Send a news message or targeted message

News and targeted messages allow you to communicate directly with app users and event attendees through in-app feeds and push notifications. You can broadcast announcements to your entire audience or narrow your reach to specific groups, supporting timely updates across both single-event and multi-event applications.

Before drafting your message, consider where you want it to appear and who needs to see it. If you manage a multi-level app, messages can be published across two distinct levels:

Society or Community Level (App-wide): Messages appear in the primary society news feed year-round. These are ideal for general updates, upcoming event teasers, or membership announcements that apply to your broader community.
Event Level: Messages appear exclusively within a specific event news feed. You can use these for venue changes, daily schedules, or session updates relevant only to event attendees.

Within either level, you can choose between two message types (two types of message distribution options):

News Messages (Sent to Everyone): Visible to all users who have access to the app or event.
Targeted Messages: Restricted to specific groups or users with a matching country selected in their profile. Only the selected audience will see the message in their feed or receive associated push notifications.

If you manage a single event app, you can only send event messages. Targeted messages build their receiver list at the exact moment of sending or scheduling, meaning users added to a group after a message is scheduled or sent will not retroactively receive it.

News messages

App news messages appear in the news tile on the main society screen. Push notifications are delivered to everyone who have opened or installed the event app and enabled push notification permissions in their mobile device settings.

Attendees can further control their news messages on their news feed in the event app by toggling on and off, see the notification settings article.

Targeted messages to a group or country

Targeted messages are sent exclusively to a designated group within your community or attendee list, or to users with a specific country selected in their profile. The post appears only in the feed of selected users, and only those individuals receive the associated push notification.

When sending a targeted message from the app level, only users within the selected groups will receive the push notification and see the message in their society news feed.
When sending a targeted message from the event level, only users within the selected groups who have installed the event will receive the push notification and see the message in their event news feed.

Remember that targeted messages apply only to users who are active group members at the time of scheduling or sending.

To learn how to add users to groups, read this article.

Message overview

You can review all active, scheduled, and past communications on the main News page. This central overview helps you track message performance and audit recipient settings.

Filter the message list by Receivers (Everyone or Selected groups) or by Status (Scheduled or Sent).
Sort messages in ascending or descending order by send date, expiration date, or message title.
Use the search bar at the top right to locate specific past announcements quickly.

Send a message

👉 To send a message, navigate to the News page using the side navigation menu and click the Add message button at the top right to open the message wizard.

Step 1: choose receivers

In this step, select whether you want to broadcast a general news message or a restricted targeted message.

Select Everyone to send a general news message.
Select Selected groups or country to send a targeted message.
For targeted messages, select your target groups or country from the options provided.
When choosing multiple groups, select Member of any group to reach anyone in at least one group, or Member of all groups to target users who belong to every selected group.

Step 2: Add message content

Here you can provide the core content and visual elements for your message.

- Subject: The subject serves as the headline in the news feed and as text for push notifications. Keep push notification titles under 30 characters so the full subject displays on lock screens without truncation, though up to 75 characters will show inside the app feed.

Caution: If you are sending a push notification, keep the Subject title under 30 characters, otherwise it will be cut off!

See the example below of the warnings and how the push notification looks like when going over the character limit:

- Send push notification: Check the Send push notification box to send an instant mobile alert alongside the news post. Use push notifications selectively to avoid messaging fatigue and prevent users from disabling app permissions. Push notifications cannot be scheduled more than 30 days in advance.
- Banner: Add an optional image or video banner above your message body. Use landscape orientation for images so they scale properly without covering the entire screen height, or enter a YouTube or Vimeo URL to embed a video. Click the trashcan icon to remove an uploaded image.
- Text: Format your message body using
  standard options like bold, italics, underline, lists, and tables. Web links open in an in-app view by default. To connect text to an external browser, simply select the text and you can connect the message to a URL, object within the app, or a page within the app.

Please note that you cannot send push notifications more than 30 days in advance. A warning is shown when you try to do so.

To support push notifications on the mobile app and browser notifications on the web app, the correct push notification keys have to be filled in in the app settings and when building the mobile app.

Click the Preview button to see what the news message will look like when opened in the news feed section of the app.

Step 3: Choose date and time

Determine when your message should go live and how long it remains visible.

Send date: Choose Now to publish immediately, or choose Select a date to pick a future broadcast time.
Expiration date: Toggle Add expiration date to set a automatic removal date and time. Once reached, the message hides from the app feed, which is useful for temporary alerts like last minute room changes or lost and found posts.
Timezone: Select whether the chosen date and time follow the event timezone or your local computer timezone.

Click the Send message or Schedule message button to finalize. Sent messages display a green checkmark icon, while scheduled posts display a clock icon alongside their execution date.

Import news messages from a spreadsheet

You can draft and upload multiple announcements at once using an Excel template, which is ideal for scheduling a full schedule of daily event updates in advance.

Click Import and select Download template on the main News page.
Populate the template columns with your subject lines, body text, and schedule dates, verifying the correct timezone reference.
Return to the menu and select Import, then choose Import from Excel sheet to upload your file.

The platform verifies your data before completing the import. You must manually upload banner images and toggle push notification settings individually for imported drafts.

Manage existing messages and edit or delete messages

You can manage published and upcoming announcements from the primary News dashboard. Hover over any message row and click the ellipsis icon (...) to open management options:

View Receivers: Review the full recipient list for targeted messages. Use the search box at the bottom left to check if a specific attendee or email address received the post.
Edit your news message: Modify body text or correct typos in active posts. System-locked parameters, such as target audience groups or push notification settings on sent messages, cannot be changed.
Delete your news message: You can remove the message permanently from user feeds and cancel any pending push notifications or scheduled distributions.

⚙️ Troubleshooting

Push notification text is cut off on mobile devices: Keep your subject line under 30 characters when enabling push notifications. Longer subject lines remain fully readable inside the app news feed, but lock screens cut off longer titles.
New group members did not receive a scheduled message: Targeted messages compile recipient lists at the exact time of creation or scheduling. Users added to a group after a message is scheduled must be sent a new message manually.
Push notification fails to send or schedule: Verify that your scheduled date is within 30 days of creation. Ensure push notification keys are configured under your core app settings and mobile build configuration. Unsure if they are configured? Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.