For everyone · written by Team Leaders and admins

Announcements

The academic board, in the portal instead of a Slack thread: what changed this week, what someone has to do, and where to find the things everybody keeps asking for. Everyone reads it. Team Leaders and admins write it, and walk their team through it in a meeting.

The two boards

Board	Who reads it
Tutor board	Everyone who signs in, including Campus Experience. Its heading reads This week.
Leaders' board	Anyone the org chart gives direct reports, every Head of Subject, and admins. Written for Team Leaders to relay.

Open Announcements in the header. If you can read both boards, a Tutor board / Leaders' board switch sits under the header. Who counts as a leader comes from the org chart, not from an app role, so nobody needs to be made an admin to read the Leaders' board.

Reading the board

Announcements are grouped into sections, in this order, each with a count:

Always hereStanding links and reports, not tied to a week. They show Always instead of a week and never need marking read.

Urgent and action requiredRead these first.

For everyoneThe general items.

Subject specificItems for one or more subjects.

Each card shows what it asks of you, its subjects, its week (W42), the title, the start of the text, who wrote it, what is attached (1 link, a resource, 2 images, a table), and whether you have read it: ✓ Read, Covered in a meeting or Not read. A card with a red edge is urgent or needs action.

What it asks

Type	Means
Action needed	Somebody has to do something.
Discussion	Talk about it in the room.
Process change	The way we do this has changed.
Informative	Just so you know.
Reference	Look it up when you need it.

Which weeks are shown

With no week chosen, the board shows the standing items and everything from this teaching week and the two before it. All weeks picks any week that has announcements, and All subjects narrows to one subject (it only appears when there are subject items). Clear filters puts it back. Archive, at the right, switches to archived items; it reads Showing archive while it is on.

What still needs you

At the top of the board, N announcements still need you shows a ring that fills as you get through them. It counts the announcements you haven't read this week that ask something of you: Action needed, Process change and Discussion. Informative and Reference items never count towards it. It disappears when there is nothing left.

Open an announcement and press Mark as read. Its state then reads You have read this.
Mark all read, beside the ring, marks every item the ring is counting. Informative and Reference items stay unread until you open them and mark them one by one.
If your Team Leader went through the board with you in a meeting, the items read Covered in a meeting and you don't need to do anything.

Reading is counted per teaching week

A tick counts for the week you read it in. An item you read last week that is still on the board this week shows Not read again, and counts towards the ring again, so it is looked at again while it is live.

Opening an announcement

An announcement opens on its own page: where it sits (Announcements / Tutors / Week 42), what it asks, its subjects, the title, who posted it and when, then the body. The body can hold:

Text, where any web address becomes a link, headings, bullets and a callout for the one line that has to land.
A Slack quote, with who said it and when, and Open in Slack.
Links that open in a new tab, images, files to download, and tables.
A resource: a page published with the portal, such as a slide deck, which opens inside the portal with Back and Open in a new tab.

Files download only from inside the portal, because they sit behind your sign-in.

Posting an announcement

New announcement is shown to Team Leaders (anyone with at least one active direct report on the org chart, which is normally every Head of Subject) and admins. The form:

TitleWhat it is about.

BoardTutor board or Leaders' board. You are only offered boards you can read.

SectionAlways here, Urgent and action required, For everyone, or Subject specific.

What it asksOne of the five types above, with a hint under it.

WeekDefaults to this teaching week. Not used for Always here.

SubjectsTap as many as it is about, up to 12. A Subject specific item needs at least one.

Pin to the topSits at the top of its section, above newer items.

Build the body from blocks: Text, Heading, Bullets (one per line), Callout, Slack quote, Link, Image, File and Table (columns separated by |). Move blocks with the arrows and remove them with Remove; Preview shows it exactly as readers will. Publish puts it on the board straight away; there are no drafts.

Files and imagesPDFs, images (PNG, JPEG, GIF, WebP), documents, spreadsheets, slides, text and CSV, and HTML pages (offered as a download, never shown). Up to 20 MB each. The board shares 8 GB of storage. Remove an attachment from an announcement and save, and its space comes back straight away; an upload you never publish is cleared after a day. Archived announcements keep their files, so they can be restored. The File block only appears where uploads are switched on.

Subjects you can file againstA Head files against their own department's subjects, and an admin against any. A Team Leader who is not a Head posts items with no subject. Every subject on an item has to be one you own, when you post it and when you edit it.

Editing and archiving

Edit is on the announcement's page for the same people. Save changes republishes it; Archive takes it off the board. Any author can edit or archive an item with no subjects, whoever wrote it; an item with subjects can be changed only by someone who owns all of them, or an admin. Nothing is ever deleted, because the record of who read it hangs off the item. To bring an archived item back, open it from Archive, edit it and save.

Running a meeting

Run meeting (Team Leaders and admins) walks your team through the board in the room and records that they have seen it, so nobody has to mark it read themselves.

Who is in the room?Everyone who reports to you is listed, ticked, with how much they have already seen. Untick anyone who isn't there: they will have to read the board themselves, and you will see who has not. Name the group if you like (Chemistry team, Tuesday 1:1s).
Go through itStart shows each announcement full-screen, in board order. Back and Next, with where you are.
Finish and recordEveryone ticked is marked as having seen every item this week. The toast says how many people were marked.

Tick Practice run to walk the board without recording anything, for example before the real meeting. You are not ticked off yourself, only the people in the room, and only your own direct reports can be. With nobody reporting to you, a meeting can only be a practice run.

Your team this week

A Team Leader's board has a rail, Your team this week: each direct report, how far through the board they are, and how they got there: in a meeting, on their own, both ways or not yet. It counts every item on the board, including Informative and Reference ones, so someone can have nothing left in their ring and still not be through everything here.

Set banner is for admins only. It puts one line across the top of every page of the portal, for everyone, and it stays until each person closes it.

Message: up to 240 characters.
Link (optional, a web address) with Link text, which defaults to Read it.
Tone: Ordinary (navy) or Urgent (red).

Only one banner is live at a time. The window says how many people have closed the current one. Replace banner puts up a new one, and everyone sees it again, including people who closed the last. Take it down removes it for everyone. Old banners are kept, not deleted. Closing a banner is remembered against each person's account, so it stays closed on their other devices.

Who can do what

Action	Tutors	Team Leaders & Heads	Admins
Read the Tutor board, mark items read	Yes	Yes	Yes
Read the Leaders' board	No	Yes	Yes
Post, edit and archive	No	Yes	Yes
Run a meeting, see the team tracker	No	Yes	Yes
Set the site banner	No	No	Yes

Team Leader here means anyone with at least one direct report on the org chart. A Head of Subject with nobody reporting to them can read the Leaders' board but can't post or run a meeting. Every one of these is checked on the server as well as hidden in the page.

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Built and maintained by YattaRewritten for the Tutor Portal · 25 Sep 2026 · v3.0 · Written for the Tutor Portal at tutor.contour.com.au.