SchoolConnects (Synrevoice) User Guide

SchoolConnects
Web Users Guide

Version 9.30 August 2011
Synrevoice Technologies Inc.
SchoolConnectsTM Version 9.30

Copyright 2002 - 2011 Synrevoice Technologies Inc. Although the information in this document has been carefully reviewed, Synrevoice Technologies Inc, (Synrevoice) does not warrant it to be free of errors or omissions. Synrevoice reserves the right to make corrections, updates, revisions or changes to the information in this document. UNLESS OTHERWISE EXPRESSLY STATED BY SYNREVOICE, THE PROGRAM DESCRIBED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED AS IS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT WILL SYNREVOICE BE LIABLE TO ANYONE FOR SPECIAL, COLLATERAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY LOST PROFITS, DATA, OR SAVINGS, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PROGRAM. This document is protected by copyright and you may not redistribute or translate it into another language, in part or in whole. You may only redistribute this document internally within your organization (for example, on your intranet) provided that you continue to check with Synrevoice for updates, and update your version of the documentation. You may not make it available to your organization over the internet. SchoolConnectsTM is a trademark of Synrevoice Technologies Inc. Microsoft is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other products or services mentioned in this document are identified by the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.
SchoolConnects Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
The SchoolConnectsWeb Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 The Navigation Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 SchoolConnects Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 School properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 The Address Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 The student household contact data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The relative contact data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Primary tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Secondary tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Types of Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Attendance Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Types of attendance messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 What do the messages sound like? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 How is the data retrieved from the student information system? . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 How are attendance messages initiated? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Announcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 About Emergency messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 About canned messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Call-In Profile Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Call-in profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Call-in profile reference card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Example: the football coach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 The superintendent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 All grade 9 students in the district. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 About Message Expiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 About Call Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 About Email Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 About Text Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 About text message times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 SMS Text Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Before you can send SMS text messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 About caller identification on a mobile phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Instructions for subscribing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Knowing what numbers to select . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 When a text message is sent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 The SMS check box in the Address Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 If a parent does not want to receive texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Twitter Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 About Message Priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 When to use what priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Contact Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Difference Between the Address Book and a Contact List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Address Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
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Contact list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 The User Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 User types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 User properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 District administrators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 About Importing Contact Data from a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Do-Not-Call Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Global Do-Not-Call list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Schools Do-Not-Call list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Message Suspension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Types of messages that are restricted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 About Call Cascading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Using SchoolConnectsWeb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Create a School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Edit School Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Change Your Password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Add a New User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Delete an Existing User Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Create an Announcement With Your Own Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Step 1: Identify the message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Step 2: Schedule delivery of your message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Step 3A: Record the message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 Record a message in your own voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Generate a message using Text to Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Step 3B: Create the email contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Step 3C: Create the text message contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Step 4: Specify who to send the message to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Step 5: Review the Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Choose Recipients from the Address Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Select the entire Address Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Select all members of a grade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Select individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Choose Recipients from a Contact List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Select an entire contact list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Select a subset grouping from a contact list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Select individuals from a contact list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Obtain a List of Recipients from a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Create an Announcement Using a Canned Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Identify the message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Schedule delivery of your message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Create the email contents (if applicable) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Create the text message contents (if applicable) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 Specify who to send the message to. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Review the Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
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Work with Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Suspend a message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Resume an entire message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Resume a specific delivery method for a message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 View the recipients for a message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Add more recipients to a message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Listen to a sample call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Send a sample email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 View the progress of a message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 View a report for a message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Listen to call responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Reactivate a message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Change message settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Send a Message Again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Send the same message again to the same recipients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Send a new message to the same recipients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Create a Reusable Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 View the reusable message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Make a message reusable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Reuse a Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Create a Quick Attendance Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 If you manually import absences 2 or more times a day using same template... 94 Create a Contact List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Modify a Contact List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Manually add contacts to a contact list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Add to a contact list from the Address Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Add to a contact list from an import file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Delete a record from the contact list. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Change the telephone number for a contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Update the Address Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Import a new Address Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Search for a student in the Address Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Manually add a student to the Address Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 Delete a student from the Address Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 Search for Contact Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Prevent Calls to a Student or Phone Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Delete a record from the Do-Not-Call list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Prevent Text Messages for a Specific Student . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 Restrict Messaging for a School or District . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Change the restriction schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Cancel the current restriction schedule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Set Up SchoolConnects Connection to Twitter Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
SchoolConnects Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Create an Attendance Message Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 Create a Canned Message Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Create a File Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Set Up a Call-In Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
SchoolConnects Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Available SchoolConnects Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 Status Used in Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Call status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 Email status. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 SMS status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 PIN Responses Used in Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Viewing Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 Email a report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 View a report online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 Request a Notification Task Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 Request an SMS Summary Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 Request an Export Call Responses Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Request a Call-In Profile Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Request a Report of Call-In Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Retrieve Message History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 View Message Activity Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Review SMS activity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 SMS activity status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Review email activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Email activity status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 Review voice server activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Voice server activity reasons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
SchoolConnects Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Address Book Fields and What They Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Student (Household) Contact Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Relative Contact Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Address Book Buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 What the Message Icons Mean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Use School Announcement Settings Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 User Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 The Call Cascading Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Overview of call cascading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 Contact priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 How call cascading works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Call cascading sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Examples of call cascading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Cascade primary and secondary numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
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Cascade primary and relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Cascade primary, secondary, and relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Selecting call cascading options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 The Telemarketer Zapper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
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SchoolConnects Basics
SchoolConnects Basics
The SchoolConnectsTM software (SchoolConnects) is a parent notification system used primarily by schools and school districts to notify parents about student attendance and to communicate school announcements and emergency messages to parents and the school community. SchoolConnectsWeb is the primary interface for SchoolConnects. Most functions can be done through SchoolConnectsWeb. School administrators can use SchoolConnectsWeb to send automated telephone messages to their entire school community or to selected grades, groups, or individuals. District administrators can use SchoolConnectsWeb to send automated messages to one or more schools, the entire district, or to selected individuals or groups. This chapter describes the basic SchoolConnects concepts and introduces the SchoolConnectsWeb user interface. Contents: The SchoolConnectsWeb Window SchoolConnects Schools The Address Book Types of Messages Attendance Messages Announcements Call-In Profile Messages About Message Expiry About Call Times About Email Times About Text Messages About Message Priority Contact Lists Difference Between the Address Book and a Contact List The User Manager About Importing Contact Data from a File Do-Not-Call Lists Message Suspension About Call Cascading
SchoolConnects Web Users Guide
SchoolConnects Basics The SchoolConnectsWeb Window
The SchoolConnectsWeb Window

The SchoolConnectsWeb window is divided into two parts: The Navigation pane on the left and the work area on the right. The work area shows the contents of the option selected in the Navigation pane. No matter what window you are working on in the work area, you can click on a menu option in the Navigation pane to go immediately to a different function.
NOTE:
If you change menu options without first saving your changes, you may lose any changes you have been working on.
The Navigation Pane

The Navigation pane looks like this:
Home Use this option to return to the view you saw when you first logged in. Change School Available only to District users or administrators. Use this option to select a school or all schools to work with. After you make a selection, that selection is maintained until you make a new selection by changing schools. Send Message Available only to users who have permissions to create a new message. Use this option to create a new announcement, emergency message, or attendance message, or to reuse a message. View Messages: Announcement Use this option to view all announcements in the system for the selected school(s) and date. To view announcements for a particular date, click Announcement, and then click the appropriate date in the calendar. View Messages: Emergency
Use this option to view all emergency messages in the system for the selected school(s) and date. To view emergency messages for a particular date, click Emergency, and then click the appropriate date in the calendar. View Messages: Attendance Use this option to view all attendance messages in the system for the selected school(s) and date. To view attendance messages for a particular date, click Attendance, and then click the appropriate date in the calendar. View Messages: Call-In Profile Use this option to view all announcements launched by calling in to the system for the selected school(s) and date. To view call-in profile messages for a particular date, click Call-In Profile, and then click the appropriate date in the calendar. View Messages: All Messages Use this option to view all messages in the system for the selected school(s) and date. To view all messages for a particular date, click All Messages, and then click the appropriate date in the calendar. Reports Use this option to request a custom report, or to view message history for a phone number or student ID. Manage Contacts Use this option to work with the Address Book, contact lists, or Do-Not-Call lists. If you use text messaging, you can also see a list of subscribed SMS phone numbers. Settings Use this option to create a restriction schedule to suspend messaging, or work with message templates, school properties, user accounts, Twitter accounts, or other system settings. Need Help? Use this option to access videos, frequently-asked questions (FAQs), documentation, and the Remote Support Portal.
SchoolConnects Basics SchoolConnects Schools
SchoolConnects Schools
In SchoolConnects, the term school is just a label. A SchoolConnects school may represent an actual school, but it may also represent a virtual school. For example, in a district system, one school may be called Staff and may have an Address Book containing contact information for all staff members in the district.
School properties
Each school has its own properties. Each school can have its own Address Book and may have its own message templates, contact lists, and so on.
The school code is the building code or location code for the school. This may appear in text files you import into the system. The name message is a recording of the school name. This recording is used in messages to identify the school that is calling. You can have this message recorded for you, keeping it in a consistent voice with the remainder of the message, or you can record your own message. The explanation message is used in attendance messages and is optional. It is used to allow each school to have a slightly different message. For example, a middle school may want to end an absence message with: In future, please call our 24-hour attendance line and leave a message for the attendance secretary if you know the student will be absent that day. But the high school may want to end an absence message with a much longer:
SchoolConnects Basics SchoolConnects Schools
You must send a written note explaining the reason for the absence on the students return to school. Please be aware that no credit will be given for a course if the student has more than 6 unexplained absences for that course. You can have this message recorded for you, keeping it in a consistent voice with the remainder of the message, or you can record your own message. RELATED LINKS: Edit School Properties
SchoolConnects Basics The Address Book
The Address Book

