Last updated Dec 11, 2024

Make and receive announcements

What are announcements?

Announcements let you share news about your component and any changes directly with teams who depend on it. You might announce things like new features, API deprecation, or downtime.

You can create, edit, view, acknowledge, and delete past and upcoming announcements on a component’s Announcements page.

There are two parties involved in announcements:

Senders — a component’s owner team members who announce a change or share news with others
Recipients — a component’s owner team members who receive an announcement because their component depends on the one experiencing change

When you make an announcement, you’ll see it on your component and all its dependent components. People will see a notification badge indicating a new, unacknowledged announcement on dependent components. Additionally, recipients will get a notification email so they don’t miss out on critical information, potentially impacting their components.

When you receive an announcement, you can ‘acknowledge’ it to indicate to the sender you’ve received and read the information they shared. Then, you can take any necessary actions to mitigate the impact of the change on your component, if any. This could mean creating Jira issues in your team’s backlog for any work that the announcement requires.

Example scenario

You’re deprecating an API within your microservice. All dependent components using the API must make changes to their code before the deprecation so it doesn’t break their components. You make an announcement through your component in Compass to inform others about the deprecation before it becomes effective. Recipients receive the announcement and can take the necessary actions for their components.

Create an announcement

You can create an announcement from your component’s Announcements page.

To create an announcement:

Go to your component’s Overview page.
Select Announcements from the sidebar.
In the From this component tab, select Create announcement.
Add a title, description, and target date for your announcement. The target date is a future date when the changes or news in your announcement takes effect.
Select Create.

When you create an announcement, Compass shows it on:

From this component tab of your component’s Announcement page
From dependencies tab of all dependent components’ Announcement page, along with a notification badge indicating a new, unacknowledged announcement

Announcement recipients will also get an email notification, so they don’t miss out on critical information.

If someone adds a dependency after you send the announcement, Compass doesn’t send out a notification email to the new recipients. However, they’ll see the announcement on their component’s Announcement page, in the From dependencies tab.

Edit an announcement

You can change an announcement’s title, description, or target date at any time.

To edit an announcement:

Go to your component’s Overview page.
Select Announcements from the sidebar.
In the From this component tab, find the announcement you want to edit.
Select More actions > Edit.
Update the announcement’s details.
Select Save.

You can see the updated announcement on your component and all dependent components.

When you edit an announcement, recipients won’t receive another announcement email.

View an announcement

View all upcoming and past announcements on a component’s Announcements page.

To view an announcement:

Go to your component’s Overview page.
Select Announcements from the sidebar.
View all announcements you made about your component in the From this component tab.
View all announcements you received from components you depend on in the From dependencies tab.
- A notification badge indicates the number of announcements with a future target date pending an acknowledgment.

Acknowledge an announcement

As a recipient, acknowledge announcements to let the sender know you've seen and taken note of the information they shared.

You’ll see all announcements you’ve received in the From dependencies tab of your component’s Announcement page. A notification badge indicates the number of announcements with a future target date pending an acknowledgment.

Currently, anyone in Compass can acknowledge an announcement, and when they do, the notification badge disappears for everyone. We recommend that you acknowledge an announcement only if you’re an intended recipient and you’ve taken the necessary actions for your component.

To acknowledge an announcement:

Go to your component’s Overview page.
Select Announcements from the sidebar.
Select From dependencies.
Read the announcement contents and note the target date when the changes or news in the announcement become effective. Take necessary actions to mitigate the impact of the announcement, if any, on your component.
Select Acknowledge on the announcement.

Senders can see that you’ve acknowledged the announcement on their component for which they sent it.

View acknowledgments

As an announcement sender, view acknowledgments to know which recipients have or haven’t taken notice of your announcement.

If you haven’t received an acknowledgment from a particular component, you may want to follow up individually with its owner team to ensure they’ve not missed out on the critical information you shared.

To follow up with owner teams who haven’t acknowledged an announcement, go to their component’s Overview page and contact them through their chat channel.

To view acknowledgments:

Go to your component’s Overview page.
Select Announcements from the sidebar.
Find your announcement in the From this component tab.
Select the menu that shows the acknowledgments. The list shows the names of components for which you’ve received an acknowledgment and the ones for which you haven’t.
Optionally, select a component for which you haven’t received an acknowledgment. You’ll go to its Overview page, from where you can contact the owner team if necessary.

Clear acknowledgments

As an announcement sender, clear previously received acknowledgments to notify recipients again about your announcement. You can clear acknowledgments with or without updating the announcement details.

Clear acknowledgments in a scenario where your announcement’s target date has changed or there are significant updates to its details and you want to notify recipients again.

To clear announcement acknowledgments:

On your component’s Announcement page, edit your announcement.
Optionally, update the announcement’s details.
Select Clear acknowledgments.
Select Save.

The announcement becomes unacknowledged for all dependent components. Recipients will see a notification badge on those components if the announcement has a future target date. They can read the updated announcement and acknowledge it again.

When you clear the acknowledgments, recipients won’t receive another announcement email.

Delete an announcement

Permanently delete any past or upcoming announcement from your component and all its dependent components.

To delete an announcement:

Go to your component’s Overview page.
Select Announcements from the sidebar.
In the From this component tab, find the announcement you want to delete.
Select More actions > Delete.
Select Delete.