Communications FAQ
Answers to common setup and operating questions about Communications.
For what the app is and how to set it up from scratch, see the
Communications Overview.
Setup
Do I need to enable Newsletters separately, or do they come with the app?
Yes. Newsletters are off by default. Go to your Communications settings and turn on Enable Newsletters. Until you do, the Publications and Issues surfaces are hidden and the sidebar shows no Newsletters tab.
Which features are on by default and which need to be turned on?
The Calendar, Idea Bank, Campaigns, Audiences, Analytics, AI Writer, Brand Voices, Comms Grader, and the read-only AI help agent are all on by default. Newsletters, Approval Workflows, Comms Triggers, LinkedIn cross-post, the admin AI agent (drafting), and most signal-extraction and AI features (auto-topic, discussion summarization, poll summarization, expert identification, reader translation) are off by default and must be turned on in settings.
Permissions and access
Who can post Announcements and Must-Reads?
The Who can post Announcements & Must-Reads setting controls both tiers in the composer. The options are Off (removes both tiers for everyone, including admins), Admins only, Admins and leadership, or Admins, leadership, and managers. The default is Admins and leadership. Leadership is a job-title property, not the manager role — a manager without a leadership designation is not included under Admins and leadership.
Who can post to Everyone?
The Who can post to Everyone setting has three options: Admins only, Admins and leadership (the default), or Anyone. Users who can send break-throughs always have the Everyone option regardless of this setting.
Who can manage Audiences, send Newsletter issues, and access Comms Analytics?
Audience administration and newsletter sending require the publish communications capability — by default that means admins and Communications app-admins. Comms Analytics and Triggers are admin-only. The Calendar, Idea Bank, and Campaigns are visible to all users who have access to the app; creating an Annual Plan is admin-only.
Why can’t an employee see the Communications app at all?
Three things must be true: the Communications licence is enabled for the tenant, the app is accessible to the employee through your Access Management rules (visibility rules, work-context gates), and the employee is not excluded by a location or shift scope. Check all three if someone reports the app is missing.
Day-to-day
Can I edit a post after it’s published?
Yes, at any time. The author and Communications admins can edit a published post, and it shows [edited] afterwards. One exception: once people have acknowledged a post, it is locked and nobody can edit it, because those acknowledgements apply to the exact words. Comments can be edited for 15 minutes after posting. An admin can turn editing off for everyone with Allow editing posts, polls, questions & comments in settings.
How do I feature a notice for a limited time?
On a published post, open Post actions → Feature notice. Choose the start and end, set its order among featured notices, and optionally narrow it to an existing audience. Preview audience shows the readers who match both that audience and the post’s current visibility. Save to schedule it; return to the same editor and choose Stop featuring to end it early.
Admins, Communications app-admins, and communicators with permission covering the post’s audience can feature notices. Active notices lead All Posts, and lead within each section on the mobile landing page. Readers see a Featured label and expiry. Featuring does not send an alert, create an acknowledgment requirement, or change anyone’s personal pins. Withdrawing or deleting the source post ends its feature.
What happens when I publish a Must-Read?
The post is published, a recipient snapshot is frozen immediately, and an expiry date is set (default 30 days — configurable to 7, 14, 30, 60, or 90 days). Each recipient sees an acknowledge button. Automated reminders are sent at 24 hours and 48 hours after publish (gated on the Automated acknowledgement reminders setting, on by default). Reminders are held to an 8 AM–8 PM local delivery window so nobody gets a reminder notification at 3 AM. Social-category posts cannot be made Must-Read — only Operational posts can.
How do break-through acknowledgement reminders work?
Break-through reminders use a separate setting on the broadcast side: frequency (every 2, 4, 8, 24, or 48 hours — default 24) and a maximum count (0–10 — default 3). When manager escalation is enabled, unacknowledged Must-Reads escalate to each employee’s manager after a configurable window (24, 48, 72, 96, or 168 hours — default 72).
What happens if my audience resolves to nobody when I hit Publish?
The publish is refused. The message stays editable and tells you which audience needs attention. This applies to feed posts, break-throughs, scheduled sends, recurring sends, newsletter issues, and the API. A message is never reported as delivered when nobody received it.
What is the “In context” tier, and where does the message actually show up?
A placed message appears inside an operational screen instead of a channel: on the shift a person is about to work (below the shift facts), on the Time & Attendance screen right after they clock in, or on their Benefits page beside the enrollment window. It shows only to people in the audience whose screen qualifies — the shift’s date and site fall inside the placement’s window and sites, the punch is open, or an enrollment window is open (unless you untick that). It does not land in Inbox, push, email or the feed unless you tick Also notify people. The reader can dismiss it; if you required acknowledgement, acknowledging removes it and writes the same acknowledgement record a must-read does.
Can a Break-through also be placed on a shift?
Yes. The Break-through tier carries an optional Where else it appears card. It defaults to “Nowhere else — just deliver it”; pick a slot and the placement rides alongside the normal delivery — nothing about the broadcast gets quieter.
Who can place a message?
Anyone who can create broadcasts (the same permission that gates the Break-through tier). A site-level communicator books by holding that permission; their audience scoping applies as usual, and the placement’s site narrowing only narrows further.
Why don’t I see the “Shift card” slot in the composer?
It is off by default. The shift list is the schedule, and a marker on every card would read as a banner, so an admin has to switch it on deliberately under Settings → Modules → Placement slots. Once on, it offers a title-only line on qualifying shift cards in the Shifts list and the My Shifts calendar; tapping the shift opens the full message.
