Step 1: Subject & Recipients

Important: Some menus or features shown may not appear in your account, as only those to which you have been granted access will be visible.  For access to additional features, please contact your account administrator.

Once you click the New Broadcast button, you’ll be taken to the Subject & Recipients screen. This step consists of 3 main components:

1.    Subject

2.    Type

3.    Recipients

Note: As you work through the New Broadcast process, any field marked with the orange asterisk is a required field.  Once the requirements of a field have been met, the orange asterisk will change to a green check .

Subject

The Subject is the title of your broadcast.  Make your subject concise and descriptive of the content of your message. Doing so helps you identify the broadcast easily in the system for future reference, as well as help your recipients quickly know what your broadcast is about.

Note: The subject will not appear to recipients of Phone, SMS, or Social broadcasts.

 

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Type

Selecting an appropriate type is important as this works in conjunction with your contacts’ notification preferences. Your contacts can configure their notification preferences a number of ways (read the topic on Interactive Preferences to learn more). In selecting your broadcast type, keep in mind that some contacts may have selected certain numbers or email addresses to receive specific types of broadcasts.

Broadcast types fall into two main categories: non-emergency  and emergency

Your account administrator has defined the available types available for your account to select from.  Make sure you think carefully about the content and urgency of your message, then select a type that is appropriate.

 

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Recipients

"Recipients" refers to the people to whom you are sending your broadcasts.  This could be parents and guardians, students, staff or anyone who's information is included in one of your account's imports and your address book. You can even send your broadcasts to yourself (recommended).

Clicking the “Add Message Recipients” drop-down menu offers a wealth of options when selecting your recipients:

 

Read below for more info on your options.

 

Saved Recipient Lists

This option allows you to quickly access and use recipient lists you’ve created and saved for future use. Read more on creating and saving lists in the Create a List topic of this online Help.

Note: Recipient lists are listed in alphabetical order. Keep this in mind when naming your saved lists to help you organize and locate lists quickly and easily.

1.    Select a Saved Recipient List by checking the box to the left of the list.

2.    Click the Add Recipients button to save and return to the Subject & Recipients screen.

 

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Custom Rules

If the list of recipients you want to send a broadcast to hasn’t been previously created and saved, you can build a new one using Custom Rules (and save it for future use).  Custom Rules allow you to filter and isolate specific groups of recipients from your student database files imported by your system administrator. Stack as many rules as you need to narrow down your contacts to be as specific as possible.

1.    Select a field from which to create a rule. For example, selecting "School" creates a list of all the schools in your district for which you have permission to send notifications.

2.    Select a clause. Which clauses appear depends on the field selected.

3.    Click Save to save and return to the Add New Rule screen. From here, you can save and return to the Subject or Recipients screen or add a new rule to further filter your recipient list by clicking the Add New Rule button.

Applying rules ensures only the intended contacts receive your Broadcast and eliminates those who aren’t applicable. You can add as many rules as you need to.

 

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Class Sections

 If your system administrator has imported the applicable data, you can target recipients by class section.

1.    Select a school from the drop-down menu.

2.    Select a class section by checking its box on the left-hand side.

3.    Click the Add Recipients button to return to the Subject & Recipients screen.

 

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Quick Pick

Build a simple list by searching for specific individuals and checking the box to the left of their record. You can search, narrow down the search using rules (just like in the Custom Rules option described above), pick from a list of all contacts, or search contacts by class section.

1.    Select a search option.

2.    Depending on your search option:

·        create a rule

·        enter an individual's name

·        select specific contacts from a list of all your contacts, or

·        select a classroom section from a specific school.

3.    Click the Search button.

4.    Add recipients by checking the box next to their names in the "In List" column.

5.    Click the Add Recipients button to save and return to the Subject & Recipients screen.

 

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Upload List

Uploading a list requires that you have a .CSV file of contacts saved on your computer. This advanced way of creating a list can be handy when the people to whom you need to broadcast may not be included in one of your account’s database imports.  This option is covered in more detail in the Upload List section of this online Help.

1.    Create your recipient file using a spreadsheet software like Excel. Make sure you save it as a .CSV file or the upload will not work.

2.    Select the type of file you'll be uploading. Use ID# lookup only if you know the ID#s or your target recipients.

3.    Click Next.

4.    If your upload is successful, your contacts will appear. You can correct the category using the drop-down menu at the top of each column.

5.    Click the  Add Recipients button to save and return to the Subject & Recipients screen.

 

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Add Me

You can either use the    button or the Add Me link in the Add Message Recipients menu to add your contact information to the broadcast. If your contact information is not already in the system, or needs to be edited, you can click the pencil icon on the right side of the button and enter/update your information manually.

Additional Features and Recipient Options

Once you’ve selected all of your recipients, you have a few more options before you click Continue and move on to Step 2: Message Content.  

From the Subject & Recipients window you can:

1.    Remove recipients

2.    Save the new list you created

3.    View the full list of contacts that fit your criteria when you built the recipient list. If using the Guardian Data Model, note that associated guardians are not included in this list or are included in the total number that appears in this list. The contacts in the Preview list include only the contacts that fit your criteria when you built the list.

4.    Click Add Me to add yourself as a recipient (recommended). Click the pencil icon to edit your contact info (just for the current message).

5.    View if your contacts have any other languages. This is useful for knowing to add translated versions of your message content to your broadcast. If using the Guardian Data Model, the number counts under the "Recipient Language" column includes contacts and all associated guardians by default.

6.    Refine recipient targets. By default, both contacts (students) and guardians are selected. Updating the targets may cause the Recipient Languages and Count column to update to reflect the accurate number of broadcast recipients.

7.    View your total recipient count. If using the Guardian Data Model, this count includes both contacts and guardians unless you select specific targets (just contacts or just guardians).

8.    When you have finished assigning the settings for this Subject & Recipients step, click the   button to move on to the next step.

 

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Jump to the next topic: Step 2: Message Content