Custom Message Banners

Message Banners in IAP

Itential Automation Platform (IAP) now supports custom message banners in the 2023.2 feature release. This is a system-wide banner message that displays on specified pages within the Itential application.

This article explains how to create a custom message banner, and how to toggle (turn on/off) the message that displays. It’s important to note that only a single global banner is supported and users can dismiss the banner, when enabled in the admin settings.

Potential Use Cases

The banner feature can be useful in situations where you need to alert users about upcoming maintenance release windows, software version upgrades, scheduled downtime or have users acknowledge an announcement before they can proceed to use the system.

What Itential Message Banners Look Like

Banners are apparent from the background color and where they display. Below, you can see an example of a banner that is placed on the home page (at the top) after the initial user login. Admins can set the background color, font type and size. Font color, however, is auto-adjusted to contrast with the background color to maintain visual accessibility.

Figure 1: Itential Message Banner

Creating a Message Banner

As an IAP admin, you can enable and customize the global message banner using the following steps:

1. Log in to your IAP instance and navigate to the Admin Essentials application.
2. Click the Manage Banner button (upper-right corner). The "Create Custom Banner" dialog to create a new banner displays.
3. Toggle the Show Banner switch to display your banner.
4. Use the time controls to enter your desired run dates for the banner. You can enter the date directly or use the calendar icon for selection.
   • "Start Date/Time" of when the banner should first appear.
   • "End Date/Time" of when the banner should no longer appear.
5. Use the style control to set a background color for the banner. You can enter the Hex Color Value directly to change the background color. Default color is "Blue" (Hex #007DBC).
6. Use Image Upload to embed an image (i.e., custom logo) that displays in the banner. To fit within the banner, the image file ('ICO', 'PNG', 'JPG', 'SVG') is resized to 36x36 pixels.
7. Enter your message text for the banner in the Message Editor. A preview of the message appears in a text box below the editor. Further information on the Message Editor is presented in the next section.
8. Select the “Home Page” or "All Pages" option to specify where the banners displays.
9. Slide the toggle switch to the right to allow a user to dismiss the banner. Slide the toggle to the left if you want the banner to remain.
10. Click Save to finalize your changes. The banner should now appear on the specified IAP pages with your message details.
11. Click the exit button (X) in the upper-right to close the dialog.

Figure 2: Custom Banner Controls

Message Editor

The Message Editor is a WYSIWYG editor in that what you see when you write a message will look the same as it will appear on a displayed page. The WYSIWYG editor uses Rich Text formatting and includes a formatting toolbar that is similar to toolbars in word-processing applications.

Below, there are five categories of options (from left to right) in the toolbar:

1. Text Formatting
2. Paragraph Formatting
3. Insert URL Link
4. Font Style
5. Font Type

Figure 3: Message Banner Toolbar

Text Formatting

Three text formatting options are available.

• Bold (B): To bold the text.
• Italic (I): To italicize the text.
• Underline (U): To underline the text.

Paragraph Formatting

Two paragraph formatting options are available.

• Unordered list: Make a list denoted with the bullet (•) symbol.
• Ordered list: Make a numbered list for each item.

Insert Hyperlink

You can insert an absolute URL to generate a hyperlink to additional information, such as a reference article, product documentation, technical announcements or release notes.

Text Style

Three text style options are available:

• Heading (First level)
• Subheading (Second level)
• Normal text

Figure 4: Message Banner Font Style

Font Size

Four font sizes (weights) are available to set the appearance of the text:

• Small
• Medium
• Large
• Huge

Figure 5: Message Banner Font Type

Troubleshooting

If you do not see your banner appear, check your permissions. In some instances, you might need to adjust the permissions on the banner-schema Customization API routes.