Newsletters Guide

SchoolMessenger’s Newsletter feature helps schools keep parents, faculty, and the community informed by simplifying the process of sending electronic newsletters. 

The purpose of the Newsletter functionality is to keep users updated on a range of activities from news and events to special announcements and messages to parents. Any user may subscribe, or be subscribed, to a newsletter. This can be especially useful for both districts and schools.

An example of when the newsletter module is useful for school a school or district is in the event of school cancellation due to inclement weather.

The advantage of having parents and students as subscribers is that they do not necessarily have to go to the website to get the update. Your newsletter messages will be delivered directly to their e-mail inbox.

Newsletters can be accessed by adding /newsletter to your school or district’s URL. For example, a site with the URL http://www.thisisanexamplewebsitedomain.com would access newsletters by going to http://www.thisisanexamplewebsitedomain.com/newsletter. By default, all users can view newsletters. However, modifications can only be made by authenticated users.

Administration

Once you are on the Newsletter page, click on the Administration link.

On the Administration page, you will see four options:

• Manage Newsletters

• Manage Subscribers

• Manage Security

• Manage Settings

Manage Newsletters

The Manage Newsletters section allows you to perform various changes on your newsletter's profile.

Adding a Newsletter

To create a newsletter:

1. Click Add Newsletter.

2. Clicking on this link will lead you to a page containing Presence’s Content Editor. Here, you may Name and insert a Description of your newsletter.

3. When completed, click on Add New. Click Cancel to discard changes.

Editing a Newsletter

When you select a newsletter in the Manage Newsletters section, you will be directed to a page displaying newsletter settings.

This page features the following tabs:

• Messages

• Settings

• Subscribers

• Security

To edit a newsletter:

1. Select the desired newsletter.

2. Click on the Settings tab.

3. You may change the Title or Description of the newsletter.

4. Once you have made the desired changes, you may click the Update. To remove changes, click Cancel.

Deleting a Newsletter

If you wish to delete a newsletter, click on the cross icon in the Action column to delete the corresponding newsletter.

Searching for a Newsletter

On the Newsletter page, you will see blank search bar next to a field named Find Newsletters. Here you may enter keywords that correspond to the title or the content of the newsletter you are looking for. You can search by Name, Description or Both.

Click Search to execute your personalized search. To see all newsletters, click View All.

Messages

When you select a newsletter, you will be directed to a page displaying newsletter settings. Selecting the Messages tab will bring you to a page displaying draft and past messages. You can also create new messages here.

The Draft Messages section contains messages that have not been published. This could be either because they have been saved but not scheduled for release, or because they have been scheduled for a later date or time. Unscheduled saved messages are marked as Draft under the Status column, whereas messages that have a scheduled send time are marked as Scheduled.

The Past Messages section contains messages that have already been published. Columns titled Publish Time and Action give the exact publishing time, and an option to copy the message respectively.

The Archive Messages section contains messages that have previously been published but are no longer visible to users viewing the newsletter page.

You may add, delete, copy, or edit a message.

Adding a Message

1. Click Add Message to bring up Presence's content editor. Here you may draft a new message.

2. Embedded in the newsletter module is a visually driven tracking system that allows authors to systematically view the steps pertaining to the publications of the newsletters.

   • Title: Fill in the title of your message.

   • HTML Content: Fill in your content of your message which you want readers to see.

   • Convert Content to Plain Text: This option takes the HTML content and then converts it to plain text in the box below where you can make changes if needed.

3. Once you have filled out the information, click Next. If you want to work on your message later click Save As Draft.

4. If you have clicked Next you will now be shown a preview of your message as it will appear to viewers.

   • If you are not satisfied with the newsletter, you may hit the Back button to edit or the Cancel button to cancel sending the message and return to the Messages screen. Selecting Back will redirect you to the previous page where you can modify the content and title of your message. Selecting Cancel will redirect you to the main Messages tab and list your message as Draft under the Status column.

