Comms Hub App Overview

Apps Getting Started Updated May 06, 2026 192 views

Comms Hub App Overview

The internal-communications operating layer for MangoApps Workforce. One calendar replaces the patchwork of newsletter tools, broadcast surfaces, trigger plumbing, and idea spreadsheets that comms teams stitch together today.

What is Comms Hub?

Comms Hub is the platform-tier marketplace app that brings every internal-communications surface into one product. Newsletters (Publications + Issues), multi-touch Campaigns, event-driven Triggers, the Idea Bank, the Annual Plan, the AI Writer, Brand Voices, Audiences, Approval Workflows, the Comms Effectiveness Grader, and a unified Calendar — all under one license, with one set of admin controls.

Who it’s for: internal-communications teams, HR, and people leaders who need to plan, draft, route, deliver, and measure employee comms without bouncing between five disconnected tools.

Pricing: per-employee, single SKU. License-required and disabled by default — admins opt in from the Apps Marketplace.

At a Glance

📅 Calendar Surfaces	📰 Newsletters	🤖 AI Tools	🎯 Audiences	📊 Analytics
Annual Plan + day-to-day Calendar	Publications + Issues	Writer, Brand Voices, Grader, Audience Builder	Composition over recipient groups	Open + click + archive views

Perfect For:

Internal communications leads running 1–10-person comms teams
HR teams who own onboarding, benefits, and policy comms
People leaders who need to broadcast organizational change
Tenants standardizing on a single source of truth for comms

The 8 Core Surfaces

1. Calendar

The unified Comms Calendar at /apps/comms-hub shows every scheduled comm — newsletter issues, triggered emails, campaign touches, and Annual Plan slots — on one drag-able timeline. Filter by audience, channel, or status.

2. Annual Plan

A 12-month strategic editorial calendar. Choose preset bundles (US Core HR, Safety, Engagement, Open Enrollment, etc.) or start blank. Slots can be promoted into draftable Ideas when you’re ready to act on them. Backed by the same WorkforceBots::CommsCalendar shape used in the free Comms Planner — but tenant-scoped, so rows never expire.

3. Idea Bank

Capture comm topics before scheduling. Each Idea has a status (open / promoted / parked / discarded), source (manual or AI-suggested), proposed channel, and proposed audience. Promote an Idea to a Campaign or to a CommsItem when ready. The AI Planning Assistant generates fresh suggestions based on the calendar’s gaps.

4. Publications & Issues (Newsletters)

A Publication is a newsletter parent — name, slug, default audience, default block template, and channel toggles (email / in-app / public archive). Each Publication owns a stream of Issues, individual dated drops with their own composer.

The block-based composer supports:

Static blocks: text, button, callout, divider, hero
Image blocks: with AI hero-image generation
Dynamic blocks: open shifts, new hires, recognitions, course completions, top news posts, upcoming events, recent sites, pulse results

Issues progress through a lifecycle: draft → in_review → scheduled → sent → archived (plus rejected from in_review). When an Issue moves to scheduled or sent, every Block’s content is frozen — so changes to dynamic data after delivery never alter what subscribers received.

The public archive can be opted in per-Publication: every sent Issue gets a permanent URL at /pub/<publication-slug>/<issue-slug>. Anonymous opens feed analytics.

5. AI Writer + Brand Voices

The Writer generates drafts (/apps/comms-hub/writer) for any comm type — generate from a goal, rewrite a passage, or transform tone. Tenant-scoped Brand Voices train on 3–10 sample documents (50–5000 words each) so output sounds like your company, not like a generic LLM.

Brand Voice lifecycle: create profile → add samples → click Analyze → the profile flips to ready and shows extracted style characteristics. The Writer dropdown lists ready voices.

The Writer also powers two block-level helpers in the composer: AI rewrite of a single block and AI whole-issue draft from a one-line goal.

6. Audiences

The shared targeting primitive — used by Newsletters, Campaigns, and Triggers. Two persistence shapes coexist:

Composition (preferred, Wave 5.1+): references existing platform recipient groups and composes them with set ops:
- wrap: single group as-is
- and: intersection of multiple groups
- or: union of multiple groups
- Optional refinement: filter the result by role
Definition (legacy Wave 2): self-contained rule shape — all, departments, locations, roles, users, on_shift_at_location, within_radius

The AI Audience Builder translates natural-language descriptions (“everyone on the engineering team in California”) into composition previews you can review and save.

