Announcements
Post a notice to owners and the council, email it out, print the poster, and keep a searchable record of what was communicated and when.
Announcements is how the council talks to the building.
Write it once, and it appears in every owner's portal and — when you choose to notify — in their inbox, using your corporation's branding.
Posting one
Write it
A clear subject line and the body. Assume it's read on a phone, in a hurry. The editor has the same formatting toolbar as the minutes — bold, lists, headings — and what you format is what appears on the poster, in the email and in the portal.
Notify owners by email
Sends it to the addresses on your roster. Skip this for something purely informational that can wait to be found.
The notice is the poster
Opening a notice shows the printable sheet itself, on your corporation's letterhead, with Print above it. There isn't a web version and a print version that can drift apart — a resident who read the sheet by the elevator on Tuesday recognises the same object in the portal on Wednesday, and scanning the QR code on it lands them exactly there.
A notice addressed to the council prints as a Council Notice rather than as a notice to residents.
The notice board
The board is a wall of posters, newest first, and both the council and owners read the same one. Each card carries the notice's headline and a lead — the first lines, not the whole thing — so distributing a set of minutes doesn't bury every notice under it.
Narrow it with:
- Search — matches the body as well as the title. The word someone remembers is usually in the message ("Thursday", "parkade", "riser"), not in the subject line.
- Date — a preset period or a calendar year the corporation actually posted in.
- Audience — everyone, owners, or council-only. Council-only, because owners are never shown notices addressed to the council.
- Sort — newest, oldest, or title A–Z.
The filters are in the URL, so a narrowed board can be sent to another council member as a link. They're the same controls, doing the same thing, as the document library's.
What to announce
Anything that disrupts the building. Water shut off, elevator out, parkade closed, scaffolding going up. Give dates and times, and say what people need to do.
Anything that costs owners money. A fee increase, a levy, a change to payment arrangements. Explain the reason — owners forgive an explained increase and escalate an unexplained one.
Decisions that affect people. A bylaw change, a new rule, a policy on short-term rentals.
Reassurance during something visible. Work under way, a known problem being dealt with. Silence during visible disruption is what generates the complaints.
Announce before, not after
Almost every angry email a council receives is about something the owner found out too late. A two-line announcement the week before costs nothing and prevents most of them.
What an announcement isn't
An announcement is not meeting notice
Statutory notice of a general meeting must go through Send notice from the meeting itself, which calculates the notice period and records what was sent to whom. An announcement carries none of that. Use both if you like — the announcement as a heads-up, the notice as the legal act — but never the announcement alone.
It's also not the place for anything about an individual owner. Arrears, a dispute, a complaint, an enforcement action — those go direct to the person concerned. Naming an owner in a building-wide notice is a privacy problem and, in some circumstances, worse.
Writing well
Lead with the point. "The water will be off on Tuesday 14 May from 9am to 2pm" first; the explanation second.
Give dates, times and specifics. "Soon", "shortly" and "in the coming weeks" generate exactly the questions the announcement was meant to prevent.
Say what people need to do. Fill a jug. Move your car. Nothing — say that too.
Say who to contact. And be honest about response times.
Keep it short. Three paragraphs read is worth more than ten skimmed.
A workable template
Water shut-off — Tuesday 14 May, 9am to 2pm
The domestic water will be off building-wide while the contractor replaces a valve on the main riser.
What to do: fill a jug for drinking and cooking the night before. Don't run dishwashers or laundry during the shut-off.
If it overruns we'll post an update here and by email by 2pm.
Questions: council@example.com
Owners' view
Announcements appear under Announcements in the owner portal, on the same board with the same search and date filters, and stay there. An owner who's been away can catch up, and "what did they say about the elevator in March" is a search rather than a scroll.
The most recent notices are also on the owner's overview when they sign in, above their own tools — the same poster, in a third place, rather than a third design of it.
If an owner says they're not getting emails, check the address on their roster record — that's nearly always it.
Why it's worth keeping the record
Announcements are a dated record of what the council communicated. That matters more than it seems:
- When someone says "we were never told", there's an answer.
- A new council can see what the building has been told.
- In a dispute, a pattern of clear, timely communication is evidence of a council doing its job.
Related
Still stuck? Open Support in the top bar of the app, ask the Assistant, or contact us.