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Enhanced Parent Communication

This guide will explain the setup of SchoolInsight’s Enhanced Parent Communication (EPC) module, the daily work that can be completed using EPC, and how to generate delivery details reports.

The EPC gives you several channels of communication:

  1. Email/App notification Only - Send an email and mobile app notification with the included message
  2. Text and Voice messages - Notify recipients sequentially through email, app notification, text message, and voice message
  3. Emergency Notification - Used for extreme emergencies when the message is broadcast across all communications channels

The foundation of the EPC functionality is phone numbers. For more guidance on setting up phone numbers and which numbers SchoolInsight should dial first, please refer to this article: Phone Numbers.

Send SMS Welcome

Employees are automatically opted in to receive both voice calls and text messages. However, while parents and students are automatically opted in to receive voice calls, The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) created The TCPA, Telephone Consumer Protection Act requires asking these users to opt-in to receive text messages. The SMS Welcome functionality simplifies collecting opt-in from these users.

To invite parents to opt-in to receive messages from the school:

  1. Go to Admin Main > Communications > Email Addresses (Login Setup) > Send SMS Welcome
  2. For Recipients 
    • In the drop down select if you want parents only, students only, or both to receive the welcome text
    • Next, check the radio button to send the texts to your choice of all students or from certain grade levels
  3. Send Text Messages

Users who do not opt-in through the SMS Welcome can opt-in later through their user portal:

  1. Log in as a user, go to Parent/Student Main > Miscellaneous > Communication Preferences
  2. Change the Text Message permission to On next to the desired announcement type
  3. Save

It is recommended to send an announcement, from the communications module, in advance to alert parents that a welcome SMS will be coming to them. Parents will be more likely to opt-in when they know the SMS Welcome is coming.

Creating An Announcement

The EPC features are a part of announcements, which allow schools to send the same message to multiple recipients at the same time. Admins can use announcements to send users messages regarding School Closures such as snow days or Other Messages regarding reminders, District/School news, etc. The Life Threatening Emergency announcement can override all parent communication preferences and sends the message through all communication channels. Use caution when selecting this announcement type. If a school sends multiple regular announcements as Life Threatening Emergency, the parents may block or disregard them. Use for emergencies only.

With the EPC module, announcements can now be sent via email, app notification, text message, and voice message by selecting Also Send Text and Voice Messages in Communication Channels. Additionally, announcement Recipients can be configured to customize what desired combination of students, contacts, and employees receive each message.

When saving an announcement, the sender can decide to send it immediately, save it as a draft, schedule it to be sent at a later date and/or time, or send a test message to themselves in order to preview the content to be sent. 

To create and send an announcement follow these steps:

  1. Go to Admin Main > Communications > Announcements > Create Announcement
  2. Select an Announcement Type 
  3. Select Communication Channels
  4. Complete the required fields in the Message to Send section
    • Subject is the email subject or the content of texts and app notifications.
    • Body - app notifications and text messages will include a link to the message’s body.
    • (Optional) Select files to add attachments.
    • (Optional) Add a Voice Recording
      • You can Record message from your device or Upload a voice file (.wav or .mp3) recorded earlier
  5. Select Recipients
  6. Action when clicking Save
  7. Save/Send

Viewing Delivery Details

Once you have sent an announcement, you can track the details of the notification type and how each recipient interacted with it.

Here are the steps to access the Delivery Details:

  1. Go to Admin Main > Communications > Announcements
  2. To the right of an announcement, click the down-arrow and select Delivery Details 

The Recipient Summary gives you an overview of recipients and the total number that either; received messages, interacted with messages, or did not receive a message due to an error.

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The Delivery Type Summary breaks down the total number of messages from each contact type that were either; sent, interacted with, or not received due to an error. This table will give you an idea of which contact methods result in interactions and which do not.

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The Recipient Details lists every recipient included in this announcement and the contact status (sent, interacted, error). The arrow to the left of each recipient can be clicked to expand more information, which lists each contact type and their status. This table helps determine which recipients received and interacted with their message and which resulted in an error. You can also select the Details option for each recipient to view information on how and why they did or did not receive the information through each communication channel.

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And here is an icon key that explains what each icon means:

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EPC Attendance Features

You are able to notify families when a student is missing or absent after taking attendance by sending a Call-in Absence Reminder. This reduces labor for admins because they will not need to send out individual notifications to families, and this reminder is sent to both parents and the student. Parents are able to set communication preferences for this just like for the School Closure and Other Message announcements. To utilize this feature, you need to set up both the Message Template and Attendance Options.

Set up the Message Template

Set up the template of the email or voice message that will be sent to parents.

To edit the call-in absence reminder template:

  1. Go to Admin Main > Message Templates
  2. Edit Call-In Absence Reminders
  3. Make changes as needed to the Subject and Body of the template
    • Copy a placeholder with the brackets, for example {Student Name}, to populate the selected information for individual reminders.
  4. (Optional) Add a Voice Recording
    • Record a generic message with instructions for parents. Recipients will receive a phone call from your selected phone number.
    • This can be recorded on the spot, or you can select a recording you created previously.
  5. Save

Set up Attendance Options

By default, the absence reminders are set to be sent manually by attendance admins. You can schedule them to run automatically at a specific time.

To set attendance options to send reminders:

  1. Go to Admin Main > Attendance > Options > Edit > Send Reminders to Parents to Call-In Absences
  2. Mode
    • Manually send reminders
      • This option is selected by default, and admins will have to manually send the  Call-in Absence Reminders. 
    • Schedule Automatic Reminder
      • A Call-in Absence Reminder will be sent once a day automatically at the selected time of day. Admins can still send additional reminders manually as needed.
        • Time of Day
        • Attendance Codes
          • Select the absence code(s) you would like to send reminders to recipients for.
  3. Sent By
    • Select an existing admin that the reminders will be sent from. We recommend selecting an admin that would normally handle attendance calls. The Call-in Absence Reminders will appear to be sent by this admin, and recipients are likely to email the admin back to provide the information on why their student is absent.
  4. Attendance that Triggers Parent Reminders
    • Daily Attendance
    • Period Attendance 
      • If you select Period Attendance, you will then need to select which Daily Period the system will look for the selected Attendance Codes for each cycle day at the school. 
  5. Attendance Phone Number
    • This phone number may be displayed in notifications to parents, so they know which number to call and report the absence.

Send Call-in Absence Reminders

You are able to manually send absence reminders at any time after attendance has been entered. You can send reminders multiple times throughout the day to encourage parents to reach out to you with information as to why their student is absent. 

To manually send Call in Absence Reminders:

  1. Go to Admin Main > Attendance > Call-in Absence Reminders > Send Reminder
  2. Choose a Date
  3. Attendance Codes
    • Select the code(s) you want to notify the families about. You will see the number of students who have each attendance code listed in parentheses next to each code.
    • (Optional) Save attendance code selection as default for all future Call-in Absence Reminders
  4. Students
    • All students who have not yet received an absence reminder on the selected date will be checked by default. 
    • If an absence reminder has already been sent to the students, you can manually select them to receive another reminder.
  5. Send

To review Call-in Absence Reminders that have already been sent:

  1. Go to Admin Main > Attendance > Call-in Absence Reminders
  2. (Optional) select a Date range and Apply
  3. Details
    • You are able to view a comparison of the attendance code the student had before the reminder was sent and what the current attendance code is, in addition to any attendance notes that have been entered. 
  4. View Message
    • This allows you to view each communication method a family received the reminder in.