Smart Notices

5 steps 4 min Updated 29 October 2026

Overview

Smart Notices creates short, eye-catching notices — like sticky notes on a board — and displays them automatically on your homepage, or on any page or category archive you choose to switch them on for. They suit quick reminders, celebration messages, or short-lived announcements that do not need a full news post.

Each notice is its own piece of content with a title, body text, and (optionally) an excerpt. You control how many appear, how they are laid out, and where they show.

Getting set up

Step 1: Check Smart Notices is switched on

Look for Smart Notices in the WordPress sidebar. If it is there, go straight to Step 2.

Smart Notices is a separate plugin rather than one of the features on the Smart Plugins dashboard, so on a site that has never used it the menu is missing. Go to Plugins in the sidebar, find Smart Notices in the list, and select Activate underneath it. The Smart Notices menu appears straight away.

If you cannot see Plugins in the sidebar, your account does not manage plugins — ask Realsmart support to switch it on for you.

Step 2: Add your first notice

Go to Smart Notices → Add New Notice in the WordPress sidebar. Give it a title and write the notice text, then publish it.

Edit Notice screen for "Sports Day moved to Friday": the title, the notice text in the editor, an empty Excerpt box and an Author box below it; on the right a Publish box with an Update button, a smartVisibility panel with Public, Learners, Mentors, Governors, Ofsted, Observers and Admins all ticked, and a Featured image box

On the notice board, each notice shows its title, the first part of its text and a read more link to the full notice. If you fill in the Excerpt box, that is used instead of the start of the notice text.

If Smart Visibility is also active, you will see a smartVisibility panel on this screen too, letting you restrict which visitor types see this particular notice — see the Smart Visibility guide.

Step 3: Check it appears on the homepage

Your notice is listed under Smart Notices → All Notices. Notices show on the homepage automatically — visit your website to confirm it appears there. The board shows your most recent published notices, newest first, up to the Number of notices set on the settings page.

Smart Notices list (All Notices) showing one published notice, "Sports Day moved to Friday", with Title, Author, Date and smartVisibility columns and an Add New Notice button at the top

Step 4: Show notices on another page (optional)

Edit the page, and in the smartNotices panel in the sidebar, tick Display smartNotices on this page?. Update the page. This option only appears when editing a page — not a post.

Step 5: Adjust the layout and style

Go to Smart Notices → Notice settings to change how many notices show, how many columns, and the visual style. Only administrators see this page.

The page has three sections — Layout settings, Display Settings and Permission Settings — each with its own Save Changes button. Save each section before changing the next one, as a button only saves the section above it.

Settings

Where to find it: Smart Notices → Notice settings

Layout settings

Setting	What it does	Default
Number of notices per row	Three or four columns	Three
Number of notices	Maximum notices shown at once	3
Where to display the notices	Before page content, or within page content	Before page content

Display Settings

Setting	What it does	Default
Notice background color	Notice background colour	Transparent
Notice title color	Notice title colour	Uses the theme's default
Notice text color	Notice body colour	Uses the theme's default
Notice link color	Colour of the "read more" link	Uses the theme's default
Notice style	Yellow Note, iOS Style, or None (background colour only)	Yellow Note
Read more text	Label on the read more link	Read more
Notice font	Default, or Hand drawn	Default
Length of excerpt	Number of characters of each notice's text shown before the read more link. The hint on the page suggests no more than 360	130 (when left blank)

Permission Settings

Setting	What it does	Default
Who can post notices?	Anyone who can create a page, or anyone who can create a post	Anyone who can create a page

Where notices appear

A notice board shows up in three cases: on the homepage, always; on any other page where you have ticked Display smartNotices on this page?; and on a category's archive page, if you have set that on the category's own edit screen (a smartNotices dropdown there, set to Yes).

Troubleshooting

Notices are not appearing on a page

Confirm at least one notice is published under Smart Notices → All Notices.
If this is not the homepage, edit the page and confirm Display smartNotices on this page? is ticked. This option is only available on pages, not on posts.
For a category archive, check the smartNotices setting on that category's edit screen is set to Yes.

A member of staff cannot add a notice

Check Who can post notices? under Permission Settings. If it is set to "Anyone who can create a page", only people with page-editing permissions can add notices — switch it to "Anyone who can create a post" to include everyone who can write a post instead.

A settings change did not stick

Each section of Notice settings saves separately. If you changed fields in more than one section and then selected one Save Changes button, only that section was saved — make the other change again and use the Save Changes button directly beneath it.

Did this work for you?

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