​​Get Started Guide

This guide is to equip new users with the primary skills required to quickly and confidently broadcast voice, text, email, or social media messages to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of people. You will learn the basics of logging in, navigation, setting up and sending a broadcast, creating recipient lists, creating messages, viewing progress reports, user account settings, and some great tips for making SchoolMessenger Communicate a big success for your school. 

After you are comfortable with the basic features and the procedure outlined in this guide, you can find more information in the Advanced Training Guide.  

Bookmark your login page

Before you log in and start familiarizing yourself with the system, please take a moment to bookmark the login page for your account on any computers you could potentially use to send notifications. You should also write down the web address and carry it with you. However, do not write your password anywhere alongside your web address and login name. Also, strongly discourage allowing browsers to save your password on any computer or device that may, at any time, be accessible by anyone other than yourself. 

Enter the web address for your Communicate login page into any web browser.   

Add the login page to your bookmarks or favorites. Do this for any computer or device that you might use to send notifications. Your account’s web address is unique! It cannot be found from the SchoolMessenger homepage or through an internet search. 

Note: If you forget or do not know the web address of your login page, or forget your login or password, contact your school’s system administrator. 

Set your password 

If you have a username, but have no password or have forgotten your password, follow the steps to set your password.  

If you have already created and know your password, you can skip this section and move to the Get Started section.   

1. Click the Forgot My Password link. You will be taken to the Password Assistance page.  

2. Enter your username (as provided by your system administrator) in both the Username and Confirm Username fields.  

3. Click Send. The system will send a notification to the email address associated with your username.  

4. Check your email inbox for an email notification with the subject Reset Password.   

5. Click the link in the email and you will be directed to a web page where you can reset your password.  

6. Enter and confirm your new password. For rules regarding passwords, refer to Managing your account settings.  

7. Click Submit, and you will be logged into your account using the new password. 

Get started 

Now that you have bookmarked your login page and have logged in to the system, you are ready to take the first steps in learning Communicate. 

Communicate is used to send mass notifications, also referred to as broadcasts. The notifications are referred as broadcasts because of the massive number of destinations the message is delivered simultaneously.  

Available broadcast destinations include phone, email, SMS text, Facebook, Twitter, RSS feeds and Push Notifications. It is fast and simple to send a message to a small group of people as it is to send one message to hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of people. Communicate only requires the appropriate contact data referred to as recipients.  

The recipients’ contact data comes from your database system or Student Information System (SIS) and will be uploaded and configured for your account by the Implementations team during the account setup. This data will also be set to receive automated updates on a regular basis, so that any changes to phone numbers, emails, and contact preferences will be current on every broadcast. 

Dashboard 

The Dashboard is the first page you see after logging in to Communicate and gives a high-level view of the activity on your account, and the ability to send a new broadcast. You will find the following tools and information on your Dashboard:  

1. Activity Summary: This section gives you an overview of how frequently your account is being used and what it is being used for. You can see the total number of broadcasts sent from your account, the mix of voice, email, text message, and social media (such as Facebook or RSS feeds). You can also see the most common types of broadcasts and which users are sending the most. You can filter the summary to show the last seven days, the last month, or the last year worth of results.  

2. Broadcasts: This section displays broadcasts that are currently in progress, and recently been completed. If you hover over the Tool icon next to a broadcast, a tooltip menu of common actions for broadcasts displays the Edit, Copy, Report, Graph, Responses, Archive, and Cancel options, depending on whether the broadcast is in progress or complete.  

3. New Broadcast: Click the New Broadcast button to complete the steps to create a broadcast. It is the quickest way to get a broadcast configured and sent. You will be using this feature to send a message as part of this training guide.  

4. Broadcast Templates: Broadcast templates are pre-configured broadcast setups for messages that you send frequently or wish to have instantly available for emergencies. Refer to the Advanced Training Guide for more details.  