The Address Book contains contact information for people associated with the school or school district. At the minimum, the Address Book should contain an entry for each student in a school. Because the Address Book is used to contact groups of people associated with the school, it may also contain a record for each of the staff members in the school, or other groups such as bus drivers. The student information in the Address Book is imported from the student information system periodically, sometimes even daily, to ensure that student records are up to date. The file used to import the data is called an import file. Records for people other than students can be added manually, but are typically added via an import file also. Student information may be imported into the Address Book in two ways: automatically at regularly scheduled times, or manually. Student records are frequently viewed by grade, but can be viewed by home room, language, teacher, or custom fields. Within these groupings, student records can be sorted by home room, teacher, name, language, student ID, or custom fields. These groupings are provided to make it easy for you to send a message to a particular group of students. For example, if you want to send a reminder notice to all Grade 9 students, you can easily select that group.
You can also search for a particular record in the Address Book by typing your search criteria in the field provided.When you locate a student in the Address Book, you see the following:
Note the single-person and two-person icons to the left of the students name. Clicking on the single-person icon allows you to see the student household contact data. Clicking on the two-person icon allows you to see any relative contact data defined for the student.
The student household contact data
The student household contact data contains the student properties, including name, ID, grade, home room, language, and other fields specific to the student. It also contains primary contact information (telephone and email), and secondary contact information, if applicable. It may also contain the household address. It also includes two fields that can be customized for use for values such as bus route.
The relative contact data
In addition to household contact information, the Address Book can contain information for one or more relatives of each student, although it is not mandatory to define relatives. Each relative record can contain contact information for a parent, guardian, or other relative of the student. It also includes the name, relationship, and priority.
The Primary tab

The Primary tab contains the primary telephone number for the contact. It can also contain the primary email address for the contact, depending on your setup. The following is an example of the Primary tab for a student household record. The Primary tab for a relative contact looks virtually the same.
Both the home phone and home email fields have check boxes associated with them, which indicate the types of messages that can be received by them. These can be used to opt out of receiving certain types of messages, if they are sent to the primary phone or email address. Unchecking a particular box indicates that this recipient will not receive that particular type of message at this number or email address. Checking the box means that this recipient is open to receiving messages of this type. It does not guarantee that messages of this type will be sent to this number or email address. By default, all of the check boxes are checked. For an explanation of each field in the Address Book, see "Address Book Fields and What They Mean".
The Secondary tab

The Secondary tab, if used, contains additional phone numbers and potentially, an alternative email address for a contact. Some districts use the Secondary tab to contact additional parents in joint custody situations. The following is an example of a Secondary tab for a student household record. The Secondary tab for a relative contact looks virtually the same.
The mobile phone, alternate phone, and alternate email fields have check boxes associated with them, which indicate the types of messages that can be received by them. These check boxes can be used to opt out of receiving certain types of messages, if they are sent to the secondary phone or email address. Unchecking a particular box indicates that this recipient will not receive that particular type of message at this number or email address. Checking the box means that this recipient is open to receiving messages of this type. It does not guarantee that messages of this type will be sent to this number or email address.
NOTE:
There are alternative ways to restrict calls and emails, such as the Do-Not-Call list.
RELATED LINKS: Update the Address Book Address Book Fields and What They Mean
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SchoolConnects Basics Types of Messages
Types of Messages
SchoolConnects provides the following types of messages: Attendance messages Announcements Emergency messages Call-in profile messages
Attendance messages notify parents when a student is absent for one or more periods or an entire day, or if a student is late. Announcements are generally messages sent to the entire school, a subset of the entire school, or a group of phone numbers or email addresses via a file or a contact list. These messages may be ad-hoc, recorded in your own voice (or using the Text-to-Speech feature on the hosted service), or they may use one of many canned messages prepared for you that cover a variety of situations. Emergency messages are usually broadcast to the entire school population. These are usually messages that must be sent immediately, regardless of the time of day. An example is when the district notifies the community that a school is closed for the day due to severe weather. Emergency messages are sent with a higher priority than all other messages. No other calls go out from a district while emergency messages are being called. Call-in profile messages are messages that are launched from a telephone. The message is pre-configured so that the user only needs to record the message via the telephone before they launch the message. You use this type of message when you have limited or no access to a computer, such as when you need to send a message from home in an extreme weather situation. NOTE: This type of message does not allow you to select the recipients or change options when sending the message. You just record and go.
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SchoolConnects Basics Attendance Messages
Attendance Messages
Attendance messages are those messages sent when a student is absent for one or more periods in a day or for an entire day, or when a student is late. The information used to send these messages comes from attendance records in the student information system. Attendance data is retrieved daily (or more frequently) from the student information system and imported into SchoolConnects. SchoolConnects uses the attendance information imported to determine who needs to be called, and to include student-specific information in the messages, such as the students name and the period the student missed.
Types of attendance messages

SchoolConnects supports the following types of attendance: Period Daily (morning, afternoon, or all day)
For each of these, you can notify parents regarding absences or tardies (lates) or both absences and tardies. Attendance messages are typically sent the day the student is absent, and at a predetermined time. Absences Absence messages can include full-day absences, partial day (morning or afternoon), or period absences, depending on the attendance information that is collected and imported into SchoolConnects. Tardies Tardy messages describe one or more periods in which the student was marked late. If you want to use tardy messages, the data imported into SchoolConnects must include the period in which the tardy occurred. Absences and tardies Absence and tardy messages are used when the absence and tardy information are contained in the same file, usually in separate sections. If you want to use this option, the data imported into SchoolConnects must include the period in which the absence or tardy occurred. In this case, a generic message indicating the student was "absent or tardy" is often delivered.
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What do the messages sound like?

An attendance message is specific to the students case: If the student misses a single period, the message indicates which period was missed. If the student is absent for an entire day, the message indicates that. The attendance message is highly customizable. The Default Period Absence message sounds something like the following. When played to a person: <School Name> calling, please hold. This is a message from <School Name>. A student in your household in grade <grade> named <students first name> was absent <date of absence> in period <list of periods missed>. Please call the school at <school phone number> to provide an explanation. To listen to this message again, press 1." When played to a machine: This is a message from <School Name>. A student in your household in grade <grade> named <students first name> was absent <date of absence> in period <list of periods missed>. Please call the school at <school phone number> to provide an explanation." The message is always played twice to an answering machine, in case the first part of the message is cut off.
NOTE:
The Quick Attendance Message and Attendance Message options are available only to users who have permission to send attendance messages. If you do not see Quick Attendance Message or Attendance Message in the Send Message window, you do not have permission. If you need this access, please contact your district administrator.
How is the data retrieved from the student information system?

Depending on the student information system you use, your configuration may include a SchoolConnects integration between SchoolConnects and your student information system. An integration makes it possible for Synrevoice Technical Support to configure your system so that absence data is automatically extracted from your student information system and imported into SchoolConnects. Usually, this setup also includes automatically sending the attendance messages as well. In other situations, the school or district may configure an automated process to extract the attendance data into a file on a daily basis. If the file is created with the same name and in the same location each day, your Synrevoice Technical Support representative can create an automatic scheduled process to create the attendance message from this file. If you do not have an integration, or choose not to use it for attendance purposes, you must extract the attendance data manually using a predefined process, which stores the data in a file such as an Excel spreadsheet, or a comma-separated text file, usually in a
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shared network location. If you are unsure of the process to use, contact your student information system support representative for instructions. If you are not sure what kind of process you use at your school or district, contact Synrevoice Technical Support for assistance.
How are attendance messages initiated?

Attendance messages can be initiated automatically or manually. Synrevoice Technical Support can configure your system to create attendance messages automatically. In this case, the absence data file must always be in the same location, and the data is imported as part of the message creation process. The alternative is to manually create the attendance messages. You can manually create an attendance message in either of two ways: Using the Attendance Message option Using the Quick Attendance Message wizard
Attendance Message option The process to create an attendance message, define the type of message to send, and other delivery options. Use this option when you need to make changes to the defaults from the templates besides the start times for the message. Quick Attendance Message wizard A short version of the Attendance Message option. This option allows you to quickly send attendance messages, because it hides the majority of the parameters you can choose. Use this option when you do not need to make any changes to the defaults from the attendance message template. You can still make minor changes, such as the start times for the message.
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SchoolConnects Basics Announcements
Announcements
An announcement is a message that you send to the general student population or to a distribution list. A typical announcement to the general population might be that report cards will be ready to be picked up on a particular date. A typical announcement to a distribution list might be to announce a change of time for the football practice. There are multiple ways to create an announcement. You can: Record a message in your own voice. Record a message by writing the message text and converting it to a speech file that uses a computer-generated voice. Use a canned message. Stock templates are prerecorded in the same voice as the SchoolConnects attendance messages (in English only). Other canned messages can be multilingual. Send email messages whether or not you also deliver the messages by telephone. You can include email attachments that are exactly the same for every student, such as newsletters, forms, notices, and so on. You cannot email items such as Report cards, which are different for each student. Send a text message via SMS to a cell phone or smart phone. NOTE: You can only send SMS messages if your district is enabled to use Synrevoices SMS service. Send a text message via Twitter. NOTE: Sending a message via Twitter requires an existing Twitter account. You identify the Twitter account to use when you send the message.
Announcements are delivered within the times you specify, but by default, not before 7:30 a.m. and not later than 9:00 p.m. (Default times can be changed for a district, if required.) If other messages are being sent to the same household at the same time, they are combined into one telephone call. You can use an announcement for any message you create yourself that does not need to go out outside of the regular announcement hours or does not need to take priority over all other calls. There are some special types of announcements: Emergency announcements have the highest priority and no constraints on calling times unless defined in the templates. Canned messages are announcements where the message is prerecorded for you. SchoolConnects comes with several stock (out of the box) messages. Some of these deliver customized messages to each of the recipients, such as the outstanding items message.
NOTE:
The Announcement option is available only to users who have permission to record messages. If you do not see Announcement in the Send Message window, you do not have permission. If you need this access, please contact your school or district administrator.
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About Emergency messages

