Quick Start Guide
Install Improved Noticeboard
Install the latest General Availability release of Improved NoticeBoard into your Salesforce org.
Log in to the desired destination Salesforce org as a System Administrator and select the appropriate link for your situation:
Click the link and then check that the installation is what you expect:
- Correct Org? Does the browser URL on the upgrade page begin with the correct, expected domain address? If in doubt, paste the tail portion of the above link starting from ‘packaging/…‘ into the address bar of the setup page in the target org, replacing all text after the ‘…salesforce.com/‘ domain portion of the URL.
- Correct package version? Are the versions being upgraded from and to as you anticipate? In common with all Salesforce packages, our products cannot be ‘downgraded’ to previous versions.
When prompted, select the appropriate installation security option for your situation:
- Install for Admins Only: Controlled roll-out (especially in any Production Orgs);
- Install for all Users: For product evaluation (typically in Sandbox or Development Orgs).
Please contact us if you are unsure how best to proceed in your situation.
Set User Permissions
Assign user permissions for Notice publishers and recipients.
User Permissions determine who can do what within the Improved NoticeBoard application. Three standard Permission Sets are included:
- Recipients: receive personal Notifications related to specific Notices – displayed in a NoticeBoard Banner as their primary access point to the application;
- Notice Owners: manage specific Notices and monitor selected Recipients’ interactions with their Notifications;
- NoticeBoard Owners: manage a publishing team’s NoticeBoard and control policy and process for associated Notices.
Permissions can be set through either:
- Permission Sets: best when managing individuals – so useful for Notice Authors and NoticeBoard Managers.
- Profiles: best when managing larger groups – especially for Recipients.
If using Profiles to manage Recipient permissions, simply add:
- Object and Field Permissions: Read/Edit permissions on the Notifications object;
- Visual Force Page Access: access to ianb.nb_banner & ianb.RecipientView pages.
Define Sharing Settings
Create sharing settings for publishing teams.
Improved NoticeBoard is designed to provide a managed communications process – controlled by the publisher – and Sharing Settings reflect this, with all objects set as Private as standard, to ensure the baseline security required for controlled communication.
Sharing Settings therefore control which Notice Owners can publish Notices to which NoticeBoards and the recipe for balancing collaboration and privacy needs is very simple:
Create a Public Group for the NoticeBoard Publishing Team:
If more than one person will publish (or collaborate on preparation or approval of) Notices under a specific NoticeBoard, a NoticeBoard-specific Public Group is used to provide publishing team visibility.
As organisations can contain many Public Groups, we recommend using a naming convention that keeps NoticeBoard publishing teams together, such as ‘NB: Training’, ‘NB: Product Marketing’, etc.
Add Data Sharing Settings for Improved NoticeBoard Objects
Below is an example showing the Data Sharing Settings needed on NoticeBoard to allow publishing teams to collaborate on the preparation of Notices and manage the lifecycle of Notices and the individual Notifications sent to selected recipients. This example uses a Sales Training NoticeBoard and assumes a Public Group called NB: Training has been created containing Notice Owners in the publishing team:
- NoticeBoard: Share by Record Owner in Public Group = NB: Training, with Public Group = NB: Training , as Read Only;
- Notice: Share by Record Owner in Public Group = NB: Training, with Public Group = NB: Training, as Read/Write
- Notification: Share by Criteria, where Notification: NoticeBoard Name = Sales Training, with Public Group = NB: Training, as Read/Write;
- Recipient Group: Share by Record Owner in Public Group = NB: Training, with Public Group = NB: Training, as Read/Write
Add Components to User Experiences(s)
Add Improved NoticeBoard components to your Salesforce user experiences.
Add NoticeBoard Banner component(s) to Lightning pages and/or Utility Bar
Improved NoticeBoard ships with a growing set of Lightning Components that offer great flexibility in presenting Notifications to your Users where they need them most – right in their Salesforce pages. Please contact us for guidance on options to suit specific situations and use cases.