What does “Shown in context” count in Measure?
People, not page loads. A person counts once per day when the surface actually rendered the card for them — a worker who reloads their shift ten times is one. Opened, Dismissed and Acknowledged are counted the same way, and the median time to acknowledge runs from the first time the card was shown to the acknowledgement. Placement counts are separate from a broadcast’s Views (Views = opened the message itself); the broadcast page shows both side by side.
Can the AI send or publish on its own?
No. Every AI capability in Communications produces a draft. The AI Writer, Comms Grader, channel-native copy, newsletter drafter, and the admin AI assistant all stop at a draft. A person must explicitly confirm before anything is published or sent. There is no setting that enables autonomous publishing.
When something looks wrong
“I changed my audience after publishing, but the acknowledgement roster didn’t update”
That is expected. The recipient list is frozen as a snapshot at publish time. Changing the audience definition after publish does not add or remove anyone from the compliance roster. This is deliberate — it keeps the audit trail stable. If you need to reach additional people, publish a new Must-Read to the updated audience.
“My poll closed earlier than I expected” or “My poll never closes”
Poll duration is set at creation time and accepts 1–30 days (default 7). You can also choose Never to keep a poll open indefinitely. Once published, the close date cannot be changed. If a poll closed sooner than expected, check the duration that was set when it was created.
“Employees say they aren’t getting break-through SMS or voice calls”
Check three things in order: (1) SMS and voice channels must be enabled on the break-through itself, (2) the message must be marked Critical — non-critical break-throughs default to in-app, email, and push only, and (3) for SMS specifically, the employee’s phone number must be verified. Voice delivery does not require phone verification. Critical break-throughs bypass user quiet hours; non-critical ones respect them. Only admins and Communications app-admins can mark a break-through as critical.
“I placed a message but the person says it isn’t on their shift”
Check four things in order: (1) the person is in the audience — a placement follows the broadcast’s recipient snapshot, so someone added to a group after you pressed Place it is not in it; (2) the shift falls inside the placement’s From / Until window and, if you narrowed to sites, at one of those sites (a region includes every site under it); (3) the slot is switched on under Settings → Modules → Placement slots, and the slot’s app is turned on for the organisation; (4) they have not already dismissed it — Dismiss is per person and permanent for that message. The broadcast’s own page shows “Placed on …” with the slot, the window and how many people have seen it in context.
“The approval workflow isn’t blocking my post from publishing”
Admins always bypass approval workflows — an admin can publish without workflow approval. If you want admins to go through the workflow, that is not currently supported. Also confirm the workflow is set to Active and that its Applies to checkboxes cover the surface you’re testing (feed announcements, feed must-reads, newsletter issues, or broadcasts are each separate).
“A triggered communication didn’t fire for some employees”
Triggered communications are suppressed in four situations: the trigger is disabled, the per-trigger throttle has not elapsed since the last firing for that recipient, the current time falls inside the trigger’s quiet hours, or the firing time falls inside a PTO blackout period and blackout respect is on. Each firing records a status — check the trigger’s firing history to see the suppression reason.
“The Experts tab is empty even though people are answering questions”
Expert identification must be turned on separately — enable Expert (SME) identification in settings. The weekly scoring job will not run until this is on, so the Experts leaderboard stays empty regardless of how many answers have been given. After enabling, allow one weekly cycle for scores to populate.
“A scheduled newsletter issue didn’t send”
If a scheduled issue’s send time passes and it is not sent within 24 hours (due to a worker outage or transient failure), the issue is reverted to draft and the publication owner is notified. Check whether the issue landed back in draft status. Also confirm the issue’s audience still resolves to at least one person with an email address — an email-only publication with no reachable recipients is refused.
Licensing and limits
Does Communications require a licence?
Yes. Communications is a licensed marketplace app, disabled by default. An administrator enables it per tenant from the Apps Marketplace.
Are there limits I should know about?
| What | Limit |
|---|---|
| Media attachments per post | 10 |
| Image file size (JPEG, PNG, WebP, HEIC/HEIF) | 100 MB |
| GIF file size | 100 MB |
| Video file size (MP4, MOV, WebM) | 500 MB |
| Document file size (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, CSV, plain text) | 50 MB |
| Post edit window | Any time, until people acknowledge the post |
| Comment edit window | 15 minutes (fixed) |
| Poll duration | 1 hour to 30 days (or never auto-close) |
| Reaction palette | 2–12 active emojis from a 14-emoji catalog |
| Voice recording length | 1, 2, 3, or 5 minutes (default 3) |
| Brand Voice training samples | 3–10 samples, 50–5,000 words each, minimum 300 words total |
| Newsletter block types | 6 static (text, image, divider, hero, callout, button) + 8 dynamic |
| Must-Read default expiry | 7, 14, 30, 60, or 90 days (default 30) |
| Break-through reminder frequency | Every 2, 4, 8, 24, or 48 hours (default 24) |
| Break-through max reminders | 0–10 (default 3) |
| Discussion auto-close | 7, 14, 30, 60, or 90 days after last activity (default 30, off by default) |
| Broadcast auto-archive | 1, 2, 4, 8, or 12 weeks (default 1) |
| A/B variant split | Percentage per variant, must sum to 100 across all variants |
| Audience fatigue lookback | Configurable window in days (default 7), warn threshold (default 3 sends) |
More help
- Communications Overview
- Ask AI — the assistant answers Communications questions from these articles.