Overview of Alerts and Notifications

The Communications module allows you to send alerts to a variety of people through the Educate system. Alerts provide you with a way to send messages automatically when certain criteria are met (e.g., to send a message when a student is marked absent) and to send messages in the preferred way to each recipient (e.g., to allow parents to receive school closing notifications via text message and absence notifications at their work email address).

Alerts and notifications can be written entirely from templates or customized each time they are sent, according to your school’s needs. In addition, you have the ability to set up certain alert types to be sent out automatically while others can be sent individually as needed.

When recipients read an alert, they can respond to the alert letting your school know it has been received. You will then have a list of which alerts have been acknowledged, allowing you to notice out-of-date contact information or make arrangements for individuals who may not have received the message.

Before you can use the Communications module to its fullest abilities, you must set up certain information.

• Alert communication preferences must be set up. This controls how students, staff and contacts will receive each type of alert. Based on permissions, many of these individuals can set up their own alert preferences when they log in to Educate.
  
  
• Indicate all parents who have primary custody of the students in the system. When alerts are sent to parents, they will only be sent to the parent(s) who are marked as having primary custody of the child the alert is about.
  
  
• Templates should be set up. Templates allow you to quickly create alerts with pre-defined text and merge fields.