An Emergency message is created in the same way as an announcement. It is a message that you record yourself and send to a group of recipients. Each Emergency message is unique and is usually used only once. A typical Emergency message might be that a particular bus route is delayed or cancelled. You use an Emergency message when it must go out immediately. If a message must be delivered outside normal calling times, you must also use Emergency.
NOTE:
Emergency messages take priority over all other calls, so be careful when sending one. Sending an Emergency call at the same time as attendance calls may prevent the attendance calls from being delivered, particularly on a local system. Emergency messages are not combined with any other messages scheduled for delivery at the same time. No other calls are delivered for a district until the Emergency call delivery is complete. Emergency priority calls can be delivered 24 hours a day. They are sent out at any hour of day or night if you set them to go out at those times. You can use the Emergency feature to send calls during prime-time hours, such as 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. if you need your message to take priority over any other calls that may be set to deliver during this time.
CAUTION: Do not rely solely on Emergency messages in a life or death situation: Dire situations should be handled directly by a person. NOTE:
The Emergency option is available only to users who have permission to send Emergency messages. If you do not see Emergency, you do not have permission. If you need this access, please contact your district administrator.
About canned messages

A canned message is an announcement created in a prerecorded voice. Stock messages come with the SchoolConnects system. A Stock message is recorded in the same voice as attendance messages, in English only. The recordings for Stock messages cannot be modified. You may also have some custom canned messages created for you, or you may create your own canned messages, in multiple languages. A canned message allows you to quickly send a message to any group of people without recording anything. Canned messages are delivered within the times you specify, but by default not before 7:30 a.m. and not later than 9:00 p.m. If other messages are sent to the same household at the same time, they are combined into one telephone call. Canned messages allow you to assemble a message from rerecorded phrases. When creating an announcement from a canned message, you choose from the list of prerecorded messages available. For some messages, you select values for variables, such as dollar amounts, dates, and times when you create the message. For some Stock messages, you use an import file (such as a spreadsheet or text file) that contains a list of students and their associated dollar amounts (such as outstanding lunch balances).
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If you need a canned message that does not yet exist, you can request one from your Synrevoice representative. It is created for you as part of our service.
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SchoolConnects Basics Call-In Profile Messages
Call-In Profile Messages

You can call in to SchoolConnects to send messages when you do not have access to a computer. You may want to send a message in this manner if you need to send an early-morning message regarding a school closure due to inclement weather. You want this kind of message to go out before you arrive at the school or district office. Another example would be if the football coach wants to notify parents that the team will be later arriving home than scheduled. You can send this type of message provided you have a numeric user ID and password (so you can enter the user ID and password from a telephone keypad) and provided that you first create a profile for the message you want to send. Calls start today, at the time specified in the profile. However, if you launch the call after the calling window ends, the call goes out the next day.
Call-in profiles
Call-in profiles are used to define the details of an announcement so that you only need to record the actual message when you call in to the system. The call-in profile defines the telephone numbers to be called and the hours at which the calls can be sent. It is recommended that you create at least one profile with the widest possible time range to allow users to send out a message at any time. Let us suppose that the Vice Principal has a call-in profile with a contact list of school staff plus the school Address Book. The Vice Principal can launch a message from anywhere to both staff and students at the same time. You can also create a call-in profile for all schools and all staff, one just for all grade 9 students in the district, and so on. There is no limit to the number of call-in profiles you can create. A call-in profile must be assigned to at least one user, but it can be assigned to more than one. Each call-in profile user must have a numeric user ID and numeric password to launch calls this way. This enables the users to log in from a telephone. A user ID with permission to launch a call-in message does not require any other permissions in SchoolConnects. Even if every permission is set to No, the user can launch calls by calling in. However, to not require separate accounts for using SchoolConnectsWeb and for launching calls by telephone, you may just want to provide users with numeric user IDs and passwords.
Call-in profile reference card

For each call-in profile, you can print a reference card for the people using the call-in profile to keep in their wallets. The reference card includes the telephone number to call, the user ID and the profile ID. The same user account can have multiple call-in
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profiles. For example, the music director could have a call-in profile for all music students, one for senior band, one for choir, and so on. If one user has several call-in profiles, it is recommended that you combine all instructions for one user into one reference card that includes all call-in profiles available to that user. The password is not included in the instructions, and should not be written on the card, for security reasons.
Example: the football coach

1) 2) Create a call-in profile for the football coach. Use an Emergency template that allows calls to go 24 hours. Select only the contact list called Football team. When the football team goes to another town on Saturday for a game, the coach can use a pay telephone, cell phone, or any other telephone to call in to the system, log in and enter the call-in profile ID, and record a message saying the team arrived safely. The message is sent immediately, no matter what time of day or night. When the team is on the way home, and the coach can reasonably estimate their arrival time at the school, he can call in again, use the same login and call-in profile ID, and record another message giving parents the estimated arrival time so they can be at the school to pick up their kids.
3)
The superintendent
1) 2) In a district system, create a user account for the superintendent. Create a call-in profile that includes all schools and all Address Books, using the an Announcement template that calls from 7 to 9 p.m, with several days to complete the calls. Name the call-in profile All Schools Evening Announcement to distinguish it from an All Schools Emergency profile. When the superintendent wants to send an announcement to all households in the district, he or she simply calls in to the system at his or her convenience, enters the All Schools call-in profile ID, and records the message.
3) 4)
All grade 9 students in the district

1) 2) 3) Create a call-in profile where all school Address Books in the district are selected, but select the Grade 9 subset. Name the call-in profile All Grade Nines in the District. When you need to send a message about something that affects all ninth-grade students, call in, enter the profile ID and record your message.
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RELATED LINKS: Set Up a Call-In Profile
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SchoolConnects Basics About Message Expiry
About Message Expiry

When you create an announcement, you specify a date and time when the message is to start going out. You also set a date for the message to expire. You either set this explicitly, or you use the default expiry date from your template. The expiry date is the date at which the system stops trying to deliver the message. The expiry date may occur after the system has completed making all calls, it may occur while the system is still trying to contact people who did not answer their telephones on the first try, or it may occur after only some of the people have been contacted. Ideally, the expiry date is set to a value that makes sense for the system you are using: If you are using SchoolConnects on a hosted service, it may take less than an hour to reach everyone in your school or district. If you are using SchoolConnects on a local system with only a few telephone lines, it may take multiple days to reach everyone. You need to consider how many calls you are making and how you are making them when setting the expiry date for a message. You also need to consider what makes sense for the expiry date. For example, if you are sending an early morning message announcing a school closure due to inclement weather, make the expiry date the same day. Regardless of the circumstances, if the system is still calling when the expiry date arrives, it stops calling that message. When calling over two or more days, the system does not repeat calls to the same telephone number once the message is delivered to that telephone number. When a message expires, its status is set to Expired. RELATED LINKS: Create an Announcement With Your Own Message Create an Announcement Using a Canned Message
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SchoolConnects Basics About Call Times
About Call Times

When you create a message to be delivered by telephone, you specify the call times: The time to start calling, and the time to stop calling. Usually, these times are set in the template you are using, and you may not need to change the times. However, it is important to check what they are, especially if you are sending out a message on or near a weekend. There are two sets of call times for a message: Weekday call times Weekend call times
The weekday call times identify the period of time Monday through Friday that you determine is the optimal time to call parents. This time period varies depending on the urgency of the message. If this is an announcement, and it is not critical to contact a person directly (e.g. it is reasonable to leave a message on an answering machine), you could choose to start calling at noon, and stop calling at 9 p.m. If this is an emergency notification about a school closure, you may want to start calling at 6:30 a.m. to ensure everyone gets the message before leaving for school.
NOTE:
Weekend times do not apply on holidays associated with a long weekend: A holiday Monday, for example, is viewed by the system as a weekday. If the message delivery dates span both weekdays and weekends, both sets of call times are used. For example, if you send a message on a Friday morning, and the message is set to expire four days later, any calls made on the second day are made during the weekend call times. If those values are not set in the template, it is possible to send a message very early on a Saturday morning, without really intending to do so. RELATED LINKS: Create an Announcement With Your Own Message Create an Announcement Using a Canned Message
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SchoolConnects Basics About Email Times
About Email Times

When you create a message to be delivered by email, you specify the email times: The time to start sending emails, and the time to stop sending them if they have not all been sent. Usually, these times are set in the template you are using, and you may not need to change the times. Because emails are not as disruptive as telephone calls, it is not as critical to control when the emails are sent. However, if you are sending emails with attachments, you need to ensure you allow sufficient time to send them. If you are sending out a message on or near a weekend, you should review the times allotted for sending the message. For consistency, you may want to set the email start time to be the same as the call start time, in case you need to make a change to the contents. The email end time is usually unimportant, and can be left at 11:59 p.m. There are two sets of email times for a message: Weekday email times Weekend email times
The weekday email times identify the period of time Monday through Friday that you determine is the optimal time to email parents. The weekend email times identify the period of time Saturday and Sunday that you determine is the optimal time to email parents on the weekend.
NOTE:
Weekend times do not apply on holidays associated with a long weekend: A holiday Monday, for example, is viewed by the system as a weekday. If the message delivery dates span both weekdays and weekends, both sets of email times are used. For example, if you send a message on a Friday morning, and the message is set to expire four days later, any emails sent on the second day are sent using weekend times. RELATED LINKS: Create an Announcement With Your Own Message Create an Announcement Using a Canned Message
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SchoolConnects Basics About Text Messages
About Text Messages

If your district subscribes to SMS text messaging (Hosted service only), you can send text (SMS) messages from SchoolConnects for announcements and emergency messages to subscribed SMS-capable telephones by selecting SMS as a delivery method for your message, and entering the text to be sent. You can also send text messages by tweeting to a Twitter account, provided that SchoolConnects has been set up to access the Twitter account. Text messages are limited to 140 characters, so keep the message brief.
About text message times

When you create a message to be delivered as an SMS text message, you specify the text message times. When you create a message to be posted as a tweet to a Twitter account, you specify the time to tweet, and the Twitter account to tweet to. Usually, this information is defined in the template you are using, and you may not need to change it.
SMS Text Messages