Note: The Dashboard will be referenced frequently throughout this guide. Click the Dashboard tab to return to this page. 

Create a New Broadcast 

This will take you through a simple, step-by-step, guided process to get your message sent by using the New Broadcast button on your Dashboard. This guide will explain each step and by the end of this tutorial, you will have successfully sent a test broadcast to yourself, with a phone, email, and SMS Text messages.  

In the course of this tutorial guide, you will do the following:  

Make a List  

A list contains the contact information of all of the people to whom you want to deliver your message.  

Create your Message  

Record voice for telephone, compose an email, and type an SMS text message.  

Send the Broadcast  

View the configuration and settings for your Broadcast and either start delivering it immediately or schedule it for a later time. 

To get started, click the New Broadcast button on the Dashboard.  

Step 1: Subject & Recipients 

The first step in sending a broadcast is to name it, define the type of message and, most importantly, determine who will be receiving it. 

Note:

Building a list with rules is covered in detail, including examples of popular lists, in the Create List Using Rules section.  

Each group of recipients has three options: The X or delete icon will remove a set of recipients, the Cloud icon will save the group for later, and the Eye icon shows you a view of the actual recipients selected.

To learn more about the other options in the Add Message Recipients menu, refer to the Advanced Training Guide. 

Step 2: Message Content 

The Message Content page contains options for the various message types Communicate can deliver – Phone, Email, SMS Text, and Social Media. Let us see how to create a phone, email, and SMS broadcast. 

Phone 

Telephone voice messages, in your own voice, are the most common, attention-getting, and memorable type of broadcast message. These can be recorded via the default Call Me to Record feature.  

1. Select the + Phone tab. The Call Me to Record option in the Voice Type will be selected by default.   

2. The Recording phone field will be populated with the main phone number from your user profile. This is the number the system will call for you to answer and record your voice message. You may change this if needed.  

3. Use the Scratch Pad to write a short script of what you plan to say.  

4. Click Call Now to Record when you are prepared to answer you phone to record. Answer the call and follow the prompts carefully. Make sure to save your message before hanging up.  

5. Click Settings for more message options.   

6. Click Save after the voice message for phone is complete.  

If you have saved previously created messages, you can use the Load Saved Messages option, to save time by quickly retrieving and loading them into your existing broadcast.  

The Scratch Pad area is provided as a place to type what you plan to say during your recording. This is just for convenience, and nothing typed is either used or saved.  

If your account is set up for multilingual messages, the first voice message you record will automatically be assumed to be in your accounts default language (typically, English). After you have recorded your first message, you will see a drop-down menu for recording other languages. You can repeat the above process for each language you need to send. 

Email 

Adding an email message to your broadcast is pretty much the same as composing any other ordinary email. The options in Communicate are like most email programs and can be used to compose a simple or complicated email as needed.  

1. Select the + Email tab.  

2. Your name and email address will automatically be entered in the From Name and From Email fields, but you can change if needed. Remember, this is the email address your message recipients will see and reply to.  

3. For convenience, the Subject will be pre-populated with the name of your broadcast, but you can change it.  

4. Use the Edit toolbar to customize the text in your email. Here, you have additional tools such as data field inserts, pasting text by phone, and the attachments options. You can include an unlimited number of hosted attachments (50 MB limit per file).  

Note: All attachments sent through Communicate are saved on our servers. Attachments will be placed as links to the file, in-line with the body text in your email. This allows for larger files, helps prevent your emails from being blocked at the recipient end and the advanced features found in the Hosted Attachments Log in the Reports tab. For security reasons, certain file types are not permitted.

5. Enter your email message content in the Body field. Exercise caution if you are pasting your email message content from an external editor. If you have created or subscribed to any newsletter templates, you can click Newsletter to select on to pre-populate the body of your email message.  

Note: If you have already created a message using Microsoft Word and you want to paste that message into the HTML editor, you should be aware that messages which are copied and pasted from Word contain extra, non-standard information which may cause your message to not display correctly. The system will attempt to remove most of this information for you but, for best results, it is best to compose your message using the built in HTML editor whenever possible.

