Messenger

Setting up Messenger

Messenger provides one central system for all teacher, student and parent communication. You can send out direct messages to an individual, several individuals or groups such as teachers, classes or year groups. This is an optional feature, so you will only be able to use this if your school has purchased it.

There are some site settings (detailed above) that need to be specified first to configure Messenger to your school's requirements, such as setting message quotas and restricting message length and frequency to protect teacher workload.

Getting started

To create a new message go to Me > Messages or use the Messages quicklink icon.

Click on New on the right-hand side of the screen. You can start typing a name straight in the ‘To’ box or you can use the Browse button to search for different groups, you’ll be able to see your individual classes, years groups, all students etc. Alternatively, you can fill in the About box with a student first, if you want to get a list of potential recipients linked to that student.

To add an attachment to your message, click on the Choose button, next drag the file into the ‘Drag & drop files here’ box. Select the uploaded file from the list below the drag and drop box to attach the file to your message.

Note: You will be able to have a maximum of 50 attachments stored on your upload space, if you exceed this limit you will need to delete some of your old files that you no longer wish to use.

As soon as you are ready to send your message, press the Send message button.

If you send a message to 2 or more parents, 50 or more students, or both parents and students, then your conversation will be marked as completed and your recipients will not be able to respond, regardless of your site settings.

Inbox

Your messages will all appear in your inbox under Me > Messages. The quicklink icon at the top of the page will indicate if you have any unread messages by showing a red bubble with a number in it.

All unread messages will have a red line on the left hand side of the message box and any that you’ve not replied to will have a yellow line. The key at the bottom of the page will help you understand what the status of each message is and who it’s from.

To reply to a message you’ve received, click on the message, type your reply and then press Send reply.

If you have finished with the conversation thread and no further action is required then click 'Mark as complete'. Completed conversations will not appear for staff in the 'Active and recently completed' list unless there has been a new message since midnight on the current day. Completed conversations will dissapear from the 'Active and recently completed' list for Parents and students after 30 days. If you want to look at older conversations then you can use the drop down box at the top of the page and change it to either ‘Completed only’ or ‘All conversations’.

Note: Staff are not able to delete messages, they can only mark them as completed and grey. As the school epraise administrator, you can delete messages in the rare circumstance where this is necessary.