Add NoticeBoard Banner to Lightning Page
Below is a simple example that shows how to place a Banner onto a Lighting Page Layout, by adding the NoticeBoard ‘Carousel’ Banner to a Lightning Page…
Access the Lightning Page Builder from the page or setup (requires page editing permissions), then simply:
- Insert: Drag the ‘NoticeBoard: Banner (Carousel)’ component (from the Custom – Managed component section in the sidebar) to anywhere convenient on the page;
- Size: Set the ‘Component Body Height’ parameter according to your needs.
This Banner is designed to suit a wide range of form factors:
- Full-size Image: When Component Body Height can accommodate the full height of an image (set by the Notice author or provided via the ‘Default Image URL’ parameter), plus key Notification information spread across three lines of text, with selector ‘lozenges’ for each of the User’s Notifications below.
- Scaled Image: Reduced height: the image is scaled, until…
- Text and Navigation: Below ~160 pixels, the image is hidden, leaving just text and selectors.
- Single-line: Reducing the height further compresses the text to a single line, making the Banner suitable for use in wider form factors, such as a page header.
Note that the banner has additional parameters, such as the ability to suppress its header and footer areas or allow user to minimise it, making for further flexibility. When happy with the appearance of your Banner, save the edited page and click Back to exit the Lightning Page Builder.
Add NoticeBoard Banner to Lightning Utility Bar
The recipe is broadly similar to that for Lightning pages – adding the Banner component to the required Lightning app’s Utility Bar. Please contact us to discuss your specific use case.
Add NoticeBoard Banner component(s) to Classic pages
Whilst there are many ways to add the NoticeBoard Banner to your Salesforce pages, to get going quickly for testing, we recommend adding the packaged sidebar (Narrow) component. Simply:
- Add Home Page Component: the “NoticeBoard (Narrow)” to the appropriate Users’ Home Page Layouts.
- Check that User Interface: Sidebar settings to Show Custom Sidebar Components on All Pages is set.
Banners can also be added to record page layouts – contact us to discuss your specific use cases.
Classic Communities and Lightning Communities (such as ‘Napili’) are fully supported. Please contact us for guidance on setup options for your situation and use cases.
If you’re using a Lightning Community, you’ll find the setup process very similar to the Lightning NoticeBoard Setup process.
Classic and Lightning Console are fully supported. Please contact us for guidance for your situation and use cases.
Improved NoticeBoard Banners can be incorporated into custom Visualforce pages with ease – using ‘Classic’ banners and Lightning components, which can be exposed via Lightning Out. Please contact us for guidance to discuss your specific use case.
Add Improved NoticeBoard components to your Salesforce user experiences.
Lightning
Add NoticeBoard Banner component(s) to Lightning pages and/or Utility Bar
Improved NoticeBoard ships with a growing set of Lightning Components that offer great flexibility in presenting Notifications to your Users where they need them most – right in their Salesforce pages. Please contact us for guidance on options to suit specific situations and use cases.
Add NoticeBoard Banner to Lightning Page
Below is a simple example that shows how to place a Banner onto a Lighting Page Layout, by adding the NoticeBoard ‘Carousel’ Banner to a Lightning Page…
Access the Lightning Page Builder from the page or setup (requires page editing permissions), then simply:
- Insert: Drag the ‘NoticeBoard: Banner (Carousel)’ component (from the Custom – Managed component section in the sidebar) to anywhere convenient on the page;
- Size: Set the ‘Component Body Height’ parameter according to your needs.
This Banner is designed to suit a wide range of form factors:
- Full-size Image: When Component Body Height can accommodate the full height of an image (set by the Notice author or provided via the ‘Default Image URL’ parameter), plus key Notification information spread across three lines of text, with selector ‘lozenges’ for each of the User’s Notifications below.