6. Click Translate to translate your email message, if required.  

7. Click Save after composing your email.  

The Communicate email editor has many advanced and powerful features not covered in this guide. Refer to the Advanced Training Guide for instructions on creating more complex and robust email messages with features like stationery, merge fields, and more.  

SMS Text Message 

Adding an SMS Text Message to your broadcast is the simplest of all the types.  

1. Select the + SMS tab.  

2. Enter your message in the SMS Text field. You may enter up to 160 characters.
   Click Spell Check to help avoid awkward errors.

3. Click Translate to translate your email message, if required.  

4. Click Save after composing your message.  

Tip: Before sending bulk SMS messages, you should check with your system administrator to ensure that the SMS “opt-in” process has been completed. While SMS messages are an effective way to communicate with people who prefer to receive text information on their wireless devices, it is important to abide by the protocols established by the wireless carriers and industry regulators. If you would like to read more about this subject, refer to the SMS Messaging content in the Advanced Training Guide.

Posts 

Use this option to send posts or push notifications to social media, web pages, or RSS Feeds.  

1. Select the + Posts tab.  

2. Select the social media option to post.  

3. Enter the Title and Message.
   Click Spell Check to help avoid awkward errors. 

4. Even if you are only sending a push notification, the system still requires either an email or phone message to be setup in the broadcast. 
   To send a simple email just to satisfy the requirement, select + Email tab, enter a subject and a few characters of text in the body and click Save. This email will only go to you if you clicked the Add Me button to add one recipient during Step 1, but if you selected other recipients, be mindful of the content of the message.   

5. Click Save after completing your message.  
   After you have configured the message types you want to include in your broadcast, confirm that there is a selection checkmark for each of the types and then click Continue on the New Broadcast page.  

Note: If you would like to learn more about including social media content, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pages or RSS Feeds, refer to the Advanced Training Guide.

Step 3: Review & Send 

After you have created your list and message, you will arrive at the Review & Send page. This page will confirm the name (Subject) of the broadcast, the broadcast type selected, the number of recipients, and what message type are created.  

1. Double-check the Subject and Broadcast Type.  

2. Double-check the Recipient Count. For a test broadcast, the Recipient Count should be 1 as you are the only one receiving the message.  
   If the Recipient Count number does not match the number of recipients you expect, select the Subject & Recipients tab to go back and confirm your list choices and double-check your total recipient count. This count includes both contacts and guardians, unless you have chosen specific targets (only Contacts or only Guardians)

3. Ensure there is a selection for each Message Content type you intend to broadcast.  

4. Make any desired adjustments to the default Message Options settings when preparing to send your broadcast. 

   1. Email me a report of this job upon its completion: After the broadcast has finished running, you will receive an email titled “Job Complete: …” with an attached PDF showing a detailed report and graph of the results.  

   2. Skip duplicate email/phone recipients: This prevents recipients who have their phone numbers or email addresses associated to multiple records in your list (like a parent who has two kids in the same school) from receiving duplicate phone calls, texts and emails of the same message. For all cases, this option should be selected.  

   3. Save Message Content: Selecting this option means that the entire contents of Step 2, Message Content, will be saved in the Message Builder in the Broadcasts tab of Communicate. This is helpful for messages that you will be using on a frequent basis, where the message content does not change. Most messages are unique and should not be saved for later use. You can still review the content of any broadcast, listen to voice, or read SMS, and email messages from the Broadcasts page of your account at any time. 

Caution: If you make any changes to your Subject, Lists or Messages, you must click the Continue and Save buttons for each step until you are back at Step 3, Review & Send. Do not select the Review & Send tab to return to Step 3, unless you have made no changes at all, otherwise, will delete all changes and revert to the original Lists and Messages.

