🚀 announcements: Support targeting only specific groups of people

[danigar]

Plugin Name

announcements

🔖 Feature description

It would be great if the announcements creation could target only specific groups of people inside backstage.
Another cool feature could be mentioning groups and people in the description using @.

🎤 Context

I want to create announcements that notify to only some groups of users, because some announcements are specific to some squads or teams and are not company-wide. I think this could be achieved now somehow using categories, but a more specific group-approach could be a nice to have.

✌️ Possible Implementation

One idea could be:

• Add a new optional field to the announcements creation form to target backstage groups. In this field you will select to which groups the announcement will be created for. Groups will be selected dynamically loading them from an input component connected to the catalog. Multiple groups could be created, and if empty, the announcement will affect to all of them.
• In the announcements page you will have a filter to see only the announcements that affect the groups you belong to. But you could remove this filter and see all the announcements.
• In the home page you will be able to add a groups filter to the component, to see only the announcements that affects you. Similar to what categories input offers, but specific to groups.
• Mention groups and people in the description form.

👀 Have you spent some time to check if this feature request has been raised before?

• I checked and didn't find similar issue

🏢 Have you read the Code of Conduct?

• I have read the Code of Conduct

Are you willing to submit PR?

Yes I am willing to submit a PR!

[vinzscam]

Would you like to be assigned to the issue @danigar?

[kurtaking]

I think I have a better understanding now. Can we solve for this with the signals plugin? You can use signalAnnouncement with a list of (group) entity refs you want to target.

[danigar]

Yes please, @vinzscam. You can assign me the issue. As long as I get some time to start with the development I will let you know.

I think it makes sense to use the signals plugin to notify users, yes!

[kurtaking]

@danigar, here is a link to the SignalPayload type.

[kurtaking]

@drodil - curious, do you have anything to add on using signals for this?

[drodil]

Hm, I think you meant the notifications plugin instead? That supports exactly what was requested; to send notifications to specific users/groups/entities.

[drodil]

More info here: https://backstage.io/docs/notifications/usage

[kurtaking]

Hm, I think you meant the notifications plugin instead? That supports exactly what was requested; to send notifications to specific users/groups/entities.

Ah shoot, you are right. There is where I start to stumble on the difference between the two, and makes me start to question consolidating 😅.

@danigar - does it make sense how we could leverage the notifications plugin to essentially forward the announcement to a set of users?.