A notice is a short announcement. Creating one takes about 30 seconds for a simple message — longer if you’re adding attachments, targeting groups or setting up recurrence.
Starting a new notice
Go to Notices → New notice.
Fields
Content
- Title — the headline of the notice. Keep it short — Year 10 assembly cancelled is better than Important announcement regarding the Year 10 assembly today.
- Body — the details. Plain text is fine; rich formatting supported. Include who, what, when, where — anything readers need to act.
Dates
- Start date — when the notice appears.
- End date — when it stops appearing. For a one-day notice, both are today.
- Recurring — if the notice should appear on a pattern (every Monday, every weekday). See Recurring notices below.
Audience
- Target groups — who sees the notice. See Targeting notices to groups for the full options.
If no group is set, the notice appears to all staff at the school.
Attachments
- Files — attach PDFs, images, anything else relevant. Multiple attachments per notice.
Recurring notices
For notices that repeat on a regular pattern (Year 7 assembly every Monday at 11 am, Staff briefing every Wednesday morning):
- Tick Recurring.
- Set the recurrence rule — weekly on specific days, or a custom pattern.
- Set the recurrence end date.
PortalHQ generates a notice occurrence for every matching day. Each occurrence is independent — you can edit or delete individual occurrences without affecting the rest.
Saving and publishing
Notices are published immediately on save. There’s no draft state — if it’s saved, it’s live within the date range.
To work on a notice without publishing, set the start date to a future date. The notice is created but not visible until that date arrives.
Editing a notice
- Edit the parent notice — changes apply to all occurrences (past and future).
- Edit a single occurrence — changes apply to just that day.
- Delete a single occurrence — removes that day without affecting the rest.
Use single-occurrence edits sparingly — a parent-level change is usually cleaner.
Deleting a notice
- Delete — removes the notice and all its occurrences. Use for notices created in error or that are no longer relevant.
What makes a good notice
- Short title. Most staff scan the today’s-notices list — a punchy title gets read.
- Concrete details. Year 10 assembly cancelled today due to teacher illness. Will reschedule for Tuesday. — better than Year 10 assembly issue, please discuss with department head.
- Right audience. A notice for the maths department doesn’t need to go to the cleaners. Use targeting.
- Realistic end date. A notice for today should end today. Hanging notices around past their usefulness clutters the daily view.
- Use attachments for detail. If the notice references a complex schedule or document, attach it rather than pasting into the body.
Tips
- Post early. Notices for today are most useful if posted before staff arrive. Set up the digest to fire at 7 am with overnight-added notices.
- Use recurrence for true recurrences. Every Monday yes; every day this week — probably better as four separate notices unless the content is genuinely identical.
- Don’t reuse notices for unrelated content. A notice about a Year 7 event shouldn’t have its title changed mid-cycle to be about Year 10. The audit trail gets confusing.