Community Pulse

Community Pulse is the glance line on the resident home page. A pulse is one short line a resident reads, nods at, and moves on from: “Pool cleaned.” “Gate repaired.” “Landscaping crew came through.” It is a mental checkbox, not a message.

That is the whole distinction from an announcement. An announcement has a body, a posted-by, a dismissal you can track, and optionally a notification. A pulse has a title, one optional line, and a date, and it fades on its own. If residents need details, or the board needs to know who has seen it, it is an announcement. If it is simply nice to know, it is a pulse.

What residents see

A compact Pulse strip at the top of the home page. One line per item, newest first, with the date on the right. Nothing to open, nothing to dismiss. Each pulse shows for 7 days by default and then disappears. Pulses never send a push, an email, or a text.

Herald knows them too. A resident who asks Herald “when was the pool last cleaned” gets the answer from the Pulse, on the phone, by text, or in the app, even after the line has left the strip. Herald never reads pulses aloud as announcements; they are facts it can answer from, not notices it delivers.

Turning it on

Automate, then Configuration, then the Community Pulse card. The card has a master switch, the default number of days a pulse shows, and one toggle per source:

• Email rules - vendor emails that post themselves (see below)
• Member joins - “Sarah joined at 130 Grace Dr”
• Provider adds - a neighbor recommended a plumber
• Work orders - a completed job the board chooses to share
• Resolved community tickets - a Community Board issue the board marks resolved

Turn a source off and those lines stop appearing for everyone. Member joins and provider adds are on by default; some boards prefer to keep names and addresses off the shared strip, and the toggle is there for that.

The four ways a pulse gets posted

From a vendor email. Open Communicate, then Email Inbox. On any email in the inbox, tap Add to Pulse. Herald reads the email and drafts a rule: which sender it matches, what kind of email counts, and the line residents will see. You can edit every word. Save it, and this email posts now; every future email that matches posts on its own, is marked handled for you, and is logged. A rule can be paused or deleted from the Community Pulse card. Rules require the Automate plan because Herald reads each email to decide whether it matches.

Herald will not post a line that contains a link, a dollar amount, a phone number, an email address, or payment language. If a vendor email trips that guard, the line is skipped and the skip is logged, so a promotional email can never become a post from the board.

From a work order. When a vendor reports a job complete, the work order shows Send to Pulse. Herald drafts the line; you approve it.

From a resolved community ticket. When you resolve a Community Board issue, the confirm step offers a Send to Pulse checkbox with a one-line title you can edit. This only appears for public community tickets. Architectural requests, complaints, violations, and general inquiries never offer it.

By hand. On the Community Pulse card, Post a Pulse takes a title and an optional line, with Draft with Herald if you want a hand. Ten seconds, and it is on every home page.

Where it is logged

Every post, every skip, and every rule change appears under Automate, then Activity & Usage, filtered to Community Pulse, with who did it. Pulses also appear in the community activity log alongside announcements.

What a pulse is not

• Not a notification. Nothing is sent.
• Not an announcement. No body, no dismissal tracking, no pinning.
• Not a place for money, links, or anything a resident must act on. Use an announcement or a direct message for those.