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Two tools for running a class week to week: scheduled release lets you build work ahead of time and have it open by itself, and announcements let you tell the whole class something without leaving ChimeEdu.
If you don’t see the Available from field or the Announcements card described here, they haven’t been switched on yet.

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Scheduled release: “Available from”

Any published assessment, activity or study guide can carry an Available from date and time. Until that moment, students can’t open it, and it doesn’t appear on their dashboard or the classroom page at all — so a Monday-morning quiz stays a surprise until Monday morning.

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Where to set it

  • Assessments — open the assessment, click Edit, and find Available from in the settings panel next to the due date.
  • Activities — open the activity, click Edit, and use the Availability section. It’s there for every activity type.
  • Study guides — the Availability card on the study guide page has its own Save.
Times are entered in your own local time. Leave the field blank to keep something available as soon as it’s published, and clear it later to open something early. An Available from time has to come before the due date when both are set.

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Allow preview

Tick Allow preview if you’d like students to know something is coming. They then see a locked card with the title, description and opening time — but nothing inside, and nothing they can click. Leave it unticked and the item is simply invisible until it opens.

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What you see, what students see

Because the notification waits for the opening time, you can publish a whole unit on Sunday evening and nobody hears about Friday’s test until Friday.

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Announcements

The Announcements card sits in the right column of the classroom’s Overview tab, above Share with Students. Pick a type, write a note, press Post, and every enrolled student gets an in-app notification straight away. Students who have an email address also get one email per announcement, unless they’ve turned that off in their settings; students with a teacher-created username-only account see it in ChimeEdu only. The four types colour the post everywhere students see it: As you type, a preview under the editor shows the card exactly as students will see it. Posted announcements sit under the Posted announcements heading below the preview — click it to open the list.
  • Pin keeps one announcement at the top. Pinning another one un-pins the first, and pinning works on top of any type.
  • Edit changes the text or the type and marks the post edited. Editing doesn’t send a new notification.
  • Delete removes the post. Students who already got the notification keep it.
A classroom holds up to three announcements at a time, so the list stays readable. When it’s full, delete an older one to post another.
Formatting is deliberately simple — bold, italic, underline, lists and links. Announcements are limited to 5,000 characters, and to 20 posts an hour.

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Where students read them

  • On their dashboard, an Announcements section at the top shows the latest post from each class, and every classroom card carries the latest one as a coloured callout. Clicking either opens the classroom.
  • On the classroom page, the announcement stream sits above the content tabs, pinned first.
  • In the notification bell, and by email if they’ve kept that on.
Announcements are class content: only you and your enrolled students can see them. Anyone else who opens the classroom’s public link sees the classroom without the stream.

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Frequently asked

Not yet — announcements post immediately. For work that should appear later, use Available from on the item itself.
A past time means “available now”. Nothing breaks; the item is simply open.
No. Available from only controls when work opens. Due dates, late windows and the hard close work exactly as before.
No. A student who needs to reach you uses Contact teacher from their dashboard.
See also Archive and Restore a Classroom and Assessments for due dates and late windows.