Sending Broadcasts

After verifying the lists and messages, choose one of the two options to send your broadcast:

1. Send Now will set your broadcast to immediately begin calling, texting, and emailing the recipients on your list.   

2. Schedule to Send Later will provide you with the options to set a start date, start time and end time.  

For example, choose Send Now and then click Continue when prompted. Be prepared to answer your phone, receive a text message, and check your email to verify the broadcast. 

Note: If you are creating the broadcast outside of the hours your user account settings are allowed, the broadcast will not begin until the time window opens again.

Receiving Messages 

Phone  

When you send voice messages, the phones on your list begin ringing within seconds. Be prepared to answer the phone and say, “Hello” – this will tell Communicate that it has a real person on the phone, and you will hear a brief introduction message asking you to Press 1 to listen. It will also give you the option to press # to place the call on hold while the appropriate recipient is located.  

Note: Communicate uses a technology that determines the difference between a real person picking up the phone and an answering machine. To help ensure that the entire message is delivered, the system is listening for either a brief greeting such as “Hello” or “This is Jane, can I help you” to indicate a real person, or a “beep” to indicate that an answering machine is ready to record. Since many people choose to have long, humorous, or musical answering machine greetings, try to avoid noisy backgrounds or talking during playback, as a noisy background might sound like a long answering machine greeting and the message will stop playing, then start over when it again detects silence.

Email 

Getting an email through Communicate is similar to any other email. It will display the From address based on what you entered. Like other emails, if you do not see it in your inbox, you should refresh your inbox and check to see if your email provider marked it as “junk” – especially if this is the first time you have ever received an email through the Communicate system.  

SMS Text 

To send SMS text messages through Communicate, the recipients must go through an opt-in process before you can begin broadcasting to them. There are a few different ways to complete this process (described in the SMS Text Messages portion of the Advanced Training Guide), but a person must complete the opt-in process before they will receive your Communicate text messages. After a recipient is opted in, they will receive your Communicate SMS messages just like any other text message. These messages will appear to be coming from whatever short code your district is using. 

Tracking Progress 

After you have sent a broadcast, you can view its progress and current status in the Dashboard tab.  

After clicking Send Now, your broadcast is moved to the In Progress status in the Broadcasts section of the Dashboard tab. It is possible that your test broadcast, as it only included one recipient, is sent quickly and moved into the Completed status by the time you returned to the Dashboard tab, where as a typical broadcast usually has many more recipients and will take longer to reach everyone.  

You can hover over the Tool icon next to your job and click Monitor in the tooltip to monitor delivery progress. 

Broadcast Summary 

After a broadcast is complete, hover over the Tool icon and click Report to open the Broadcast Summary page. This page shows the delivery results and is divided into three sections designed to give you a quick overview of the broadcast results.  

Summary 

Shows a brief overview of the broadcast settings. The Related Links provide access to download a PDF, view time details, and create reports of recipients not contacted.  

Broadcast Content  

View the content of your Broadcasts in this section. For each Broadcast, you can review the message type, including translations.

Results 

Contains a breakdown of the total calls, emails, and SMS text messages sent.  

You can view a detailed report of each type of phone results by clicking the underlined links on the Phone Details chart (that is, to get a list of the phones that were answered by a live person, click the Answered link.)  

Other Types of Reports 

It is also possible to generate a custom report that includes specific information by using the Report Builder in the Reports tab. For example, with a Contact History report template, you can determine how many times a certain student was called specifically about attendance. Contact History reports also allow you to determine which student ID numbers are associated with a particular phone number.  

Many report types can be scheduled to run automatically. An easily generated report using the Phone Log template is a great way to track regularly occurring data such as the disconnected results each month.

Note: For more information on creating reports, refer to the Reports section of the Advanced Training Guide.

Create a List Using Rules

In this section, you will learn how to create a list using rules, including some popular list types. These lists can be made either in the Subject & Recipients step of creating a New Broadcast or from the Lists section of the Broadcasts tab. From the Lists menu of the Broadcasts tab, click Add New List to open the List Editor.

