[Announcements] Add Save & Publish button to Annoucements

To make behavior in Announcements consistent with all other tools in Canvas, there should be a Save & Publish button added. The Save button could then act like a 'Save Draft' feature, as it is in all other tools. There has been much confusion for our instructors because they expect the Save button to work the way it does in all other tools, saving their work but not publishing it. They don't expect it to post the announcement and send notification. Instructors have also expressed the need to save an announcement as they work (sometimes their announcements are very long) and the ability to preview how it looks before sending. That's why I think a 'Save & Publish' is a better choice than just changing the Save button to a Send button.
33 Comments
cdoherty
Community Participant
Author

Allison,

I'm curious for a follow-up on why this is so difficult. The Announcements tool appears to be a tweaked version of the Discussions tool, which has a Save and a Save and Publish button. Why can the Discussions tool have a draft state, but not Announcements?

cward
Instructure Alumni
Instructure Alumni

We're still looking into this one, and I'm waiting for a response from our engineering team.

Chris

trichard
Community Novice

Any update on the status of this button? It would be a useful change for our use of the platform.

tchilt
Community Participant

I would also like to hear a status update. We've had requests for this as well.

britain_woodman
Community Participant

And another one just today! They remind me that Sakai let you write and save drafts of announcements, too.

alexandra_mulli
Community Novice

This would be an extremely useful tool for my team here at Sydney Uni. Being able to test links, view formatting, fix image errors and such prior to the announcement being emailed out to the busy medical practitioners we work with would be a life saver. It would also enable us to pre-write announcements and have them waiting to be 'published'.

Renee_Carney
Community Team
Community Team

The Radar idea stage has been removed from the Feature Idea Process.  You can read more about why in the blog post Adaptation: Feature Idea Process Changes.

 

This change will only impact the stage sort of this idea and will not change how it is voted on or how it is considered during prioritization activities.  This change will streamline the list of ideas 'open for voting', making it easier for you to see the true top voted ideas in one sort, here.

ryan_jackson
Community Novice

This would be a very helpful feature. I essentially use the same announcements every semester. It is very tedious to go through and copy and paste each one and/or rewrite them. PLEASE install this feature!!!!

annelies_verdoo
Community Novice

Any updates on this matter? I can't believe that this suggestion has been under consideration since 2015, as it seems such a logical and necessary improvement? As a teacher you often want to make a draft of your announcement before publishing it (e.g. because you are still waiting for some information from the administration  to complete it, or because you want to check the formatting before sending it to all students). I know that there is a function to postpone the publishing of the message, but it still would be a great improvement if two options could be installed for the anouncements (as there are for all pages and modules): 'save' and 'save and publish'.  

Meanwhile 'accidents' can be avoided, by changing the 'save' buttons name to 'publish', just to draw attention to the fact that your announcement is immediately sent as soon as you hit the save-button. 

josephclaytonha
Community Member

Is there any progress on this? It does seem like a simple bug fix- if it is too complicated to implement soon, is there any kind of timeline for when it might happen? I agree with the comment that says this is a bug, not a feature request.