What's Happening

What's Happening is the company news and announcements feed in GrndCtrl. It's where your organization shares important updates, events, policy changes, and company-wide communications. This guide covers how to read announcements, use the calendar, and — for administrators — how to create and manage posts.

Accessing What's Happening

1. Open What's Happening — from the Apps button in the header, or from its widget on your Home screen.
2. The news feed displays all current announcements in chronological order.

Reading Announcements

The feed is newest first, and it is arranged as a lead story plus a list:

• The most recent announcement renders in full at the top.
• Everything older appears as a row that expands in place when you click it — you stay on the same page rather than navigating away.
• A rail down the side groups older announcements by month, so you can jump back to the one you half-remember instead of scrolling for it.
• There is a search box for finding an announcement by its words.

You can link to a single announcement. Expanding one adds its id to the address bar, so copying the URL and sending it to a colleague opens the feed with that announcement already expanded and highlighted.

Feed order and carousel order are different on purpose. The Home screen carousel shows the order an administrator curated. This feed is strictly chronological. If the top of the carousel and the top of the feed disagree, both are behaving correctly.

Each announcement in the feed displays:

Element	Description
Title	The headline of the announcement
Author	The name of the person who published the post
Date	When the announcement was published
Content	Rich text body with formatting, links, and embedded images
Images	Attached photos or graphics (if any)

Announcements support rich text formatting including bold, italic, links, lists, and embedded images — so they can communicate anything from a quick reminder to a detailed policy update.

Examples of Announcements

Announcements are not filed into categories — there is no category label or filter on the feed. These are simply the kinds of subject organizations tend to post about:

• Benefits and HR — Open enrollment reminders, W-2 availability, PTO policy updates
• Company events — Team outings, tech talks, training sessions, holiday schedules
• Product updates — New features, tool changes, process improvements
• Programs — Employee referral programs, photo contests, recognition initiatives
• Operations — Process changes, standards updates, new tool availability

Company Calendar

The calendar is not a tab of this page. There is no Calendar tab on the What's Happening feed. Company Calendar is its own page, subtitled "Pay Schedule & Holidays", reached from your Home screen rather than from the Apps button.

The confusion is understandable: the calendar is delivered by the What's Happening app, which is why the two are enabled and disabled together. But they are separate surfaces.

Opening the Calendar

On your Home screen, use the Calendar widget — it shows a compact view of the same calendar, and its Open → link takes you to the full page. If the What's Happening widget is on your Home screen, its Calendar button goes to the same place. See Company Calendar for detail.

What's on the Calendar

• Pay schedule — pay period end dates and paydays
• Company holidays — office closures and observed holidays
• Company events — meetings, training days, and team events

Administrators maintain it from the Company calendar section of What's Happening Admin, so it stays current for everyone at once.

How Announcements Expire

Announcements can have an expiration date. When a post expires, it is automatically removed from the feed so the news stays current and relevant. This means:

• You'll only see announcements that are still active
• Time-sensitive posts (like open enrollment deadlines) disappear after their relevant date
• Administrators can also manually archive posts at any time

Managing Announcements (Administrators)

The admin panel is organized into six sections: Published, Ready, Drafts, and Archived — each carrying a count — plus Company calendar and Dashboard carousel. Full detail in Managing What's Happening.

If you have administrator access, you can create, edit, reorder, and archive announcements.

Creating an Announcement

1. Navigate to What's Happening.
2. Click Manage announcements in the page header. There is no Admin tab — the action sits in the platform header bar, and only administrators see it.
3. Click Create or the + button.
4. Fill in the following fields:

Field	Description	Required
Title	Headline for the announcement	Yes
Content	Rich text body — supports bold, italic, links, lists, and embedded images	Yes
Images	Attach photos or graphics	No
Expiration Date	Date when the post will automatically be removed from the feed	No
Visibility	Published (visible to all) or Draft	Yes

5. Click Publish to make the announcement visible to all employees.

Editing an Announcement

1. Go to What's Happening Admin.
2. Find the announcement you want to edit.
3. Click on the post or the edit button.
4. Make your changes and click Save.

Reordering Posts

Administrators can change the display order of announcements using drag and drop in the admin view. This lets you pin important posts to the top of the feed.

Archiving an Announcement

To remove a post from the feed without deleting it:

1. Go to What's Happening Admin.
2. Find the announcement.
3. Click Archive.

Archived posts are hidden from employees but preserved for reference.

Managing the Calendar

Administrators can create, edit, and delete calendar entries from the What's Happening Admin > Calendar section. Calendar updates are immediately visible to all employees.

Best Practices

• Use clear, descriptive titles — Employees scan titles first, so make them informative
• Set expiration dates — Keep the feed clean by expiring time-sensitive posts
• Include images — Visual posts get more attention
• Pin important news — Use reordering to keep critical announcements at the top
• Keep it concise — Respect your team's time with focused, scannable content

Troubleshooting

The feed is empty

Solutions:

• "No announcements yet" or "Nothing published yet" means your organization has not published any — "Company news, announcements, and events show up here for everyone in your organization."
• "Nothing matches that" means your search or month filter is too narrow. "Try a different month, or clear the search."

The Home widget shows something different from the page

Solutions:

• Both are correct. The widget rotates through announcements in the order administrators curated; the page is strictly chronological, newest first.
• The widget also shows at most 10 announcements, so a recent one can be on the page but not in the rotation.

An announcement I saw yesterday has disappeared

Solutions:

• Announcements can carry an expiration date, after which they are archived automatically and leave the feed.
• An administrator may have archived it deliberately. Ask them — archived posts are kept and can be republished.

Related Articles

• Getting Started with GrndCtrl — Learn the basics of navigating the portal
• Good News — Share positive updates with your group
• Managing What's Happening (Admin) — Detailed admin guide for content management

---

Need help? Contact our support team at [e-mail]