The List Content section is used to create rules that filter the contacts from your database imports down to specific groups of people. Select the data field to use (such as, Grade or School), adding criteria (such as, is or is not and equals, does not equal, or starts with), and then choose the appropriate value that allows you to create almost infinite combinations to target very specific contact groups. After you have created a list using rules, you can save the list for future use.

Tip: When you create lists using rules, you are using contact information in your database, which is frequently being updated automatically. This implies you can save and reuse rule-based lists and trust that they will always be up to date.

Here are some detailed examples of using rules to create a few popular lists. All lists begin with giving them a Name and Description that identify the contacts they will contain. This list will contain all the contacts in the whole school district.   

All School Student List  

1. Select School from the Field drop-down menu.  

2. Select the schools required in the Value field. 

3. Click Add.  

4. Check the Total value next to the Preview button to ensure that the number reflects approximately the number of schools.   

5. Select the Target Recipients to broadcast to Contacts (students), Associated Guardians, or Both.  

6. Select which Guardian Category should be included.  

7. Click Done.  

Staff List  

1. In the List Content section of the List Editor, select Contact Type from the Field drop-down menu.  

2. Select Equals or Contains from the Criteria menu (if your contact type field data potentially has more than one value, use Contains).  

3. In the Value field, type Staff or position name your school uses to identify them.  

4. Click Add.  

5. Check the Total value to confirm that the number of recipients is correct.  

6. Click Done. 

Grade Level List  

Each rule you add to a list helps you further refine or add more recipients. You can add as many rules as required to define a particular list. This example will create a list of all the sixth graders at a specific elementary school.  

1. After giving the list a name and description, select School from the Field drop-down menu.

2. Select the schools required in the Value field.

3. Click Add.  

4. Select Grade from the new Field menu.  

5. Select is under Criteria.  

6. Select the desired grade or grades from the Value field.  

7. Click Add.  

8. Check the recipient Total value.  

9. Set the options for Target Recipients and Guardian Category.  

10. Click Done.  

Note: If there is an option for a Grade 0, when selected, anyone with a blank grade value is added to your list. They would typically be staff and non-student contacts.

More List Building Options  

While rules are important, they are not the only way to create lists. For additional information on creating lists, refer to the Advanced Training Guide.   

Manage your account settings 

To edit your account preferences click the User Account link. You can view or edit your account settings. 

Note: You may be unable to edit certain fields if your account was added to the system using a data import or if your Access Profile does not include the required permission.

Click Remote Phone Access (your phone number to access Communicate) from any touch-tone phone, to record a message and send a notification when a computer is not available. To learn more about this feature, refer to theRemote Phone Access Pocket Guide.  

Account Information 

First Name: Your first name.  

Last Name: Your last name.  

Username: The name you use to log into SchoolMessenger. Usernames are case sensitive and must be a minimum of 5 characters.  

Password: Your login password. Passwords are case sensitive, must be a minimum of 5 characters, and must contain at least 2 different types of letters, numbers, or symbols.  

Phone User ID: Used to log in to Remote Phone Access. Must be a sequence of at least four non-repeating numbers.  

Phone PIN Code: Also used to log in to Remote Phone Access. Must be a sequence of at least four non-repeating numbers. This PIN cannot be the same as your Phone User ID.  

Account Email: Your email address used for auto reports. It is also the email address that will be used if you request a password reset.   

Auto Report Emails: Any additional email addresses that should also receive job completion reports. Multiple email addresses can be used if separated with semicolons.  

Phone: Your phone number for recording voice messages.  

Broadcast Defaults 

Default Start Time and Default End Time: These settings are used to create a default for the earliest time of day and latest time of day you generally expect to begin and stop sending messages to recipients. Most accounts set these times to begin around 75 minutes before the earliest time students normally arrive at school and end by 9 PM, as calling earlier or later could produce negative responses from recipients.  