   • If you are happy with your message, click Next to proceed. This will bring you to a scheduling page where you can choose the date and time for the message to be sent. If you would like to release this message immediately, choose Send immediately. Otherwise, choose Send at the Following Time and fill in the required fields.

5. Click Next to view the Message Publishing Summary.

6. This will give you a preview of the message, the timing of release (if scheduled for a later date and time) and the number of subscribers who will receive the message.

7. To deliver the message, click Finish.

The message will then appear in the Draft Messages section until it is sent out. Once it has been sent it will appear in the Past Messages section.  

Note: If you choose to send the message immediately, the message will be sent within one hour of submission. The delivery time varies based on the size of the message and the number of subscribers.

Deleting a Message

A message in the Draft Messages section can be deleted by clicking the 

 icon that appears in the Action column.

A window will pop up asking you to click OK to confirm you wish to delete the message or Cancel to keep it.

Copying a Message

A message in the Past Messages section can be copied by clicking on the copy icon under the Action column.

When you click on the icon, the content editor will load. The content is duplicated from the message you want to copy.

Editing a Message

You can edit a message in the Draft Messages section by clicking on the Name of the message and making the desired changes.

Subscribers

The third tab under the Manage Newsletters section is Subscribers. On the Subscribers tab you may add, reject, delete or find subscribers. You may view the subscription status of subscribers under this tab.

Adding a Subscriber

To add a subscriber, click Add Subscriber.

You may add users from your site by selecting the user group button. External users may be added by entering their email addresses into the New Subscribers field.

These e-mails will automatically be approved.

Rejecting a Subscriber

If you want to reject a subscription, you may click on the 

 icon that appears under the Actions column on the Subscribers page.

Deleting a Subscriber

Under the Actions column, click 

 to delete a subscriber. A window will pop up for you to confirm that you want to delete this subscriber.

Finding a Subscriber

You will notice a blank search bar next to a field named Find Subscribers.

Here, you may enter keywords that correspond to the subscriber’s email address. Once you have inserted the keyword(s), click the Search button. If at any point, you wish to view all the email messages in the database, click the View All button located next to the Search button. Clicking Subscribers will sort the email addresses alphabetically. Each additional click will reverse the order that newsletter names are sorted. You may similarly sort by Joining Date or subscription Status.

View Subscription Status

Under this column, each subscriber falls under one of the following categories: Unsubscribed, Unapproved, Approved, or Rejected.

• Unsubscribed refers to a subscriber who does not wish to continue subscribing to a specific newsletter.

• Unapproved is used for users that have chosen to subscribe but have not yet verified their email address.

• Approved refers to a subscriber who has been successfully added to the list of subscribers.

• Rejected refers to a subscriber that has been declined subscription status.

Security

In the Security tab on a newsletter, you can grant users permissions on the newsletter. By default, they will inherit the permissions from the root newsletter security, however you also can assign permissions at the individual newsletter level.

The Roles tab allows users and groups to be added to pre-defined security roles. Form Template Root Administrators have full access to access, create, edit, and delete any form categories, form templates, their revisions, and their submissions. Only users in this role can access and use the Manage Form Categories interface.

Form Template Root Authors have the ability to edit all the form templates, as well as create new form templates. Users in the Authors role are unable to view submissions or configure security to a form template unless they are the creator of that form template. Authors do not see the Manage Form Categories link from the Form Library.

Users and groups in the Form Template Root Browsers role are able to access the Form Library to be able to fill out forms. Browsers do not see the Manage Form Templates and Manage Form Categories links from the Form Library.

To assign a user or group to a role:

1. Click the plus icon next the role name to expand the list of users in that role.

2. Click Add to open the user picker window. From this window select the users or groups you’d like to grant permissions to by clicking their name and clicking Add.

3. When you have selected your users, click OK.

Direct Permissions

Within Direct Permissions you can assign specific forms security permissions to other users and groups.  

1. First, click Add to select the users to grant permissions to. A window will pop up.

2. From this window select the users or groups you’d like to grant permissions to by clicking their name and clicking Add.