Before you can send SMS text messages
Regulations require that text messages can only be sent to recipients who have previously subscribed to receive these messages. Subscribing requires the recipient to send a text message containing specific text to a specified number. Consequently, before you can send text messages, the following has to happen: 1) The school or district must announce to the community how to subscribe to receive text messages from the school. This can be done by sending a letter, posting instructions on a web site, sending a telephone or email announcement, and so on. See "Instructions for subscribing" for text you can include in the instructions to the community. Parents who want to receive text messages from the school must text the word Join to the number 56360 from the SMS-capable phone they want to receive messages on. If the subscribing phone number is in the SchoolConnects Address Book, the following happens: a) b) SchoolConnects sends a confirmation text to the phone. SchoolConnects adds the telephone number to the list of subscribed SMS phone numbers. (You can view this list by clicking Manage Contacts.)
2)
3)
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c)
SchoolConnects updates the Address Book, checking the SMS check box for every occurrence of the phone number in the Address Book.
If the subscribing phone number is not in the SchoolConnects Address Book, SchoolConnects sends a message that the request has not been processed, and the user must contact the school to have the telephone number added to the Student Management System and subsequently to the SchoolConnects Address Book. Then the user must subscribe again. 4) At the end of every month, SchoolConnects sends out a reminder message to each subscriber, telling them how to cancel their subscription. If the user does nothing, they continue to receive text messages.
About caller identification on a mobile phone

SMS (text) messages are limited to 140 characters plus a few characters to identify the sender. The sender is identified by a short code, similar to a caller ID. SchoolConnects has one short code for all messages to all customers: 56360. That means that no district-specific identification can be displayed when sending text messages. You need to notify your school community that messages coming from the short code 56360 are from your school district. They can then enter the short code and a contact name in their contacts on their mobile phone so the caller ID displays something meaningful to them.
Instructions for subscribing

If you want to receive SMS text messages from the school or district, you must first do the following: 1) From the SMS-capable telephone where you want to receive the text messages, text the word Join to the number 56360. If our messaging system finds a match for your phone number in its database, you receive a confirmation message thanking you for joining school alerts. If our messaging system does not find a match for your phone number in its database, you receive a message that the number could not be found, and you should contact the school to add the number to the schools Student Management System. After your number has been added, wait at least 24 hours, and then text Join again. At any time, you can unsubscribe by texting Stop (in Canada, you can also text Arret) to 56360. 2) Create a contact on your phone with the name of your school or school district, or another meaningful name, and the phone number 56360. Then, when you receive a text from this number, you know who is sending it.
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Knowing what numbers to select

Typically, most SMS-capable phones are cell phones. If you use the mobile phone field in your Address Book to store cell phone numbers, you may only need to select mobile phone numbers when sending text messages. However, more and more people are replacing home telephones with cell phones, and many people have home telephone providers that convert text messages to voice messages, so it is more difficult to predict which phones can receive text messages, and which cannot. Some districts use a particular field in the Address Book for SMS-capable phone numbers. Then they select the appropriate additional contact options to send the message to those numbers. If, for example, your district uses the Mobile Phone field for SMS phone numbers, in the Additional Contact Options, you need to check Student: Mobile Phone to send a message to the mobile phone number in the student household record. If you are sending just a text message, you select the additional contact option(s) that selects those numbers that are SMS-capable. If you are sending a message via calling and text, make sure you select recipients for calling and recipients for text when you specify who to send the message to. If you select the same numbers for calling and text messages, all selected numbers are called, but only those numbers that have subscribed for text are sent a text message. It is possible that some numbers will receive both a call and a text message. SchoolConnects does not try to text numbers that have not subscribed, nor does it text any numbers where the SMS check box in the Address Book has been manually unchecked.
NOTE:
When a text message is sent

When you create and send a text message, SchoolConnects compares the telephone numbers selected in the message to the list of subscribed SMS phone numbers. Only numbers in the subscribed list with a status of Opted In are actually sent the text message. SchoolConnects receives status back from telephone providers for each phone number texted. In some cases, this status indicates whether the message was delivered successfully. In other cases, the status is inconclusive, and it is not possible to tell whether the message was delivered to the recipient. The status is shown when you view the task, or in the reports.
The SMS check box in the Address Book

The SMS check box in the Address Book serves the following purposes: When a parent subscribes to receive text messages from an SMS-capable phone by texting Join to SchoolConnects, SchoolConnects locates every occurrence of
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that phone number in the Address Book and checks the SMS check box beside the phone number in the Address Book. The status next to the check box is changed to Opted In. If a parent calls the school and asks to receive texts only for certain students (for example elementary students), the school can uncheck the SMS check box for specific students. If the parent stops subscribing by texting Stop to 56360, SchoolConnects locates every occurrence of the phone number in the Address Book and changes the status next to the check box to Opted Out.
NOTE: Checking the SMS check box next to a phone number does not add the number to the list of subscribed phone numbers. Th owner of the telephone must subscribe from the phone by texting Join to 56360.
Next to the check box in the Address Book, you see the current status of this phone number. The possible values displayed are:
Status Not Opted In
Meaning The recipient has not yet subscribed to receive text messages on this telephone. The recipient subscribed to receive text messages on this telephone. The recipient has stopped subscribing to receive text messages on this telephone.
Opted In Opted Out
If a parent does not want to receive texts

If the parent does not want to receive any texts, they can text Stop to 56360. If they do this, you see Opted Out next to the phone number in the Address Book. If the parent does not want to receive texts regarding a particular student, they can call the school and ask to stop receiving texts for that student. The school user locates the student in the Address Book and unchecks the SMS check box next to that phone number and saves the change.
Twitter Messages
When you are sending a message to the school community regarding upcoming events, you may also want to tweet the same information to your school Twitter account. SchoolConnects allows you to do that quite simply when sending a message by selecting Twitter as a delivery mechanism and pasting your message text into the Twitter text box.
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Before you can tweet your messages, there is a small amount of setup required. You must first have an existing Twitter account. This can be a personal account, or a school account, or perhaps an account for the football team.
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SchoolConnects Basics About Message Priority
About Message Priority

Message priority determines the order in which messages are delivered. The following priorities are available: Low Medium High Emergency
Low priority does not mean your message is unimportant. It simply means that other messages may take priority over this message. This is the default priority for an Announcement. Medium priority is seldom used. High priority is the highest priority available to a user who does not have Emergency permission. Attendance messages are usually high priority because it is important for them to be delivered in a single day. A high-priority message preempts a low-priority message. If multiple messages are combined, generally the higher priority message is delivered before the lower-priority message. Emergency priority is the highest priority available on the system. When you create an Emergency message, the priority is automatically set to Emergency. An emergency-priority message takes over the system until all of the Emergency calls are made. Emergency-priority calls are not combined with other calls. If you are using the SchoolConnects hosted service, emergency-priority messages that cannot complete in half an hour due to high system usage may be routed to an overflow system to provide additional calling capacity. Message templates have a default priority set, which is usually appropriate for the type of message. For example, an announcement is generally a low-priority message, whereas an emergency message is generally a high-priority message. It is important to use the appropriate priority.
NOTE: On the hosted service, priority is not very significant due to the high availability of the system, with the exception being emergency versus non-emergency priority.
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SchoolConnects Basics About Message Priority
When to use what priority
Use this priority ... Low
When .. You are sending an announcement regarding an upcoming event You are sending an announcement regarding an event that is happening today, and you are sending the message in the middle of the day when system usage is normally low (you do not want this message to potentially compete with a real emergency)
High
You are sending attendance messages You are sending a message that must be delivered today, but it can be sent during regular calling times e.g. early afternoon
Emergency
You are sending a message that must go out outside the regular calling times e.g. before 7:30 a.m. You are sending a message that must preempt any other messages Do not use Emergency for a test call
RELATED LINKS: Create an Announcement With Your Own Message Create an Announcement Using a Canned Message
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SchoolConnects Basics Contact Lists
Contact Lists
Do you have a group of people to whom you want to send messages on a regular basis, such as the Parent-Teacher Council, football team, or drama club participants? SchoolConnects helps you create contact lists of these groups to make it easy to send them messages. A contact list does not typically store student data if it includes students: It is actually a list of pointers to the Address Book. This allows you to keep your contact information in a contact list current, since the data in the Address Book is usually updated periodically. When you want to include people in a contact list that do not exist in your Address Book (for example, you want to include a parent volunteer in a list), you can add those people manually to the contact list, or you can create a contact list from a file. Be aware, though, that any time their contact information changes, you must manually edit their information in the contact list. A contact list can include members from the Address Book plus members that are manually added. For example, the Football team contact list can include student records selected from the Address Book, and manually entered records for the coach and parent assistants. RELATED LINKS: Create a Contact List
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SchoolConnects Basics Difference Between the Address Book and a Contact List
Difference Between the Address Book and a Contact List

It is helpful to understand the difference between the Address Book and a contact list, so you know when to select each one for sending messages.
Address Book
The Address Book usually contains a list of the student population, and is populated from a student information system. Most Address Books are organized by grade, and each student in the Address Book has a unique student ID. The Address Book is updated periodically. In many cases, it is updated automatically on a nightly basis. Therefore, all student information is up to date in the Address Book. The list of students in the Address Book changes as frequently as the Address Book is updated. Contact information for students may be updated in the student information system on an ongoing basis. Each time the Address Book is updated, changed student information is updated, new students are added, and students who have left the school are removed from the Address Book. When you want to send a message to the entire student population, or to a subset of the population, such as the grade 9s, you use the Address Book.
Contact list
A contact list is a fixed, finite list of contacts. A contact list may be a list of students, or it may be a list of staff, parent volunteers, coaches, bus drivers, and so on. A contact list may also comprise both students, staff, and parent volunteers. There are several ways to create contact lists: Contact lists can be created by importing data from files or spreadsheets, where someone has compiled a list of people and their telephone numbers. When all members of the contact list are members of the student population, the contact list may be created by selecting students from the Address Book. This contact list consists of pointers to the contact information in the Address Book. No telephone numbers are actually stored within the contact list itself. This ensures that the contact information in the contact list is kept up to date. A contact list may be created by entering records manually, one at a time. You can also use this technique to add individuals to a contact list consisting of students selected from the Address Book. However, if the individual is in the Address Book, it is better to add them to the list using the Address Book as the source.
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SchoolConnects Basics Difference Between the Address Book and a Contact List
When you want to send multiple messages to a group of people not part of the student population, or to a sports team or participants in an after-school activity such as this years school play, you use a contact list to do so. RELATED LINKS: Update the Address Book Address Book Fields and What They Mean Create a Contact List
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SchoolConnects Basics The User Manager
The User Manager