These two settings can be adjusted at the time you are scheduling a broadcast but could be limited by your access profile so that you may not be able to send broadcasts outside of the times set by your account administrator.  

Call Attempts: The number of times Communicate will attempt to deliver a voice message to phones. If a call to a specific phone number produces a busy signal, is not answered within 45 seconds, or gets an operator message (that is, “The number you have dialed is not a working number, please…”), the system will try the call again later. This function could also be limited by your access profile.  

Days to Run: The default number of days you would like the system to keep making attempts to send undelivered messages. This setting does not usually come into play unless a broadcast is scheduled to run very close to the Default End Time, at which time any recipients to whom the broadcast has not been successfully delivered will be paused and then attempts will begin again the next day at the set Default Start Time.  

Personal Caller ID: The number that recipients will see on their caller ID when you send a voice broadcast from your account.  

Note: If your account has been set up for a Call-In Message Retrieval number, your caller ID will be automatically overwritten by the Call-In Message Retrieval number. 

Social Media Options 

Add Facebook Account: Using the provided tools, you can configure your Communicate account for including posts to Facebook in your broadcasts.  

Add Twitter Account: Using the provided tools, you can configure your Communicate account for including Tweets in your broadcasts.  

Note: Your Access Profile may restrict you to only posting to very specific Facebook or Twitter accounts. Contact your account administrator for guidance on which social media accounts are authorized and for guidelines about posting. For more information about configuring your Communicate account for social media, contact PowerSchool Communicate support.

Display Settings 

Action Links: You can specify whether you want links in the user interface to display with icons or simply as text.  

Hide Email Editor Tools: Select this option if you want the HTML email editor tools to be hidden by default when creating email messages.  

Quick Tips for Voice Messaging 

Communicate phone calls can be an effective instrument for building relationships with families, and the sound of familiar school official’s voice can leave a lasting impression. The following tips can help ensure that your messages are easily understood and well received.  

Be prepared 

Always take a moment to consider the purpose and goal of your message. Who is the message for, what are the important details, how you would like the recipients to react? If the message is intended or likely to require action by you or others within your organization, make sure you are all on the same page to avoid contradiction or lack of resources.  

Type your message in advance 

Begin with your name, school, and position with the school and then get right to the heart of what your message is about. Read it aloud to yourself and have a second person read it if possible. Make sure to repeat any important details such as an address, phone number, date, time, or specific location.  

Get to the reason for the call 

Make it clear why you are calling and use brief, concise, and simplified language and stick to the point. It is a fact that you generally have about 30 seconds (sometimes less) to convey your message before losing a listener’s attention. Also, be aware that many answering machines and voice mail systems will only record for 30 seconds before hanging up.  

Create a good impression 

Messages are often your first and most frequent contact with people. Smile when you speak; people can hear it in your voice. Take a deep breath before you start recording (you want to keep your voice from trailing off or sounding exerted) and speak up. Put some energy in your voice and change inflection along the way. Avoid sounding monotone - if you sound bored, your recipients will not pay attention. Do not speak too slowly or too quickly, find a realistic, conversational pace. Remember, how you say something can be as important as what you say.  

Avoid recipient fatigue 

Trying to cover too many complicated or unrelated issues in one phone message is a bad idea. Decide what is really important and, if you really need to cover multiple topics, consider how you can break them up into multiple calls – or even move some of the topics to an email. This improves the chances that recipients will pay attention, understand, and remember your message.  

Also, avoid sending messages too frequently. If people get messages from you all the time, they begin to stop listening or paying attention to them. Some people may also begin to view messages as a nuisance. When this happens, people inadvertently miss important information.  

Timing is everything 

When you send a message, consider when is too soon and when is too late for the information you are delivering. A message sent too many days in advance could become forgotten. A message sent too late may leave people with not enough time to act accordingly.