Announcements are dated notices for your team — the parking lot is being paved, the board is visiting today, the lobby is closed for carpet. To manage them, go to Home → Announcements → Manage.
An announcement is attached to a date range and a location, not to a screen. That is what makes it more useful than a note written on the calendar: it finds the staff member wherever they are working.
On the Home dashboard. Every announcement that is Active and inside its start and end dates appears in the Announcements section for the whole team.
On the Scheduler. When Show on scheduler is checked, the announcement also shows as a banner on the scheduler for its location. Clear that box to make an announcement Home only.
On the appointment itself. This is the one most teams miss. CoolFocus matches announcements to an appointment's location and date and shows them on the appointment, so the person handling that client sees the notice in context.
That includes appointments opened from outside the Scheduler. In the Inbox, an advocate texting a client can open that client's upcoming appointment from the conversation and see the announcement without leaving the thread — from the client's upcoming appointments, from their scheduling history, or from an appointment reminder in the message list.
The practical effect: you write "the parking lot is being paved, have clients use the side door" once, and the advocate confirming an appointment by text sees it at the moment they would otherwise have given the client the wrong directions.
Announcements appear on the Home dashboard, the Scheduler banner, and the appointment. They do not appear on the client record itself.
Announcements are for things a team member needs to know on a given day at a given site:
• Parking lot is being paved — clients enter through the side door
• Board visit in the office today
• Lobby closed for carpet replacement; check in at the back desk
• Front door code changed this week
They are not the place for who is working — use staff schedules and the Scheduler Staff tab — or for stopping bookings, which is what an Availability Block or a date exception is for. See The Scheduler Is Client-Centric for the full picture.
The Announcements page separates notices into Active Announcements and Inactive Announcements. An active announcement appears on Home only while today's date is between its start and end dates.
1. Go to Home → Announcements → Manage announcements and click New Announcement.
2. Enter the announcement title.
3. Select its type: Info, Warning, or Alert.
4. Choose All Locations or one location, then set the start and end dates.
5. Keep Active checked if the announcement should appear on Home during that date range.
6. Keep Show on scheduler checked if it should also appear on the scheduler. Clear it to make the announcement Home only.
7. Optional: click + Add message and enter additional details.
8. Click Save.
New announcements default to today's date through one week from today. Review both dates before saving, especially when preparing an announcement in advance.
1. Go to Home → Announcements → Manage announcements.
2. Find the announcement under Active Announcements or Inactive Announcements, then click Edit.
3. In Edit announcement, update the title, type, location, start date, end date, or message.
4. Choose where and whether the announcement appears:
• Leave Active checked to publish it on Home during its start and end dates. Clear Active to hide it from Home without deleting it.
• Leave Show on scheduler checked to make it eligible for the scheduler banner. Clear it for a Home only announcement.
• Click Save.
To publish an inactive announcement again, edit it, check Active, confirm its start and end dates, and click Save.
Current limitation: You can change an existing message, but you cannot remove it completely by saving an empty message. You also cannot change a location-specific announcement back to All Locations. If you need either change, create a replacement announcement and make the old one inactive.
Check the following on Home → Announcements → Manage announcements:
• It is under Active Announcements, not Inactive Announcements.
• Today's date falls within its start and end dates. An active item can still be marked Upcoming or Expired.
• If it is missing only from the scheduler, edit it and check Show on scheduler. An item marked Home only is intentionally hidden from the scheduler.
• If it is intended for a particular location on the scheduler, confirm the selected location.
• If it is missing from an appointment, confirm the appointment's location and date fall inside the announcement's location and date range.
On the Announcements page, find the item and click Delete, then confirm Delete Announcement. Deleting is permanent and cannot be undone. If you may need the announcement again, edit it and clear Active instead.
Navigation note: When more than five announcements are active today, the Home action reads All N announcements (for example, All 6 announcements) instead of Manage announcements. Both actions open the same Announcements page.
• The Scheduler Is Client-Centric: What Belongs on the Calendar
• Getting Started with CoolFocus
