You can use Operoo’s News feature to send announcements, event notifications, school news items, reminders, newsletters, class or team information, and much more! It’s a great alternative to using email, text messages or other messaging applications.

Creating and Sharing a News Article as an Administrator

To create a News Article, go to the menu item on the left-hand side of Operoo:

Here you will see any previous News Articles you have created. To create a new one, click Add News Article:

On the first screen, you will create the content of your News Article and decide when to share it.

To create the content of your News Article, follow these steps:

1. For the Sender logo, choose either your own staff image, your organisation's logo or a new image

2. Give your News article a title

3. Write or copy/paste the content. Note that you can upload photos, add links, or whatever you'd like.

4. Optionally you can also add attachments.

If you'd like to share your article in the future, choose a Publish Date. If unchecked, it will share immediately after you Preview and Send it.

If you'd like to archive your article after it's no longer relevant, choose an Archive Date. If unchecked, it will continue to be visible in the Newsfeed of whoever you shared it with.

When you're happy with your content and when you'd like to share your article, click Save & Next to be taken to the next step.

In the Preview tab, you can Preview the News Article and see how it will look to your users. If you’re satisfied, click Next. If you want to make changes, click Back.

The next step is choosing who you’d like to have access to this News Article. You do that by selecting groups of Parents or Staff members. If you have Community Edition, you’ll only see Parents and Staff, but if you’re using Group Edition, you’ll also be able to send to Students (if they have accounts).

In Community Edition, if a profile is shared with another member, that member will also be notified and have access to the News Article.

Please note that unlike other aspects of Operoo, the groups are not dynamic here and it will send to the students/parents or staff members in the chosen group(s) on the day you create the News Article.

The final step is to send the article. You can decide if you’d like notifications to go out as well, or you’d prefer to just have it appear in the Newsfeed and Operoo Central for the user.

It is recommended to send notifications to ensure your news article is seen promptly.

You’ll be asked to confirm and will be shown the date at which it will send. Click Confirm and you’ve scheduled the News Article or made it available immediately (based on your selection).

Archiving a News Article

If a News Article is Archived, it will no longer appear in the Newsfeed for Students, Parents, or Staff. However, the notifications cannot be “unsent” so keep that in mind.

You can either set News Articles to Auto-Archive when you create them, which can be helpful for a news item that is only relevant for a short amount of time, or you can use the action menu after the News Article is created.

To set a News Article to Auto-Archive on a specific date, check that option when creating your News Article and choose a date.

To archive a News Article after it has been sent, click the three bars for the action menu and select Archive.

To view your previously archived articles, click “Show Archived”

You’ll notice that none of the articles in the Archive are visible currently and they are shared with 0 users. You also can see that some are archived on their automatic archive date.

Allowing Staff Members to Create News Articles

To Allow Staff members to create their own News Articles, enable the permission on the Settings page. Don’t worry, staff will only be allowed to send to Parents or Students that they have access to via their groups, so permissions are still respected here. For example, a teacher could not send a News Article to the whole school, unless they had permission to the whole school.