Announce

Announce is an organisation comms bar for announcements, alerts and a scrolling ticker, in one web part. Each message has a severity, can be scheduled, can be targeted to groups, and can be dismissed by the people who have read it. It runs client-side as the signed-in user and has no data source of its own.

Permissions

None are required for the base web part. Only optional audience targeting uses a single read-only Microsoft Graph permission, GroupMember.Read.All, which an administrator approves once. It is used only to check group membership, and if the check cannot run it fails open and shows the message.

Set up

1. Install the package (see the Install guide).
2. If you want audience targeting, have an administrator approve the GroupMember.Read.All permission.
3. Edit a page → add the Announce web part.
4. In the property pane, choose a mode, add your messages and set each one's severity.

Modes

• Banner - a single full-width strip for the message everyone needs to see.
• Alert cards - several notices side by side, each with its own severity and dismiss control.
• Ticker - a scrolling line of short updates that pauses on hover and honours reduced motion.

Full-width bar (edge to edge)

Announce can sit in a full-width section for an edge-to-edge comms bar across the very top of a page. SharePoint caches the full-width "+" picker's list of allowed web parts, so Announce may not appear in that picker straight away. The reliable way (and the standard method for any custom full-width web part) is to add it in a normal section first, then drag it up:

1. Add a Full-width section at the top of the page.
2. In a normal section below it, add the Announce web part and configure it.
3. Use the web part's move handle to drag it up into the full-width section. It snaps in and renders edge to edge.
4. Publish the page. Full-width styling applies after publish.

Once SharePoint refreshes its cache, Announce also appears directly in the full-width picker; until then, the drag method always works.

Title banner

The title strip above the notices is styled from the Header group of the property pane, alongside the title, heading level and logo. A comms bar is usually the most prominent thing on the page, so it is worth styling deliberately: a solid brand colour reads as an official notice, while an accent bar or an underline keeps a routine update quiet. Only the settings that do something for the style you pick are shown, and leaving the style alone keeps the banner exactly as it is today.

• Title banner style - solid colour, soft tint, gradient fade, two colours, no fill (ghost), underline, accent bar, overline label or background image.
• Title banner shape - rounded or square. Not offered for the ghost, underline and overline styles, which have no filled shape to round.
• Title banner colour - set a colour of your own, or use the button beneath it to go back to the site theme colour.
• Second colour - the far end of the gradient, shown only for the two-colour style. Left unset, a darker shade of the first colour is used.
• Title banner background image - shown only for the background image style. A readability overlay sits between the picture and the title so the text stays legible.
• Overline text - the small label above the title, shown only for the overline style.
• Title text colour - automatic, light or dark. Title text is measured against the real banner colour to WCAG contrast ratios rather than a brightness cut-off, so a brand colour stays legible on its own. The override appears for the styles that put the title over a gradient, an image or a transparent background, where you may want to decide yourself.

In a full-width section the banner runs edge to edge, so a background image or a two-colour gradient has the whole page width to work with. Check a critical message in both light and dark themes before you publish.

Message options

• Severity - info, success, warning or critical, each with its own colour and icon.
• Schedule - set a start and end with the date picker, and the message appears and disappears on its own.
• Dismissal - people can close a message they have read, and it stays closed on their next visit, per person.
• Audience - target a message to Microsoft 365 or security groups, so only those people see it.
• Branding - upload a header logo, and every mode inherits your site theme in light and dark.

Announce runs as the signed-in user and stores no content of its own; audience targeting is read-only and fails open.