- Scaled Image: Reduced height: the image is scaled, until…
- Text and Navigation: Below ~160 pixels, the image is hidden, leaving just text and selectors.
- Single-line: Reducing the height further compresses the text to a single line, making the Banner suitable for use in wider form factors, such as a page header.
Note that the banner has additional parameters, such as the ability to suppress its header and footer areas or allow user to minimise it, making for further flexibility. When happy with the appearance of your Banner, save the edited page and click Back to exit the Lightning Page Builder.
Add NoticeBoard Banner to Lightning Utility Bar
The recipe is broadly similar to that for Lightning pages – adding the Banner component to the required Lightning app’s Utility Bar. Please contact us to discuss your specific use case.
Classic
Add NoticeBoard Banner component(s) to Classic pages
Whilst there are many ways to add the NoticeBoard Banner to your Salesforce pages, to get going quickly for testing, we recommend adding the packaged sidebar (Narrow) component. Simply:
- Add Home Page Component: the “NoticeBoard (Narrow)” to the appropriate Users’ Home Page Layouts.
- Check that User Interface: Sidebar settings to Show Custom Sidebar Components on All Pages is set.
Banners can also be added to record page layouts – contact us to discuss your specific use cases.
Community
Classic Communities and Lightning Communities (such as ‘Napili’) are fully supported. Please contact us for guidance on setup options for your situation and use cases.
If you’re using a Lightning Community, you’ll find the setup process very similar to the Lightning NoticeBoard Setup process.
Console
Classic and Lightning Console are fully supported. Please contact us for guidance for your situation and use cases.
Visualforce
Improved NoticeBoard Banners can be incorporated into custom Visualforce pages with ease – using ‘Classic’ banners and Lightning components, which can be exposed via Lightning Out. Please contact us for guidance to discuss your specific use case.
Alocate Names User Licenses
Allocate Improved NoticeBoard Licenses to Named-Users.
Improved NoticeBoard is installed with Named User licensing. When deploying to a production Org, licences need to be allocated to all users – Recipients and Notice publishers – using the Manage Licences feature found within the Salesforce Org Setup: search for ‘Installed Packages’.
Create a Test Noticeboard
Create a NoticeBoard record to contain your first, test Notice.
Every Notice is published onto a specific NoticeBoard, owned by a publishing team (or individual).
NoticeBoard are very simple container records, that trap policy settings inherited by related Notices and optional theme logo.
We recommend starting with a ‘Training’ or ‘Salesforce Updates’ NoticeBoard – against which Notices can be created to introduce the Banner and the personalised Notification records spawned from Notices that each Recipient User will see.
Create and Publish a Test Notice
Create and Publish a test Notice to confirm NoticeBoard setup.
A simple alert Notice needs only a parent NoticeBoard, Signatory, Title and one or more Selected Recipient before it can be Published. More detailed Notices can add Summary and/or Detail content beneath the title headline and Notice management options can be added as Notice Owner confidence grows.
Test Launch
We recommend that Notice Authors:
- Prepare a Launch Notice: Start with a simple alert Notice to make Recipients aware of their new NoticeBoard Banner and how they can interact with it.
- View Notices through the eyes of a Recipient: It can be good practice to test Notice content by sending one to just yourself and once you are happy with it from a Recipient’s perspective, clone the Notice and send it to its intended audience of selected Recipients.
- Test the Launch Notice: by targeting fellow Notice Owners or a small test group of Recipients.
- Include Notice Authors as Notice Recipients, to confirm publication, especially when testing any optional process automation.
Review NoticeBoard global settings
Review Improved NoticeBoard global settings in the Setup tab and adjust to suit your situation
The NoticeBoard Administrator can easily change aspects of look and feel as well as behaviour, including:
- Banner colour, font & title: from the ‘NoticeBoard’ default
- Default List View: that Users are taken to when they click in the Banner title area;
- Urgency thresholds: Useful for Notices requiring time-critical Acknowledgement