You use the User Manager to work with SchoolConnects user accounts. You access the User Manager by clicking Settings and then clicking Manage User Accounts. Typically, there are functions that are performed at the district level and functions that are performed at the school level. For example, in some districts, attendance messages are handled by the district and all other announcements are handled by individual schools. SchoolConnects provides permissions for most system objects and functions. These permissions determine what functions a user can perform.
User types
There are four types of SchoolConnects user accounts: District administratorThe District administrator has full rights to everything including System Settings, can create schools and can create users for any school in the district. A District administrator can also be created with access to a subset of the schools in the district, having full rights only to those schools. School administratorThe School administrator has full rights only to his or her school and can create School users and modify school properties. District userA District user can send high-priority messages, update the Address Book, and create contact lists. A District user cannot create other users or schools. A District user can also be created with access to a subset of the schools in the district. School userA School user can, by default, send low-priority messages, update the Address Book, and create contact lists. A School user should have permissions to import a file, but can be given permission to as many functions as the School administrator allows, except permission to modify school properties.
User properties
User properties include the full name of the user, the users password, the type of user account, the users email address if they are to receive reports, and their permissions. Each user has permissions assigned to them. These permissions determine what functions the user can perform. Each user type has a default set of permissions associated with it. However, the defaults can be overridden when the user is created. By default, a District administrator has permission to everything and a school user has the least permission.
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SchoolConnects Basics The User Manager
District administrators
When you log in as a District administrator, you have access to certain functions that are not available to a School administrator or School user. These include the ability to: Create new schools or modify school properties. Create district-level users. Add telephone numbers or student ID numbers to a global Do-Not-Call list. These telephone numbers are excluded from all calls made, system wide. (School users can add telephone numbers or student ID numbers to the Do-Not-Call list for their own school; these telephone numbers are not excluded from calls made for other schools.) Identify a district-level Twitter account.
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SchoolConnects Basics About Importing Contact Data from a File
About Importing Contact Data from a File

You can import contact data, such as student information exported from your student information system, staff contact information from a spreadsheet, parent volunteer information from a text file, and so on. These data can be imported into SchoolConnects into your Address Book, or as a contact list, or simply as a one-time import to send a message. SchoolConnects supports importing data from the following kinds of files: Excel spreadsheets (2010, 2007, 2003, XP, 2000, 97 or 95). Comma-separated (.csv) files with one record per line. These files must have double quotes around every field. For example: "field 1", "field 2", "field 3". Any field that is not enclosed in double quotes is ignored. Formatted text files. Text files can be fixed width, left-justified ASCII (ANSI) text, or delimited text (separated by some character not normally found within any field, such as *. Commas are also allowed provided that there are no commas in any field, and no double quotes around the fields.
Before contact data can be imported from any file, you need to tell SchoolConnects how to interpret the file. This is done by creating a file specification. The file specification maps each position in your import file to a field in the Address Book, or equivalent fields in a contact list. RELATED LINKS: Create a File Specification Obtain a List of Recipients from a File
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SchoolConnects Basics Do-Not-Call Lists
Do-Not-Call Lists
A Do-Not-Call list is a list of telephone numbers and students you do not want the system to call. For example, you may want to add students who are over 18, students who have been suspended or expelled but the paperwork has not yet gone through so they still appear to have unauthorized absences, or other students in special circumstances. The Do-Not-Call list can also contain telephone numbers of households or businesses that received calls in error. This prevents SchoolConnects from calling those numbers again. There are two types of Do-Not-Call lists: A global list, for the entire district A school list, for a specific school
Global Do-Not-Call list

The global list contains numbers that SchoolConnects should never call, such as 911 or the operator. It can also contain numbers of households with students in multiple schools, that do not want to be contacted by any school in the district.
NOTE:
If you specify a student ID in the global list, no telephone calls are made to that students telephone number from any school in the district. To prevent calls about an individual student, enter the student ID in the schools Do-Not-Call list. Use with caution if student IDs are not unique within the district.
Schools Do-Not-Call list

A Do-Not-Call list for a school is used to prevent calls regarding individual students, or to individual households, and should be updated annually. RELATED LINKS: Prevent Calls to a Student or Phone Number
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SchoolConnects Basics Message Suspension
Message Suspension
The administrator may not want messages sent on a particular day, perhaps just because the attendance secretary is away or perhaps because of a traumatic event such as the death of a student, a bomb threat, terrible accident, and so on. A restriction schedule allows the administrator to quickly specify the dates and types of messages that they want to stop.
NOTE: If attendance messages are sent out automatically, a notification restriction is the recommended way to stop sending attendance messages on a particular day.
The Restriction schedule allows you to do the following: Stop current or future messages from being sent Specify a start and end date to stop current or future messages from being sent Choose to block just calls, just emails, or both for the duration specified Choose to suspend just attendance messages, just announcements, just Emergency messages, or any combination
The system only restricts messages during the period between the Restriction Start Date and End Date. Whether you create a restriction schedule before you create a message, or create a message before creating the restriction schedule, the system restricts the message. You can only create one restriction period at a time for each school and for a district. Automated reports are still sent out for messages that have been suspended, but the status of all calls and emails is Not Attempted.
NOTE: NOTE:
SMS messages are restricted when calls are restricted. A restriction schedule has no effect on Twitter messages.
Types of messages that are restricted

When you create a restriction schedule, you select the types of messages to restrict. You can select one type of message, or multiple types of messages.
If you select ... Attendance Message The behavior is ... The system restricts only the Attendance messages but does not restrict any announcements or Emergency messages. The system restricts announcements.
Announcement
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SchoolConnects Basics Message Suspension
If you select ... Emergency Message
The behavior is ... The system restricts only Emergency messages. The system restricts only telephone calls and SMS (text) messages. Emails are still sent. The system restricts only emails. Calls are still sent. The system restricts both calls and emails.
Call Only
Email Only
Call and Email

NOTE:
Suspending messages does not suspend Twitter messages.
RELATED LINKS: Restrict Messaging for a School or District
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SchoolConnects Basics About Call Cascading
About Call Cascading

When setting up any message, you can deliver the message to all selected telephone numbers, or you can cascade the callscall the numbers in sequence until someone answers at one of the numbersthen end the cascade (stop calling). Without call cascading, it is possible to call many numbers per students, and parents can receive the same message on several different telephones. With call cascading, SchoolConnects considers all phone numbers selected (primary, secondary, parental) but ensures that the message is delivered to all priority 01 contacts, or the allocated calling time expires, whichever happens first. When you choose to use call cascading, you specify what it means to deliver the call: Is it good enough if the system leaves the message on an answering machine and only goes on to additional phone numbers if it gets no answer or a busy status on the first number(s) called? If leaving the message on a machine is not sufficient, the recipient must press 2 to confirm they received the message. If the message is delivered to a number but the recipient did not confirm receipt, should the system keep retrying that number? How many times? There are three options when choosing call cascading, regarding calls to priority 01 contacts: Consider the message delivered if a person or answering machine picks up the phone. A person must answer the phone and confirm receipt of the call. If they fail to press 2 to confirm receipt, do not call them back. A person must answer the phone and confirm receipt of the call. If they fail to press 2 to confirm receipt, call them back x times until they confirm.
RELATED LINKS: Create an Announcement With Your Own Message Create an Announcement Using a Canned Message The Call Cascading Feature
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb About Call Cascading
Using SchoolConnectsWeb
This section contains instructions for most of the procedures you perform periodically in SchoolConnects. Contents: Create a School Edit School Properties Change Your Password Add a New User Delete an Existing User Account Create an Announcement With Your Own Message Choose Recipients from the Address Book Choose Recipients from a Contact List Obtain a List of Recipients from a File Create an Announcement Using a Canned Message Work with Messages Send a Message Again Create a Reusable Message Reuse a Message Create a Quick Attendance Message Create a Contact List Modify a Contact List Update the Address Book Search for Contact Information Prevent Calls to a Student or Phone Number Prevent Text Messages for a Specific Student Restrict Messaging for a School or District Set Up SchoolConnects Connection to Twitter Account
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Create a School
Create a School
BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: You must be logged in to SchoolConnects as a District administrator to perform this procedure. STEPS 1. 2. 3. Ensure all schools are selected. If not, in the Navigation pane, click Change School. From the list of schools in the work space, select All Schools. In the Navigation pane, click Settings. Expand Manage School Properties and click School Properties. The list of schools appears.
4.
Click New. The Add School window appears.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Create a School
5.
On the General tab, fill in the School Code and School Name fields. School Code is the building code or location code that appears on any text files you import into the system. After you create a school, you cannot change the school code, so be careful to use the correct code.
6.
Ensure you have a recording for Name Message. You can have this message recorded for you, keeping it in a consistent voice with the remainder of the message, or you can record your own message, either in your own voice, or using Text to Speech. The Name message is used to identify the school that is calling, and is typically played at the beginning of a message.
7.
Optional: Obtain a recording for Explanation Message. You can have this message recorded for you, keeping it in a consistent voice with the remainder of the message, or you can record your own message, in your own voice, or using Text to Speech. The Explanation message is used in attendance messages to allow each school to have a slightly different message.
8.
On the Email tab, in the Email To field, enter the email addresses of school administrators who are to receive Notification Task reports. You can enter multiple email addresses separated by a semi-colon. On the Contact Info tab, in the Phone Number field, enter the main school telephone number. Be sure to enter just the digits, with no formatting characters. This is the number used to display the caller ID in telephone calls to parents. Click Save.
9.
10.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Edit School Properties
Edit School Properties

School properties contain the information about the school that is used in messages, such as the recording of the school name, and how parents are to provide an explanation for their childs absence. The school properties also include the email address where copies of school reports are sent, and the telephone number to display for the caller ID when calls go out. These values are typically set by the District administrator. STEPS 1. 2. 3. To modify any information for a school, in the Navigation pane, click Settings. Hover over Manage School Properties and click School Properties. The list of schools appears. Click on the School icon next to the school you want to modify.
The Edit School Properties window appears.
4.
You can record a new Name Message or Explanation Message, change the email address to receive reports (Email tab), or edit the contact information (Contact Info tab). You cannot change the school code. (If you must have the school code changed, contact Synrevoice Technical Support.) Click Save to save your changes.
5.
RELATED LINKS: SchoolConnects Schools
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Change Your Password
Change Your Password

STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Settings. Hover over Manage User Accounts and click Users and Administrators. The User Manager window for your school appears.
3. 4.
Expand the list of users in the school by clicking the plus (+) sign next to the school name. Click on the person icon beside your own user account. The Edit User Properties window appears.
5. 6. 7.
In the Password field, type the new password. In the Confirm Password field, type the new password again. Click Save.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Add a New User
Add a New User

If you are a School administrator, you can create a new user account for your school. If you are a District administrator, you can create a new user account for any school. STEPS 1. 2. On the Navigation pane, click Settings. Hover over Manage User Accounts and click Users and Administrators. The User Manager window for your school appears.
3.
Click New. The Create a new user account and assign permissions window appears.
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4.
Fill in the user ID, name, and password, and select the user type from the drop-down list. If you want this user to be able to launch messages via a phone, give the user a numeric ID and password that can be entered on a phone touch pad. School administrators and School users must be assigned to a school.
5.
If you want this user to have access to multiple schools in the district, but not all, do the following: a b c d e For User Type, select either District Administrator or District User. Uncheck Access to ALL Schools in District. A Schools tab appears. Click the Schools tab. From the list of schools displayed, check the schools you want this user to be able to access. Go back to the General tab.
6.
In the Email Address to Send Reports To field, if this user should receive message status reports, enter the users email address. If the user has the appropriate permissions, the user automatically receives reports for all of their own messages. Click the Permissions tab to assign permissions to this user. You can define the types of objects users can access and change. You can also choose which types of reports the user should receive.
7.
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8.
Click Save.
RELATED LINKS: User Permissions
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Delete an Existing User Account
Delete an Existing User Account

If you are a School administrator, you can delete users that have been set up for your school. Be careful not to delete all users. STEPS 1. 2. On the Navigation pane, click Settings. Hover over Manage User Accounts and click Users and Administrators. The User Manager window for your school appears.
3. 4.
Expand the list of users for the school by clicking the plus (+) sign next to the school name. Select the user you want to delete by checking the box next to the user ID.
5.
Click Delete.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Create an Announcement With Your Own Message
Create an Announcement With Your Own Message

When you create an announcement, you have the option to create your own message for the announcement or to use an existing canned or pre-recorded message. If none of the canned messages meets your needs, or if you are creating a unique, one-time message, create your own message. STEPS 1. In the Navigation pane, click Send Message. The Send a Message window appears.
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2.
Click Announcement: Create Your Own Message. The Create Announcement Wizard begins.
RELATED LINKS: About Call Times About Email Times About Message Expiry About Message Priority About Call Cascading
Step 1: Identify the message

STEPS 1. Select the school to send the message to. If you are logged in as a school user, your school is selected automatically. If you are logged in as a district user, you can select a single school, multiple schools, or all schools in the district.
NOTE:
If you selected a school to work with before creating this message, that school is selected for sending this message. If you want to send the message to the entire district, or
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to multiple schools, cancel this wizard, and click Change School to change to all schools in the district. Then you can start to create the message.
NOTE:
To select multiple schools, press and hold Ctrl and select each school. To select a range of schools, press and hold Shift and select the first and last schools in the range. 2. Give the message a meaningful name, especially if you are creating a message you want to be able to reuse in the future. This helps you select the correct message or locate the message more easily. If this message will be delivered only in a language other than your default language, specify the language. For example, if if you are creating a Spanish-only message, and your system default is English, select Spanish. If you want to be able to send this message in multiple languages, leave the default at Multi-language, but be sure to record it in both your default language as well as any other languages.
NOTE:
3.
Your district must be configured to support multiple languages to use this feature. Contact your District administrator or Synrevoice Technical Support.
4. 5.
Optional: Create the message as a reusable template by checking Make message reusable. If you are logged in as a school user, and your school has its own announcement template, check Use school announcement template settings, or the district template is used. Click Next.
6.
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Step 2: Schedule delivery of your message
STEPS 1. Select the types of message you want to send: Call, email, text, or Twitter. To send emails to parents who have email addresses, and only call those parents who do not have an email address, or vice versa, click More to see additional options. 2. 3. Usually, you leave the priority at the default for this type of message. Select the date you want the message to start going out. The default is the date selected on the calendar, which is todays date, unless you previously selected a different date. Select the date you want the message to expire if it has not been delivered to all recipients. In most cases, you can just leave the default date. Make sure you allow enough time for all of the calls to be made.
4.
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5.
If you are calling, complete this step. Otherwise, skip to the next step. If your calls will continue into the weekend, be sure to specify weekend start times also. a b Specify the time you want the calls to start. Specify the time you want the calls to stop for the night, even if the calls have not been completed. Generally, your template limits calling times to those deemed reasonable for this type of message. If the calls have not completed when the stop time arrives, the system starts calling the next day during the call times specified for that day, if you allowed additional days for calling.
NOTE: If you specified multiple days to allow the calls to complete, and it is possible that calls will continue over the weekend, be sure to specify the weekend calling times. You do not want to be calling parents early on a weekend morning.
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TIP:
If your calls will continue into the weekend, specify weekend start and end times.
If your call is to go out immediately, you may want to allow yourself an extra 15 minutes to double-check your message or to make last-minute changes.
6. 7. 8.
If you are sending emails, specify the time you want the emails to start and end. If you are sending a text message via SMS, specify the start and end times for texting. If you are posting to a Twitter account, select the Twitter account from the list of those available, then specify the time you want to post the message to Twitter. If no Twitter accounts appear in the list, you can identify an existing account here while creating your message. Click New and follow the instructions in Set Up SchoolConnects Connection to Twitter Account.
9.
Click Next. If you are calling, the Recording Center appears. If you are not calling, the Create Message window appears.
AFTER COMPLETING THIS TASK: If you are calling, go to Step 3A: Record the message. If you are not calling, go to Step 3B: Create the email contents or Step 3C: Create the text message contents.
Step 3A: Record the message

If this message is not being delivered as a telephone recording, skip this topic.
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There are two ways to record the message: Record the message in your own voice: You do this by having the system call you, and record the message over the telephone. This is the recommended method to ensure the best quality recording. Generate the recording: Write the message in text, and use the Text-to-Speech feature to convert the text into a recording (available only when Text to Speech is enabled).
Record a message in your own voice

STEPS 1. Select the language for your recording. If you are recording in English, you do not need to do anything. If you are recording in a language other than English, you must tell the system what language it is, so it can send the message to the appropriate recipients. If you are recording the message in Spanish, for example, in the Record message in drop down, select Spanish.
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NOTE:
Your district must be configured to support multiple languages to use this feature. Contact your District administrator or Synrevoice Technical Support. This text acts as a script for you to follow when you are recording your message. It also acts as a reminder of what was recorded for future purposes. If you are also sending an email, it is the basis of the email content.
2.
Write the text for your message in the text box provided.
3. 4.
When you are ready to record the message, click Record. The Call Me window appears. Enter the information the system requires to call you so you can record your message. If you are using a locally-installed system, you may need to enter a 9 to get an outside line and then the telephone number where you can be reached. If you are using the SchoolConnects hosted service, you must enter the area code + the 7-digit number of the telephone at your location. Do one of the following: If you want the system to call your cell phone, enter the cell phone number and select Direct connection. If you answer the incoming calls to your building yourself, enter your buildings main number and select Direct connection. If a human receptionist answers incoming calls to your building, enter your buildings main number, select Live attendant, and type in the extension of the telephone beside you. If you have an automated voice mail system in your school, select Auto attendant and type in the extension of the telephone beside you. Sometimes, a comma is required to provide a pause while the system answers the call. A comma represents a 2-second pause.
5.
Click Call Me. SchoolConnects calls you at the telephone number you entered. When it rings, answer the telephone. When someone answers the telephone, you see a Connected message. When you receive the call, click Verify so SchoolConnects can verify that it really called you and not somebody else by mistake. Record your message after the tone. When you have finished recording, click Stop to end the recording. Do not hang up! Click Play to hear what you just recorded, or Record to re-record your message. When finished listening to the recording, press Stop. When you are satisfied with your recording, click Hang Up and then hang up the telephone.
6. 7. 8.
9. 10.
Click Save Text to save a copy of the message text. The recording is saved automatically. Click Continue to close this window.
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Generate a message using Text to Speech