Member counts are cached and refreshed on definition change.

7. Campaigns + Approval Workflows

Campaigns group multiple CommsItems under a single multi-touch initiative — useful for benefits-enrollment season, change-management rollouts, or product launches. Each Campaign has a theme, KPI targets, kickoff date, and end date. Items can be detached if they outgrow the campaign.

Approval Workflows define the chain of reviewers a comm passes through before publishing. Each step names a reviewer role. The reviewer queue at /apps/comms-hub/approvals lists pending items; approvers approve or reject inline.

8. Triggers

Event-driven comms registry. Each trigger fires automatically on platform events (onboarding milestones, recognitions given, policy updates, course completions, etc.). Per-trigger controls:

Channels: email and/or in-app
Throttle: per-recipient minimum gap between firings (minutes)
Quiet hours: window during which firings are suppressed
Blackout respect: skip firings during platform-wide blackout periods

Suppressed firings are recorded with the suppression reason so you can see why a trigger was skipped without losing observability. Recent firing history is visible per trigger.

Analytics & Tracking

Issue-level analytics live at /apps/comms-hub/publications/:publication_id/issues/:id/analytics:

Opens: tracked via a 1×1 signed pixel embedded in email; recipient identification uses a signed u token (recipients can’t forge another recipient’s opens).
Clicks: tracked via a redirect through /comms-hub-track/click/:issue_id?url=...&u=.... Open redirector defenses prevent abuse.
Top-clicked URLs: grouped by URL with click counts.
Anonymous archive opens: when a recipient views the public archive, opens are recorded without user attribution.

CSV export from the analytics dashboard. App-wide analytics roll up at /apps/comms-hub/analytics.

Settings & Permissions

Module toggles (admin-configurable per business):

Calendar, Compose Picker, Idea Bank, Annual Plan, AI Writer, Brand Voices, Comms Grader, Publications, Campaigns, Audiences, Approval Workflows, Triggers, Translations, Analytics, Digital Signage Channel

Each toggle gates the corresponding tab and the runtime entry points.

Roles:

Members can read newsletters, view the Inbox, browse the public archive, and use the AI Writer (if enabled).
Authoring (publications, issues, audiences, campaigns), approvals, triggers, brand voices, and settings are admin-only by default.
Per-app admin role: delegate Comms Hub administration without granting global admin.

How Comms Hub Differs From External Tools

If you’re running newsletters out of Mailchimp / SendGrid / Beefree / etc.:

No contact-list sync: Audiences compose over real users + groups already in MangoApps.
Triggers fire on platform events: no webhooks to wire up.
Brand Voices train on your existing copy: the Writer sounds like your company, not like a generic model.
Public archive lives at your domain: no external newsletter URL; archive opens still feed your analytics.
One product per-employee billing: no separate seat licenses for the editorial tool, the audience tool, and the analytics tool.

If you’re running internal-comms ad-hoc through Slack/Email:

Audit trail: every issue, every approval step, every trigger firing is logged.
Frozen content at send time: what you sent is what’s in the archive — period.
Approval workflow without a JIRA ticket: drafts route through review without leaving the app.

Comms Hub composes well with:

Comms Planner (free, public-facing tool): use it to scope a year of work before deciding whether to license Comms Hub.
Internal Comms Grader: standalone scoring tool — folded into Comms Hub as the Comms Grader tab when both are licensed.
Workforce Bots: AI Writer’s Brand Voices use the same Writing Profile model.
Ask AI: the Comms Hub Agent answers questions about upcoming comms and (with confirmation) schedules CommsItems.

Getting Started

Admin opens /apps-marketplace, finds Comms Hub, and clicks Enable.
Open /apps/comms-hub/settings and review the module toggles. Off-by-default modules: Publications, Campaigns, Approval Workflows, Triggers, Translations, Analytics, Digital Signage Channel.
Open /apps/comms-hub to see the Calendar.
Click Settings → Load Demo Data to populate sample publications, audiences, issues, and ideas so the tabs aren’t empty while you’re learning.
Build your first Audience (/apps/comms-hub/audiences/new).
Build your first Publication (/apps/comms-hub/publications/new) and create an Issue.
Optionally: train a Brand Voice (/apps/comms-hub/brand_voices/new) so the AI Writer applies your tone.

For deeper how-tos see the related articles linked above.

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Article ID: comms_hub_app_overview

Comms Hub App Overview