3. When you have selected your users, click OK.             

4. To individually assign permissions to each user, click on the plus icon beside their name. From here you can assign specific permissions.

Actual Permissions

Actual Permissions allows you to view what permissions specific users have on the Newsletter root. Users higher up the security hierarchy may already have permissions to your Newsletter root. Users with entire site permissions may have permissions to your Newsletter if you have the Allow Inheritable Permissions From Parent to Propagate to This Object checkbox selected on the Direct Permissions tab.

Managing Settings

The Manage Settings section on the Newsletter Administration Page allows you to ban specific email addresses or domains from subscribing to your newsletters.

To set up and manage any subscription bans, go to Manage Settings on the Newsletter Administration Page.

Adding a Subscription Ban

1. Click on Add Subscription Ban.

2. Enter the specific email addresses or domains you wish to ban, with one entry per line.

3. Click on Add New to activate a subscription ban on the domains or email addresses you wish to ban. To discard, click on Cancel.

Removing a Subscription Ban

1. Under the Actions column, click cross icon to remove a subscription ban.

2. A window pop up asking you to confirm your change. To confirm, click OK.

Finding a Subscription Ban

To find a subscription ban:

1. Enter keywords into the blank search bar and click Search.

2. To view all subscription bans, click View All.

Subscribing to Messages

RSS Feed

Once you are on the root Newsletter page, click on the RSS Feed link. This can be found on the title bar of the Newsletters box. This will give you an RSS feed for all newsletters on the site.

You can also find the RSS feeds for individual newsletters by clicking on the RSS feed icon to the right of the appropriate newsletter.  

Note: Modern browsers no longer support RSS feeds by default. To view the feed as rendered content inside your browser, you will need to install a browser extension.

Subscribing to Newsletters

To subscribe to a newsletter:

1. Click Subscribe on the Newsletters page. Alternatively, you can click a specific newsletter and then click the Subscribe button.

2. If you are not signed in, you will be prompted to fill out an Email Address. You will also need to check the I’m not a robot ReCAPTCHA to confirm you are a human subscribing to the newsletter.

3. Once you have entered an email and passed the Security Measure CAPTCHA, click Next.

4. A form listing all available newsletters (that you, the user, have permission to view) appears. Users may choose which newsletter(s) they wish to receive. To select all newsletters, click the box beside Select all Newsletters. If you click Subscribe from inside a specific newsletter, that newsletter will be pre-checked. If you are signed in to the site, all other newsletters you have already subscribed to will also be pre-selected.

   • If you are signed in, you will have the option to subscribe via your default email address (the one associated with your user profile), or you can select Use the following email and specify another email address to use.

   • If you are not signed in, the email address you entered in the previous screen will be listed in the Email Address field.

5. Subscribers may select whether to receive their newsletters as an HTML email or Plain Text email.

6. After choosing the preferred email address and format and selecting the newsletters you wish to be subscribed to, click Submit.

7. You will receive a verification email asking you to confirm that the correct email address has been entered from the subscription.

8. Click the link in your email to confirm your subscription. Once you have confirmed your subscription, you will receive any future newsletter messages that are sent for the newsletter(s) you have subscribed to.

9. As a signed-in user, if you have newsletters that you have subscribed to but haven’t confirmed the subscription for yet, you will see arrow icons to the right of each newsletter that you need to confirm the subscription for.

Unsubscribing from Newsletters

To unsubscribe:

1. If you are signed in, when you click on a newsletter that you have subscribed to, you will see an option to unsubscribe. Click on Unsubscribe to remove yourself from the newsletter. Alternatively, you can uncheck any newsletters that you want to unsubscribe from the Subscribe to Newsletter page.

2. After you make your changes, click Submit.

Whether you are signed in or not, every newsletter message that is sent to you will contain a link at the bottom of the newsletter that allows you to unsubscribe.

When you click the link, you will be brought to a page asking you to confirm that you wish to unsubscribe. To do so, click Unsubscribe.