If your system has the Text-to-Speech feature enabled, you can create your own messages by writing the text and converting it to a recording. STEPS 1. Select the language for your recording. If you are creating an English recording, you do not need to do anything. If you are creating a recording in a language other than English, you must tell the system what language it is, so it can send the message to the appropriate recipients. If you are creating a Spanish recording, for example, in the Record message in drop down, select Spanish. 2. 3. Write the text for your message in the text box provided. This is the text that will be used to create the message. Do one of the following: If you are recording in a language other than English and need to select a non-English voice, or if you want to change the speed or volume settings for your recording, hover your mouse over Generate Recording From Text, then click Review Settings First. Select the voice you want from the Voice Selection drop down. IMPORTANT: Ensure the voice you select supports the language you require for your recording. For example, if you are creating a Spanish recording, you must select a Spanish voice. Optional: Adjust volume and speed settings if required. TIP: Usually, you adjust these settings only after you listen to your recording at least once. Click Generate Recording. If you do not need to change any of the recording options, hover your mouse over Generate Recording From Text, then click Generate Recording.
An audio version of the message is created, and the message text is saved. 4. Listen to your message in one of the following ways: If your computer has speakers, you can preview the recording directly by checking Use speaker to play back, and clicking Play. NOTE: This option requires Quicktime to be installed on your computer. If your computer does not have speakers, you can listen to the recording over the telephone by having the system call you. Click Play, connect to the system as usual, and listen to the message. When you have listened to the message, hang up.
5.
Click Continue to close the Recording Center window.
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Step 3B: Create the email contents
STEPS 1. Enter the email subject in the Subject field. If you are sending both calls and emails, and you entered the message text in the Recording Center, the message text is automatically copied to the email contents for you. 2. 3. Ensure the email contents are complete. If you are sending student-specific information in the email, use email substitution tags as required. Optional: To include an attachment, click Add, then Browse to the file you want to include. Double-click on the file, or select it and click Open. When you have attached the file, click Upload. You can now see the attachment has been added. To add more attachments, repeat this process.
NOTE:
Email attachments are limited to certain file types, such as PDF. There are also limits to the size of the email. Do not exceed 2MB or some parents may not be able to receive the email. If you are attaching a PDF, be sure to optimize it to make it as small as possible.
4.
If you are also sending a text message, go to Step 3C: Create the text message contents. Otherwise, click Next.
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Step 3C: Create the text message contents
STEPS 1. If you are sending an SMS text message, input the message text in the field provided. You can copy and paste from the email text or from a file. Be sure your message is brief: You have only 140 characters for your message text. The system sends an SMS message to all selected phone numbers, and then keeps a record of which numbers can receive text messages and which ones cannot. 2. If you are posting a message to a Twitter account, input the message text in the field provided. You can copy and paste from the email or SMS fields. Be sure your message is brief: You have only 140 characters for your message text. 3. When you are happy with your message, click Next.
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Step 4: Specify who to send the message to
You can send messages to the entire student population from the SchoolConnects Address Book, or to part of the student population, such as a particular grade. You can send a message to one or more contact lists, or to both the student population and a contact list such as Staff. You can send a message to everyone whose student ID appears in a file, referred to as an import file. Which of these options you choose depends on your needs. STEPS 1. In Choose recipients from, specify where your list of message recipients comes from. If you want to send the message to the student population, select the Address Book. If you want to send the message to your staff, most likely you will use a contact list for staff. (Some schools include a grade for staff in their Address Book.) If you want to send the message to students who have not yet paid for a class trip, most likely you will use an import file, which contains the amount outstanding for each student. If you want to send the message to the student population, select Address Book. If you want to send the message to your staff, most likely you need to select Contact list. If you want to send the message to students who owe money for a class trip, and include the amount owing, select Import file. If you want to send the message to all Grade 3 students and their teachers, most likely you need to select Address Book and contact list.
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The student names come from the Address Book and the staff from a contact list. 2. Choose the recipients you want to contact from the appropriate source: If you chose Import file as the source for your list of recipients, skip to the next step. If you chose the Address Book as a source for your list of recipients, in the Select recipients box, click Address Book, and specify the criteria to select your recipients. If you chose Contact list as a source for your list of recipients, in the Select recipients box, click Contact List, and specify the criteria to select your recipients.
3.
Optional: If you want to call multiple contacts for each student to ensure delivery of the message, under Optional Settings, click Call cascading. Then, in the box that appears, select the delivery options, and number of retries. If you are sending text messages via SMS, you probably need to call student secondary numbers, or relative numbers, or both. Click Additional contact options, and check the appropriate phone numbers. Click Next.
4.
5.
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Step 5: Review the Summary
The Summary page is usually the last page that you see when creating a new message. This page provides a last opportunity for you to review the details of your message before it is created. The left-most column contains check marks for steps that are complete, and Xs for steps that may not be complete.
NOTE:
The summary may continue beyond what you can see. Use the scroll bar to view all of the information.
STEPS 1. Scan the left-most column of the Summary page, looking for any items that do not have check marks.
NOTE:
An X does not necessarily mean a problem. For example, if you are sending your message via email, but do not have an attachment to include, you see a red X next to Email Attachment. Provided you did not intend to include an attachment, this is not a problem.
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2.
Review the call, email, and text message times to be sure they are what you want.
NOTE: Be sure to check both weekday and weekend times if your call spans both. For example, if you are sending a message on a Friday that may not complete before Saturday, be sure your calling times are not too early for the weekend settings.
3. 4. 5.
Review the phone number source and email source to ensure they are correct. If you are using Twitter, ensure the correct Twitter account is specified. If you chose recipients from the Address Book, you can see the criteria used to select the students. You can also see how many students were selected. Quickly review the numbers. If they do not look reasonable, double-check your selections. If you chose recipients from contact lists, you can see the contact lists selected. Review the list and ensure it is correct. If you need to make changes, either click Previous to return to the correct step, or click the step number at the top of the page. When you are satisfied with your message, click Finish. If you selected to import recipients in an import file, the next window you see takes you through the process of specifying your import file.
6. 7.
8.
The list of messages is displayed, with the new message in the list. You can review the message to see that it was created as expected.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Choose Recipients from the Address Book
Choose Recipients from the Address Book

You can send messages to the entire student population or a subset of the student population using the Address Book. Because the Address Book often contains information about students such as their grade, teacher, home room, and so on, you can send messages by grade, teacher, home room, and so on.
Select the entire Address Book

BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: This topic assumes you are at the final step in the wizard to create a message, prior to the Summary, and you have selected Address Book as a source for choosing recipients to receive the message. STEPS 1. 2. Click the Address Book button. If you see a list of schools, select the school or schools you want to send the message to. If you are logged in as a district user, you can select multiple schools or All Schools to send the message to the entire district. If you are logged in as a school user, your school is selected for you. Click Continue. All students in the selected schools are selected to receive the message.
3.
Select all members of a grade

BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: This topic assumes you are at the final step in the wizard to create a message, prior to the Summary, and you have selected Address Book as a source for choosing recipients to receive the message. STEPS 1. 2. Click the Address Book button. If you see a list of schools, select the school or schools you want to send the message to. If you are logged in as a district user, you can select multiple schools or All Schools to send the message to the entire district. If you are logged in as a school user, your school is selected for you. Click Select Subset or Individuals. The Select individual contacts window appears.
3.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Choose Recipients from the Address Book
4.
Leave the default at Select a subset by Grade, Home Room or other category and check the grade or grades you want to send the message to.
NOTE: Although you can select multiple categories, do so with caution. Selecting multiple categories means that only the students included in all of the categories are selected. Sometimes selecting multiple categories may result in no students being selected.
If you selected multiple schools, all students in the selected grades in the selected schools receive the message. 5. Click Continue. All students in the grade or other category you checked are selected to receive the message.
Select individuals
BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: This topic assumes you are at the final step in the wizard to create a message, prior to the Summary, and you have selected Address Book as a source for choosing recipients to receive the message. If you need to select a large number of individual students from the Address Book, it is recommended that you create a contact list for this purpose. Otherwise, you risk having the system time out while selecting students when you are creating your message. Create the contact list from the Address Book, and save it frequently as you create it. STEPS 1. 2. Click the Address Book button. If you see a list of schools, select the school or schools you want to send the message to. If you are logged in as a district user, you can select multiple schools or All Schools to send the message to the entire district. If you are logged in as a school user, your school is selected for you. Check Select Subset or Individuals. The Select individual contacts window appears. Choose Select individuals. Use the List By, Sort By, or Search By fields to select the criteria to locate and display the students you want to send the message to. Click Show Results to display the students based on the specified criteria. Check the box to the left of each student you want to send the message to. Repeat steps 5 through 7 until you have selected all of the students you want to send the message to. Click Continue. The students you checked are selected to receive the message.
TIP:
3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Choose Recipients from a Contact List
Choose Recipients from a Contact List

You can create a contact list for a group of people you need to contact more than once a year. The contacts in a contact list may be students, or they may be non-students, or a combination. For example, you could have a contact list that includes all students in the school play, plus the staff involved with the play, and the parent volunteers. You can choose multiple contact lists when sending a message. You can also choose a subset of a contact list, such as all of the Grade 9s in the school play. You can also choose a subset of multiple contact lists, such as all of the Grade 10 students that play on all sports teams.
Select an entire contact list

BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: This topic assumes you are at the final step in the wizard to create a message, prior to the Summary, and you have selected Contact List as a source for choosing recipients to receive the message. STEPS 1. 2. 3. Click the Contact List button. Select (check) the contact list you want to call. To see the number of contacts you have selected, you can click Total Selected. Click Continue.
Select a subset grouping from a contact list

BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: This topic assumes you are at the final step in the wizard to create a message, prior to the Summary, and you have selected Contact List as a source for choosing recipients to receive the message. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. Click the Contact List button. Select (check) the contact lists you want to subset. Check Select Subset or Individuals. If you are selecting contacts by a group such as Grade, check Select individuals by Grade, Home Room or other category.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Choose Recipients from a Contact List
5. 6.
Select (check) the group you want to send the message to. To view the list of contacts selected, click Total Selected. Click Continue.
Select individuals from a contact list

BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: This topic assumes you are at the final step in the wizard to create a message, prior to the Summary, and you have selected Contact List as a source for choosing recipients to receive the message. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Click the Contact List button. Check the contact lists you want to subset. Check Select Subset or Individuals. Leave the default at Select individuals. If you are selecting from multiple contact lists, select the contact lists you want to work with. Use the List By or Search By fields to specify the criteria to display the contacts in such a way that you can locate those people you want to contact. For example, if you know the people you want to contact are all in a particular grade, leave the defaults and locate these people by grade. If you are going to locate these people by name, use the Search By field, and type all or part of the persons name. 7. 8. 9. Click Show Results. The contacts matching the criteria are listed. Check the contacts you want to send the message to. Repeat from step 6 until you have completed selecting the contacts. Then click Continue.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Obtain a List of Recipients from a File
Obtain a List of Recipients from a File

You can send a message to a list of recipients defined in a file imported into SchoolConnects: an import file. When using an import file, all records define recipients: You cannot send a message to a subset of an import file. The import file can contain a list of people and their telephone numbers and/or email addresses. It can only contain one telephone number and one email address per person. The import file can also contain a list of student IDs, and you can let SchoolConnects look up the contact information in the Address Book. When you specify to use an import file to send a message, you see the following window:
STEPS 1. 2. Click Browse to go to the location on your computer or network where the file containing the import data is located, and double-click on your import file. If you already have a file specification for this import file, click Finish. If you do not have a file specification for this import file, you need to create a file specification.
RELATED LINKS: About Importing Contact Data from a File
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Create an Announcement Using a Canned Message
Create an Announcement Using a Canned Message

