Broadcast messages

GitLab can display broadcast messages to all users of a GitLab instance. There are two types of broadcast messages:

  • Banners
  • Notifications

Broadcast messages can be managed using the broadcast messages API.

Banners

Banners are shown on the top of a page and in Git remote responses.

Broadcast Message Banner 

$ git push
...
remote:
remote: **Welcome** to GitLab :wave:
remote:
...

If more than one banner is active at one time, they are displayed in a stack in order of creation.

Notifications

Notifications are shown on the bottom right of a page and can contain placeholders. A placeholder is replaced with an attribute of the active user. Placeholders must be surrounded by curly braces, for example {{name}}. The available placeholders are:

  • {{email}}
  • {{name}}
  • {{user_id}}
  • {{username}}
  • {{instance_id}}

If the user is not signed in, user related values are empty.

Broadcast Message Notification

If more than one notification is active at one time, only the newest is shown.

Add a broadcast message

To display messages to users on your GitLab instance, add a broadcast message.

To add a broadcast message:

  1. On the top bar, select Menu > Admin.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Messages.
  3. Add the text for the message to the Message field. You can style a message’s content using Markdown, emoji, and the a and br HTML tags. The br tag inserts a line break. The a HTML tag accepts class and style attributes with the following CSS properties:
    • color
    • border
    • background
    • padding
    • margin
    • text-decoration
  4. Select one of the suggested background colors, or add the hex code of a different color. The default color is orange.
  5. Select the Dismissable checkbox to enable users to dismiss the broadcast message.
  6. If required, add a Target Path to only show the broadcast message on URLs matching that path. You can use the wildcard character * to match multiple URLs, for example mygroup/myproject*.
  7. Select a date for the message to start and end.
  8. Select Add broadcast message.
noteThe Background color field expects the value to be a hexadecimal code because the form uses the color_field helper method, which generates the proper HTML to render.

When a broadcast message expires, it no longer displays in the user interface but is still listed in the list of broadcast messages.

Edit a broadcast message

If you need to make changes to a broadcast message, you can edit it.

To edit a broadcast message:

  1. On the top bar, select Menu > Admin.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Messages.
  3. From the list of broadcast messages, select the edit button for the message.
  4. After making the required changes, select Update broadcast message.

Expired messages can be made active again by changing their end date.

Delete a broadcast message

If you no longer require a broadcast message, you can delete it. You can delete a broadcast message while it’s active.

To delete a broadcast message:

  1. On the top bar, select Menu > Admin.
  2. On the left sidebar, select Messages.
  3. From the list of broadcast messages, select the delete button for the message.

When a broadcast message is deleted, it’s removed from the list of broadcast messages.