This article explains how to send notifications via edumate to the Danebank App and Parent Portal. Please note, currently only the junior office, senior office, marketing and director of sport are authorised to send these notifications.
N.B. Keep in mind that not all parents may be using the app or may not receive app / portal notifications immediately – any urgent notifications should be sent to the app using this procedure, but also accompanied by an sms via edumate as appropriate, to ensure it reaches all targeted parents!
1. In Edumate, click on the ‘classic’ menu, then click ‘Communication’ then ‘Broadcast’:
2. Click ‘New’ in the top right corner:
3. Click the arrow next to ‘Students/Carers’, then tick ‘Post to Report Carers’, then click the drop down box that appears:
4. You can target a school, form, specific classes or other groups. If the category you choose has many options (such as class), type part of the name of the group you are looking for into the search box, then tick the group(s) you wish to receive the communication:
5. Click ‘Accept’ once you have ticked all the groups with whom you want to communicate:
6. You will see a summary of the chosen recipients for your communication, click ‘Next’:
7. The text editor will appear, enter a title for the communication:
In the editor, click ‘Advanced’ to get a better text editor for your communication, and fill in the body of your communication. You can include images, emojis, and links to websites. Documents can be attached in a later step.
8. If you wish to insert a website link into your body, highlight the text for the link, click the link button, and copy in the URL for the website / web document.
N.b. Make sure you make any link text bold – otherwise the links will be very hard to see on mobile phones.
9. By default, the photo of the author of a communication will appear on the phone app next to the ‘newsfeed’ item. If there are any icons / emojis in the post however, these will become the icon for the news item:
If you would like to use an icon instead of your photo – create a new line at the end of your communication body, click the emoji button, and choose an icon for the post.
N.b. Newsletters should use the ‘envelope’ icon, and this shouldn’t be used by any other type of communication. Try to keep the type of icon you choose consistent for the type of communication you are sending to make news items predictable for parents.
10. When you are finished creating your communication, click ‘Save as Draft’. The item will not be published at this point:
11. If you wish to attach any documents to the communication, click ‘Upload Post Document’. Try to make sure any attached documents do not exceed 5mb in file size.
12. You can defer posts until a certain date by clicking ‘Deferred Post’ and choose the post date. Please do not use the other options here.
13. Click ‘Post’ to publish your post to the selected recipients!
N.b. Remember if this is an urgent notice, you will need to also send an sms via Edumate contacts to make sure all parents receive the communication!
