One of the main features of the platform is the messaging service. You can instantly communicate with parents via push notifications, emails, and SMS messages.
Click into the Messages tab on the left-hand side, you can see a list of your messages along with their title, sender, type and sent date. At the top, you can filter by sent, scheduled and draft messages as well as search. Your remaining SMS credits can be seen in the top right corner as well as on the main dashboard. Please keep an eye on this and if you need to order any more, you can click the green Top Up button.
You can send three types of messages from our system – app notification, e-mail and SMS. To send a new message, click Compose Message in the top right corner.
The first section to fill in is Message Details. Here, you can add a title and your message body. You have up to 2000 characters available.
You can personalise your message to your users by using #ChildName and #ParentName within the message. This will ensure your users see their own name and their child/children’s name within the message.
The Message Link section gives you the ability attach a specific piece of content (for example, a Letter Home you already uploaded) to your message or link it to an external website. To link to some content, choose “Link to app section/content”, select the section then select the content. To link to a website, select Link to Website from the drop-down and add the URL. Parents will be directed straight the section or link you have chosen by clicking the Show Content button in the app.
Message Preferences is where you decide who the message will be delivered to and how it is going to be sent. You can toggle on the Send to All Users button to send your message to all users within your system or to a specific set of users using the Select Users button to target.
Next, we have to choose how we want the message to be sent. App notification, email or SMS.
App Notification – An app notification is a message that pops up on the user’s device when connected to the internet. These are free to use and can only be viewed by active users.
E-mail – An e-mail can also be sent for free to your users through the app. You can send as an e-mail or send as e-mail to inactive users only. This will allow you to communicate with all users 100% of the time and is particularly useful when first launching your app.
SMS – An SMS is a text message which can be sent to all users, or you can send an SMS to Inactive Users only. Please be aware that a SMS message is limited to 160 characters. If your message is more than this, it will use multiple SMS credits from your account.
Finally, you can choose to send your message right now or to schedule the message to be sent at a later date using the Schedule Message toggle. If you choose to schedule a message, you also have the option to repeat it.
When you are ready, click Send in the top right corner. If you want to save your message for later, you can always choose to save the message as a draft.