Adding a Special Notice to your Connect profile

The Special Notice alerts visitors on your Connect profile to temporary circumstances that may affect their experience with your office. It appears as a block of text displayed on top of your About section that can be toggled on and off with a switch and expires after a set time.

We added this feature in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it can be used for any temporary situation that a visitor to your Connect profile might need to know about. Maybe your office is relocating, closed for renovations or shut down due to a natural disaster – or perhaps now reopening after a hiatus. All good reasons to publish a message and manage expectations for your visitors.

Adding a special notice

Under My Content > Connect Profile, the Special Notice tab now appears between Introduction and About. Click on this tab to start adding your notice.

1. Special Notice Body: Add the text of your notice here. There is no character limit, but the more you add, the more the rest of your information will be pushed down, so try to keep it as brief as possible while still giving people the information they need.
2. Start Date: Set this for today to have your notice display right away or choose a date in the future to delay its appearance.
3. End Date: If you have a set date for when the notice will no longer be relevant, select that. Otherwise, choose a date for a short period of time in the future. Once a message passes the end date, it will disappear from your profile.
4. Check the Display box: Your message will not appear on your profile unless you check the box marked "Special Text should display on Connect Profile."
5. Click the +Add button: This will add the notice to your profile.

Once all these steps are complete, your notice will appear on your profile above Meet Dr. [Your Name]

Editing a special notice

Every notice you have added to your profile can be viewed under the Special Notice tab under My Content > Connect Profile, including past messages that have now expired. Click the Edit button to update your notice or Delete to permanently delete it.

If a message has expired and you want it to display again, you can revive it by clicking Edit and then selecting an End Date in the future. Click Save when finished.

If you want to remove a message but not permanently delete it, click Edit and then uncheck the box marked "Special Text should display on Connect Profile," then click Save. Follow the same process and check the box to turn the message back on again at any time.

Stacking notices

If you have set times for when events happen, you can set up more than one notice and set them to display at the right time. For example, say you plan to close your office for renovation October 15, and reopen November 1. Set up the first notification to tell visitors your office is closed and you may not respond to consultation requests right away, and set the Start Date for October 15 and the end date for October 31. Then, write a second noticed to say your office is open again, and set the start date for November 1 and the end date perhaps a week later, November 8. At the scheduled time, the old message will disappear and the new message will appear without you having to remember to change it.

If two messages are active at the same time, only the message most recently added will display, so try not to let the start and end dates of your notices overlap.