One module, three surfaces
The Newsroom is not a single screen — it's three connected surfaces, each built for a different job and a different audience. Everyone lands on the Newsroom; a smaller group works in the Studio; leadership and comms watch Coverage.
Newsroom
The personalized feed of internal news, targeted to each reader. Pinned and urgent posts rise to the top; must-reads are flagged; people react, comment, and acknowledge. This is the home screen.
Studio
The back office. Draft posts, choose who sees them, route them through review and approval, schedule them, and read the analytics after they go live. Replaces the old hidden admin.
Coverage
External media monitoring — what the press and social channels are saying about the organization, with sentiment and sources. The original purpose of the module, kept for the people who track reputation.
Who's who
Five roles cover everyone who touches the Newsroom. Most people are simply Readers — no setup, no permission needed. The publishing roles stack: an Editor can do everything an Author can, an Admin everything an Editor can, and the Platform Super-Admin sits above every tenant.
What each role actually does
The specifics — who they are, the surface they live in, and the exact things they can and can't do.
Reader / Employee any signed-in user
- See a feed personalized to them — only posts they're targeted by appear.
- Filter by All, Must read, or Following; search; open the full article.
- Acknowledge must-read posts, react, and comment (where enabled).
- Follow optional channels; mandatory channels are followed automatically.
- Cannot create, edit, or publish anything.
Author role:DWPlatform.News = Author
- Create and edit drafts — title, summary, rich body, cover image.
- Choose the type, channel, priority, and the audience the post targets.
- Submit a draft for review and see its progress.
- Read the analytics on posts they authored.
- Cannot approve or publish — that's the Editor's call.
Editor / Approver role:DWPlatform.News = Editor
- Everything an Author can do, for any post.
- Approve or reject submitted posts (rejections carry a reason).
- Publish now or schedule for later; archive live posts.
- See full analytics, incl. who hasn't read or acknowledged.
- Create and manage channels; moderate any comment.
Comms Admin role:DWPlatform.News = Admin
- All Editor powers, plus final say over configuration.
- Set up the channel structure (incl. mandatory channels).
- Own reusable audience segments and delete published posts.
- Bootstrap a fresh tenant's default channels in one click.
Platform Super-Admin is_superadmin
- Turns the Newsroom module on for a tenant (entitlement).
- Implicitly holds every Newsroom permission, in every tenant.
- Never sees across tenant boundaries in normal use — isolation is enforced at the database.
How a post travels from idea to archive
Every post moves through a defined set of states. A simple announcement can go straight from Draft to Published; a policy that needs sign-off passes through review and approval first. Each transition is stamped into an audit trail.
Being written. Invisible to everyone but the author.
Submitted; waiting on an editor.
Cleared to go — now or later.
Waiting for its publish time.
Live in the feed; notifications fire.
Retired from the feed, kept for the record.
An editor sends it back to Draft with a reason — the author fixes and resubmits.
If a post has an expiry date, it auto-unpublishes when the time passes — no one has to remember.
Every edit snapshots a version. A must-read acknowledgement is tied to the exact version the reader confirmed.
Deciding who sees a post
Relevance is the whole game — broadcasting everything to everyone trains people to ignore the feed. So every post carries an audience, and the feed only shows a reader the posts they're actually in.
Everyone
The whole organization. Best for company-wide announcements.
By department or role
Rule-based — e.g. Engineering + Managers. Include and exclude groups combine; membership is live, so joiners and leavers update automatically.
Specific people
A hand-picked list of individuals. Exact by definition — useful for named recipients.
How it's evaluated: targeting is matched against the reader's own profile (their department and roles, carried securely in their sign-in) the moment they open the feed. The Newsroom never needs a separate copy of the org chart, and the answer is always current.
Must-read & acknowledgement
Some communications — a policy, a safety notice — have to be proven read, not just sent. Mark a post must-read and readers get a clear "I have read & understood" action; every confirmation is recorded against the exact version they saw.
- Author flags it must-read.
Often the default for the Policy, Alert and Memo types.
- On publish, targeted people are notified.
It surfaces in their feed under the Must read filter.
- The reader acknowledges.
One tap confirms it — the button becomes a Acknowledged state.
- Editors see who's outstanding.
Analytics lists exactly who hasn't read or acknowledged yet, so follow-up is targeted, not a blanket nag.
The same colors carry from the Studio into the reader's feed, so a status means the same thing everywhere.
Channels people can follow
Channels are themed spaces — Company News, HR, Safety, Events. They come in two kinds, and every tenant can seed a sensible starter set with one click.
Subscribable
People choose to follow (HR, IT, Events…). The Following filter shows just these. Follow and unfollow anytime.
Mandatory
Company News, Safety — everyone is subscribed automatically and can't opt out. Reserved for things no one should miss.
Reactions, comments & the reader's view
Internal comms is a conversation, not a megaphone. Each post can carry reactions and a threaded comment section — both switchable per post — so people can respond, ask, and recognize each other.
Did it land?
Sending isn't reading. For every post, the Studio reports reach (how many were eligible), read rate, acknowledgement rate, reactions and comments — and, crucially, the list of people who haven't read or acknowledged yet.
How many people the post targeted, captured at publish as the denominator.
Unique readers over eligible — the real signal, not "was it sent".
For must-reads — with the exact names still outstanding.
Notifications, without the noise
When a post goes live it's announced through the platform's notification hub, so it reaches people in the bell — and, per their preferences, email or push — not only when they happen to open the feed.
Targeting flows through here too: the in-app feed is always filtered to exactly who a post is for. Company-wide posts reach everyone's bell; department- or role-targeted posts always render correctly in the feed, with broader push delivery handled by the hub.
Who can do what
The definitive reference. Roles stack left to right — each column inherits everything to its left.
| Capability | Reader | Author | Editor | Admin | Super‑Admin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read the targeted feed | |||||
| Acknowledge · react · comment | |||||
| Follow / unfollow channels | |||||
| Create & edit drafts | |||||
| Set a post's audience | |||||
| Submit for review | |||||
| Approve / reject | |||||
| Publish & schedule | |||||
| Full analytics & non-reader lists | |||||
| Manage channels & segments | |||||
| Moderate any comment | |||||
| Delete a published post | |||||
| Entitle the module for a tenant |
Isolation is enforced at the database, not just the screen. Each tenant's news lives behind row-level security — one organization can never read another's posts, channels, or acknowledgements, even for an administrator.
Cheat sheet
Announcement · Article · Policy (must-read) · Alert (urgent) · Event · Recognition · Newsletter · Blog · Memo
Policy, Alert and Memo default to requiring acknowledgement.
Like · Celebrate · Support · Insightful · Curious
All Must read Following
Open the Newsroom. Acknowledge anything marked must-read. Follow the channels you care about.
Studio → New post. Pick a type, write it, set the audience, Submit for review.
Studio → In review. Approve, then Publish or Schedule. Check Analytics after it lands.
