Send a message to parents or teachers

Messaging → Send Message is where the school office speaks to parents and teachers. You choose who, how, and what to say, and ShuleOS tells you exactly how many people will be reached before you send.

Send a message

1. Use a template (optional). Pick a ready-made message such as "Fee reminder" or "Half-day notice", then change it if you like. Leave it on Write my own message to write from scratch. Templates are kept under Messaging → Templates (see The message log and templates).
2. Send to: choose the audience.

3. Send by: tick one or more channels.

A channel that is not set up is greyed out with "Not set up. Add your … details in Messaging Settings." (see Messaging settings).

4. Subject: the email subject and the title on the bell notification. Required if you send by email.

5. Message: what to say, up to 1,000 characters. Under the box you see how long it is and, for SMS, "about 2 SMS each". You can use three words in curly brackets, and they are filled in for each person:

   • {name}: the person's name,
   • {students}: their child or children,
   • {school}: your school's name.

   For example: "Dear {name}, {students} was absent today. {school}."

6. How it will look (optional): tabs for SMS, Email and Bell. If you leave a tab empty, the main message is used. Write a shorter SMS wording and a longer email wording, for example.

7. When to send: Send now, or Send later and pick the Send on date and time.

8. If the school uses quiet hours, an Urgent: send at once, even during quiet hours switch appears. See below.

9. Look at the summary under the form, for example "All parents: 412 people", "SMS to 398 phone numbers, about 1 SMS each", "Email to 120 addresses", "Bell for 305 people with a portal login". If some people cannot be reached by the channels you chose, it says how many will be skipped.

10. Click Send message. You see "Message on its way" (or "Message scheduled"), with a button Open the log.

Quiet hours

Schools can stop texts going out at night. When quiet hours are on, SMS and WhatsApp messages created during them wait and go out when quiet hours end. Email and the bell are not held. To send a text at once, switch on Urgent. Quiet hours are set in Messaging settings.

Safe mode

If you see a Safe mode is on banner, this copy of ShuleOS records SMS and email in the message log but does not really send them. Bell notifications are still delivered. It is used for demos and testing so that a practice message can never reach real parents. Your school's live system does not show it.

Who gets skipped

A person is skipped, and counted, when they have no valid phone number (for SMS), no email address (for email) or no portal login (for the bell). Check phone numbers in Parent logins and contacts. If nobody can be reached you see "Nobody can be reached", and if the audience is empty you see "Nobody to send to".

If something goes wrong