Full Width Alerts
About Full Width Alerts on VA.gov
Alerts are intended to draw Veterans' attention to critical information.
They can be styled as Warning (yellow border) or Information (blue border). You can read more about alerts in the VA Content Style Guide.
You can see all existing alerts managed in the CMS from the main content listing, by filtering for "Full Width Alert" content type.
Creating and editing Full Width Alerts
Content publishers can edit any alert that has been assigned to a Section that they are a member of.
Content admins can create new alerts and set the URLs where alerts will appear on VA.gov, using the path field (see below).
For non-Content admins, the path will already be set for the alert you are editing.
Dismissing alerts (persistence)
You can decide if alert alerts can or can't be dismissed by users (the X in the screenshot above). There are two supported options:
- Allow site visitors to dismiss alert permanently
- Don't allow site visitors to dismiss alert
Here's a screenshot of the Persistence field.
Viewing an alert you dismissed
If you dismissed an alert and want to view it again:
- Clear your browser’s cache, including cookies
- Reopen the page to view the alert
Preview
No preview is available at this time.
Immediate triggering of content release
When you save a Full Width Alert as published, or if you archive a published alert, it will immediately start a content release. Content releases may take 15 to 30 minutes to finish.
Content releases triggered this way will go out outside of scheduled content releases and standard business hours. This ensures the critical content goes to VA.gov as soon as possible, without waiting for the hourly content release.
For content admins
Path field
The path field determines what URLs will show the alert.
Only content admins (members of OCTO-DE Sitewide content team) can edit paths.
For example, a path field entry like "/health-care/" means the alert will only appear on the Health Care Benefits Hub page. You can add multiple path entries, and each entry can target a different page. You can also used advanced settings including wildcards and exclusions.
You can target paths that are known to Drupal, as well as non-Drupal paths (eg React apps).
Leading and trailing slashes
- Paths must start with an forward slash "/", except for exclusions (see below).
- Trailing slashes are optional. "/health-care/" and "/health-care" are treated the same.
Wildcards (*)
You can use a "*" as a wildcard to target multiple paths at once. For example:
- /health-care/* will target all pages within /health-care/, including /health-care/how-to-apply, /health-care/pay-copay-bill, etc.
- You can also place the wildcard at the beginning of the path, like so: /*-health-care/ will appear on all VAMC home pages. /*-health-care/* would appear on all VAMC home pages and child pages.
Exclusions (!)
You can use a "!" to exclude paths.For example:
- !/health-care/apply would hide the alert on the /health-care/apply page.
- !/health-care/apply/* would hide it for the whole directory
Combining wildcards and exclusions
Getting fancy here! It's possible to combine a wildcard and an exclusion in separate entries. For example:
- adding "/health-care/*" and "!/health-care/pay-copay-bill/" means that all pages in the Health Care benefits hub will be targetted, except those in the /health-care/pay-copay-bill/ page. Keep in mind, the exclusions always win if there are two entries that conflict with each other.
Homepage (/)
- You can target VA.gov homepage with a "/" in the path field.
- You can target the entire site with "/*".