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Announcements were a bit tricky for us due to the number of software and categories we have. If we posted an announcement in the main discussion category for a product, members would need to follow the discussion category to receive notification of it, this would result in receiving email notifications for all new discussions rather than just announcements. This wasn't ideal and there was a lot of push back from members on this.

I've now set up separate dedicated announcement categories and used a widget to show the top announcements within the main discussion category for the product. So even though the announcements themselves aren't posted within the discussion category, they still appear in it. Example below.

In itself the above isn't all that great, but the key that ties it all together is our custom profile fields and pairing it with the Profile Field ➡️ Follow Category automation rule.

Now that we have this active, any members who have designated their specific Reckon software product using the custom profile field on registration, automatically follows the respective announcement category for their product. This means they automatically receive an email notification each time an announcement is posted for their product.

It works really well and we've seen positive engagement and page views occurring from it. The only aspect that could do with some improvement is the email notifications themselves, right now they're just the generic 'Rav posted a new discussion' notification. I'd love to be able to customise these a bit more on a per category level to make them more relevant to announcements.

Hey @Jocelyn - thanks for your question!

We created that carousel using the Category Widget, and I've included the settings below for you to replicate.

The Image Type is set to "Image" so it pulls the banners of every category, but you could also use the icon image if you prefer.

We've use the Category as Link feature to create these "fake" categories for the features, so they will also show on your categories page.

Let us know if you have any other questions!

Hi @Alex Dunne -
I have used Groups for beta testing in past communities and implementing a program with my current one.
The two keys (IMO) are:

• White glove onboarding: letting people know they were hand-picked and are part of something exclusive.
• Ensure participation from the Product Team so customer questions and feedback are addressed.

I have used a combination of Secret and Private Groups for betas.

Cheers,
Toby