Announcements: the notice board with proof

What an announcement is

It used to hang in the corridor: “New closing times from Monday.” — “Please document the cold chain.” — “Safety instruction, please read and sign.” The notice board had one advantage WhatsApp never had: everyone knew it was binding. And one disadvantage: nobody knew whether anyone had read it.

Announcements in Zeitflex are this board with proof. They go in one direction — there are no replies here. The owner and the shift manager may write them; all staff of the business may read them. The tax adviser never sees an announcement, not even with “To everyone”: their access is meant for payroll data, not for internal business matters.

The module is included in every plan and switched on from the start in every new business. If you do not want it, switch it off under Settings → Business → Modules. Announcements appear in the browser under Announcements and in the mobile app in the screen of the same name.

Writing an announcement

1. On the left, open Announcements and choose Write announcement.
2. Enter Title (3 to 120 characters) and Text (3 to 4,000 characters).
3. Who should see this? — choose one of the four audiences (see below).
4. Tick if needed: Important, Read receipt, Pin to top.
5. Set Valid until (optional) if the announcement has an expiry date — for example the request for vacation wishes by the 15th.
6. Send — or Save as draft if something is still missing.

Drafts are only seen by the person who wrote them and by management. Zeitflex does know an announcement with a publication date in the future (“Scheduled”), but the web interface currently has no field for it: a draft appears as soon as you publish it.

In the feed, pinned announcements are at the very top (the house rules before the news), below them the important ones, then the newest first. After its expiry date, an announcement disappears from the feed by itself.

Four audiences

A maximum of 100 targets is possible per announcement — more than that is really “to everyone”.

With By project you do not maintain a list. Zeitflex derives membership from the time entries of the last 90 days and the planned shifts. A hand-maintained second list would be out of date on day one. Anyone who clocks in to the North building site or is scheduled there sees the announcement “North building site only” — anyone who has been working elsewhere for a quarter of a year no longer does.

What “Important” triggers

Only an announcement marked as Important triggers a notification: a push notification to the phone (“Important: …” with the first 160 characters) and an email to everyone who has stored an address. Everything else simply appears in the feed.

The reason for this restraint: a business that gets a push for every message switches notifications off after a week. After that, even the message that really matters no longer reaches it — “The trade inspectorate is coming tomorrow”.

In addition, an unread important announcement appears in the browser as a banner on the dashboard until it is marked as read. The mobile app shows it in the Announcements screen; there is currently no banner when clocking in there.

The read receipt: proof, not statistics

The read receipt can be chosen per announcement. Without it, the button below the announcement is Mark as read; with it, the button is Read and understood. In both cases Zeitflex stores who clicked when. A second click changes nothing — the first date remains, because exactly this date is the proof.

Who sees the list:

Other people's read status would be information about colleagues' behaviour — under Art. 5 (1)(c) GDPR neither necessary nor desirable.

The rate counts against the recipients, not the whole workforce. An announcement to the kitchen with five people shows “3 of 5 read”, not “3 of 27”.

Why there is no reply function

Below an announcement there is no reply field, no reactions, no comments — and it will stay that way. A return channel would turn the notice board into a communication facility subject to co-determination, and the business into a moderator. Above all, it would dilute the proof: an instruction with 14 comments below it is no longer a notice.

For a quick follow-up question — “Does this also apply to the late shift?” — there is the team chat. For suggestions and criticism from below there is the feedback page.

Archive instead of delete

An announcement cannot be deleted, only archived. An instruction with its read receipts is proof the business will need later — if the text disappears, the confirmation below it is worthless.

• Archive removes the announcement from the feed and unpins it.
• The person who wrote it and management see the archive via the Archive filter; the original audience applies there too.
• Restore puts the announcement back into the feed.
• Only the owner may archive or change someone else's announcement.

Announcement or chat?

In short: announcement = proof, one direction, stays. Chat = quick shout, fleeting, no proof.

Still stuck?

If an announcement appears for the wrong people or the read receipt is missing, Support can help. What belongs in the chat is explained under Team chat; what the works council has a say in when it is introduced, under Works council and co-determination.