

Go to Manage Notices (/notices/admin). Notices are short, time-limited announcements — a schedule change, a reminder, a weather closure — that automatically expire so your notice board doesn't…

Source: https://www.studentdirectory.app/help/admins/notices
Last updated: 2026-11-04

*From the School Administrator manual, "Notices".*

Go to **Manage Notices** (`/notices/admin`). Notices are short, time-limited announcements — a
schedule change, a reminder, a weather closure — that automatically expire so your notice board
doesn't quietly fill up with stale posts.

Click **+ Add Notice**, fill in the title/body, optionally attach files (PDF, Word, Excel, images —
same **Attachments** control as Document Library, see [Document Library](/help/admins/document-library) for how attachment
descriptions work), set an expiration date, and optionally scope it to an Audience (leave blank for
everyone). A notice stays up through the whole of its expiration date in your school's time zone (set
in School Settings), and goes away at midnight. The expiration date can't be one that has already
passed (an already-expired notice can still be edited as long as you leave its date alone). Existing
notices can be **Edit**ed or deleted, and the list shows whether each one has already expired.

**Drafts and scheduling:** on the web form, **When should parents see it?** lets you **Publish now**, **Schedule for later** or **Save as a draft**. A draft is seen only by admins and nobody is alerted. A scheduled notice goes live at the minute you choose, in your school's time zone (set in School Settings), and that is when parents are told. The go-live time must be in the future and before the expiration date. Manage Notices marks each one **Draft** or **Scheduled** with its go-live time; **Edit** a draft or scheduled notice to publish it straight away. A notice that is already published has no timing choice. Organization Editors always publish straight away. The iPhone, iPad and Mac app does not offer drafts or scheduling yet.

**Category and urgent notices:** the notice form has a **Category** list (see [School Settings](/help/admins/school-settings),
Categories) and a **Mark as urgent** checkbox, available to both Junior and Senior Admins. An urgent
notice shows a red exclamation mark in the Notices list and an **HIGH PRIORITY NOTICE** banner at the top of
the notice. Parents can use the category buttons - and an **Urgent only** button, shown whenever at
least one notice is urgent - above the Notices list to narrow it down. Organization Editors publishing
from an organization's page do not see these two controls.

**SwiftUI app:** Admins see a **+** button on the Notices tab to add a new notice — title, body,
audience picker (or leave it on "Everyone at the school"), and an expiration date, defaulting to two
weeks out (it can't be set to a date that has already passed). Opening any notice's detail screen shows a pencil icon; tapping it turns
title/body/audience/expiration editable in place, with **Delete Notice** available from within Edit
mode (behind a confirmation). Existing attachments still open/download from the detail screen as
before, but adding or removing an attachment is still web-only for now.

**Organization notices.** A notice written from an organization's own page ([Organizations (Teams, Clubs & Groups)](/help/admins/organizations))
shows that organization's colored pill (with a small people icon, linking to the organization) in the
Notices list and on the notice itself. A notice sent to a saved audience shows "For <audience name>"
instead, and a school-wide notice shows nothing. Organization Editors cannot reach Manage Notices —
they publish only from their organization's page.

On the Notices list itself, swiping a notice left-to-right toggles it read/unread (everyone,
including parents), matching the same blue swipe Apple's own Mail app uses. Admins additionally see
a **Trash** action when swiping right-to-left — since this deletes the notice for every user at the
school, not just you, it asks you to confirm twice before anything is actually deleted. Parents don't
see the Trash action.

## Formatting a notice body

The **Body** field is a formatting editor, not a plain text box. A toolbar sits across the top of
it with these buttons, left to right:

- **Bold**, *Italic*, Underline and ~~Strikethrough~~ — select some text, then click the button.
- **Link** — select the text, click the link button and paste the address.
- **Heading 1** and **Heading 2** — two heading sizes for the line your cursor is on.
- **Numbered list** and **Bulleted list**.
- **Image** — pick a JPEG or PNG under 5 MB. You are asked for a short description of the picture,
  which is what a screen reader reads out. An image always sits on its own line.
- **Clear formatting** (the *T* with a small x) — removes the formatting from the selected text.

⌘B, ⌘I and ⌘U work as shortcuts. There is deliberately **no** table, font, colour, or alignment
control — keeping the formatting set small is what lets the same notice look right on the web and
in the iPhone/iPad/Mac app.

**Older notices.** A notice written before the editor changed in September 2026 still opens in the
previous editor when you edit it: select text for a small floating toolbar, or type `/` at the start
of a line for a menu of things to insert (including a table). New notices always use the toolbar
described above.

## Personalizing a notice with merge fields

Above the Body field, an **Insert field** dropdown lets you drop in a personalized field that fills
in each parent's own information automatically — so "Dear [First Name]," shows up to every parent
as their own actual name, not literal placeholder text. Pick **First Name**, **Last Name**, or
**School Name** from the dropdown to insert it at your cursor as a small blue pill; the dropdown
resets afterward so you can insert another. The pill isn't editable text — delete it as a whole
unit if you want to remove it — and you (the admin) are the only one who ever sees the pill itself;
every parent viewing the notice sees their own resolved name in its place, as ordinary text. If a
parent's name isn't on file, they'll see "Parent" there instead of a blank. This works the same
way in the iOS/macOS app: as an admin you always see the pill (in the notice and in its editor),
and each parent sees their own name.

## Notice Templates

If you send the same kind of notice repeatedly (a "Picture Day reminder," a weekly schedule note),
save it as a template instead of retyping it every time.

**Manage Notice Templates:** at the top of **Manage Notices** (`/notices/admin`), click **Manage
Notice Templates** to see every template for your school, sorted alphabetically. Click a template's
name to edit it (Template Name, Notice Title, and Body — the same formatting editor Notices
themselves use), or add a new one. Deleting a template asks you to confirm once, the same as
deleting a notice on the web — it never affects any notice you already created from it; a template
is only ever a starting point, not a live link.

**Using a template:** on the **Add Notice** page, a **Template** dropdown sits above the Title
field — pick one by name to fill in the Title and Body. If you'd already typed a Title, picking a
template leaves it alone; if you'd already started writing a Body, you're asked to confirm before
it's replaced (so you can copy what you'd written first if you want to keep any of it). Everything
filled in from a template is still freely editable before you publish.

**SwiftUI app:** admins see a second button next to **+** on the Notices tab (a small document
icon) that opens **Notice Templates** — the same create/edit workflow as the web; deleting a
template there asks you to confirm twice (swipe, then confirm), matching how deleting a notice
already works in the SwiftUI app specifically — a stronger confirmation than the web's single
prompt, since a swipe gesture is easier to trigger by accident than clicking a Delete button. On the
New Notice screen, a **Template** picker sits above the Title field, with the same "don't overwrite a
typed Title, confirm before overwriting a typed Body" behavior as the web.

**Pasting from Word or Google Docs** works: the text, bold/italic, headings, lists and links come
across, and the source document's fonts, colours and sizes are stripped so the notice matches the
rest of the app. A pasted table comes across as plain lines of text, because the editor has no
tables — if you need a real table or a complex layout, attach the spreadsheet or PDF to the notice
instead (see **Attachments**, above).