When you create an announcement, you have the option to create your own message for the announcement or to use an existing canned or pre-recorded message. These canned messages have been prepared with pre-recorded sound bites, ready to be used. There are many of these canned messages to choose from. STEPS 1. In the Navigation pane, click Send Message. The Send a Message window appears.
2.
Click Announcement: Use a Canned Message. The Create Announcement Wizard begins.
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RELATED LINKS: About Call Times About Email Times About Message Expiry About Message Priority About Call Cascading
Identify the message

STEPS 1. Select the school to send the message to. If you are logged in as a school user, your school is selected automatically. If you are logged in as a district user, you can select a single school, or you can select all schools in the district.
NOTE: If you selected a school to work with before creating this message, that school is selected for sending this message. If you want to send the message to the entire district, cancel this wizard, and click Change School to change to all schools in the district. Then you can start to create the message.
2. 3.
In the Select Message field, select the message you want to send. Click Next.
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Schedule delivery of your message
STEPS 1. Select the types of message you want to send: Call, email, text, or Twitter. To send emails to parents who have email addresses, and only call those parents who do not have an email address, or vice versa, click More to see additional options. 2. 3. Usually, you leave the priority at the default for this type of message. Select the date you want the message to start going out. The default is the date selected on the calendar, which is todays date, unless you previously selected a different date. Select the date you want the message to expire if it has not been delivered to all recipients. In most cases, you can just leave the default date. Make sure you allow enough time for all of the calls to be made.
4.
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5.
If you are calling, complete this step. Otherwise, skip to the next step. If your calls will continue into the weekend, be sure to specify weekend start times also. a b Specify the time you want the calls to start. Specify the time you want the calls to stop for the night, even if the calls have not been completed. Generally, your template limits calling times to those deemed reasonable for this type of message. If the calls have not completed when the stop time arrives, the system starts calling the next day during the call times specified for that day, if you allowed additional days for calling.
NOTE: If you specified multiple days to allow the calls to complete, and it is possible that calls will continue over the weekend, be sure to specify the weekend calling times. You do not want to be calling parents early on a weekend morning.
c
TIP:
If your calls will continue into the weekend, specify weekend start and end times.
If your call is to go out immediately, you may want to allow yourself an extra 15 minutes to double-check your message or to make last-minute changes.
6. 7. 8.
If you are sending emails, specify the time you want the emails to start and end. If you are sending a text message via SMS, specify the start and end times for texting. If you are posting to a Twitter account, select the Twitter account from the list of those available, then specify the time you want to post the message to Twitter. If no Twitter accounts appear in the list, you can identify an existing account here while creating your message. Click New and follow the instructions in Set Up SchoolConnects Connection to Twitter Account.
9.
Click Next. The Create Message window appears.
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Create the email contents (if applicable)
STEPS 1. 2. 3. If you are sending emails, and no email text is provided for you, enter the email subject in the Subject field. Ensure the email contents are complete. If you are sending student-specific information in the email, use email substitution tags as required. Optional: To include an attachment, click Add, then Browse to the file you want to include. Double-click on the file, or select it and click Open. When you have attached the file, click Upload. You can now see the attachment has been added. To add more attachments, repeat this process.
NOTE:
Email attachments are limited to certain file types, such as PDF. There are also limits to the size of the email. Do not exceed 2MB or some parents may not be able to receive the email. If you are attaching a PDF, be sure to optimize it to make it as small as possible. If custom information fields are displayed at the bottom of the window, select the options you want for your message. In the example above, the user can
4.
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choose the tone of the message. In this case, the message says please encourage the student to return ... 5. When you are happy with the message, click Next.
Create the text message contents (if applicable)
STEPS 1. If you are sending an SMS text message, input the message text in the field provided. You can copy and paste from the email text or from a file. Be sure your message is brief: You have only 140 characters for your message text. The system sends an SMS message to all selected phone numbers, and then keeps a record of which numbers can receive text messages and which ones cannot. 2. If you are posting a message to a Twitter account, input the message text in the field provided. You can copy and paste from the email or SMS fields. Be sure your message is brief: You have only 140 characters for your message text. 3. When you are happy with your message, click Next.
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Specify who to send the message to
You can send messages to the entire student population from the SchoolConnects Address Book, or to part of the student population, such as a particular grade. You can send a message to one or more contact lists, or to both the student population and a contact list such as Staff. You can send a message to everyone whose student ID appears in a file, referred to as an import file. Which of these options you choose depends on your needs. STEPS 1. In Choose recipients from, specify where your list of message recipients comes from. If you want to send the message to the student population, select the Address Book. If you want to send the message to your staff, most likely you will use a contact list for staff. (Some schools include a grade for staff in their Address Book.) If you want to send the message to students who have not yet paid for a class trip, most likely you will use an import file, which contains the amount outstanding for each student. If you want to send the message to the student population, select Address Book. If you want to send the message to your staff, most likely you need to select Contact list. If you want to send the message to students who owe money for a class trip, and include the amount owing, select Import file. If you want to send the message to all Grade 3 students and their teachers, most likely you need to select Address Book and contact list.
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The student names come from the Address Book and the staff from a contact list. 2. Choose the recipients you want to contact from the appropriate source: If you chose Import file as the source for your list of recipients, skip to the next step. If you chose the Address Book as a source for your list of recipients, in the Select recipients box, click Address Book, and specify the criteria to select your recipients. If you chose Contact list as a source for your list of recipients, in the Select recipients box, click Contact List, and specify the criteria to select your recipients.
3.
Optional: If you want to call multiple contacts for each student to ensure delivery of the message, under Optional Settings, click Call cascading. Then, in the box that appears, select the delivery options, and number of retries. If you are sending text messages via SMS, you probably need to call student secondary numbers, or relative numbers, or both. Click Additional contact options, and check the appropriate phone numbers. Click Next.
4.
5.
Review the Summary
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The Summary page is usually the last page that you see when creating a new message. This page provides a last opportunity for you to review the details of your message before it is created. The left-most column contains check marks for steps that are complete, and Xs for steps that may not be complete.
NOTE:
The summary may continue beyond what you can see. Use the scroll bar to view all of the information.
STEPS 1. Scan the left-most column of the Summary page, looking for any items that do not have check marks.
NOTE:
An X does not necessarily mean a problem. For example, if you are sending your message via email, but do not have an attachment to include, you see a red X next to Email Attachment. Provided you did not intend to include an attachment, this is not a problem. Review the call, email, and text message times to be sure they are what you want.
2.
NOTE: Be sure to check both weekday and weekend times if your call spans both. For example, if you are sending a message on a Friday that may not complete before Saturday, be sure your calling times are not too early for the weekend settings.
3. 4. 5.
Review the phone number source and email source to ensure they are correct. If you are using Twitter, ensure the correct Twitter account is specified. If you chose recipients from the Address Book, you can see the criteria used to select the students. You can also see how many students were selected. Quickly review the numbers. If they do not look reasonable, double-check your selections. If you chose recipients from contact lists, you can see the contact lists selected. Review the list and ensure it is correct. If you need to make changes, either click Previous to return to the correct step, or click the step number at the top of the page. When you are satisfied with your message, click Finish. If you selected to import recipients in an import file, the next window you see takes you through the process of specifying your import file.
6. 7.
8.
The list of messages is displayed, with the new message in the list. You can review the message to see that it was created as expected.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Work with Messages
Work with Messages

You can see the messages you created when you view a list of messages. You can view All Messages to see all types of messages, or view messages by a particular type. Messages are separated into their respective schools.
Suspend a message
You can suspend (temporarily stop) a message while it is being sent, or before it is sent. Later, you can optionally resume the message, if you want the message to go out, or leave it suspended. STEPS 1. To suspend a message, select (check) the message, hover your mouse over Suspend, then choose one of the following: If you want to suspend the entire message, click All (Call, Email and SMS). If you want to suspend one delivery type of a message, such as calls but not emails or SMS messages, click Choose One. Then check the delivery type(s) you want to suspend from the list provided, and click OK.
If you later change your mind, and want the messages to go out after all, select the message, hover over Resume, and select the appropriate option 2. Click OK.
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Resume an entire message

You can resume an entire message (all delivery methods) that has been suspended. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. To resume a message, select (check) the message, hover your mouse over Resume, then click All (Call, Email and SMS). Specify the date to resume the message. Todays date is selected by default. If applicable, select the time to start sending SMS text messages. Click OK.
Resume a specific delivery method for a message

You can resume a delivery method for a message without resuming the entire message. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. To resume a message, select (check) the message, hover your mouse over Resume, then click Choose One. Select (check) the delivery method you want to resume. Specify the date to resume the message. Todays date is selected by default. If applicable, select the time to start sending SMS messages. Click OK.
View the recipients for a message

STEPS 1. Click on the Notepad icon beside the message. You see a summary of the message, and a tab for each delivery method selected for the message. 2. Click the Calls tab to see a list of people to be called, click the Emails tab to see a list of people to be emailed, and click the SMS tab to see a list of people to receive a text message. If a tab is not displayed, that delivery method was not selected for this message.
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Add more recipients to a message

You can add more recipients to a message that has not expired
NOTE:
You cannot add recipients using the following method from the list of All Messages.
STEPS 1. 2. Select the message and click Add Recipients. The Announcement Wizard steps you through the process of adding recipients, including selecting the school, if applicable, selecting where the student data should come from and the process of selecting the additional recipients. When you have completed the process, click Finish. The additional recipients are added to the message.
3.
Listen to a sample call

Sample call is a feature that sends a call out to you right away, allowing you to hear exactly how a message will sound when it goes out to the telephone numbers in your list. STEPS 1. Click on the Notepad icon beside the message. You see a summary of the message, and a tab for each delivery method selected. 2. 3. Click on the Calls tab. You see all of the telephone numbers to be called. Click on the Notepad icon beside one of the telephone numbers. You now see the Edit Call Properties window.
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4.
Click the Sample # tab so that you see the window below:
5.
In the Call Type field, specify the type of call this sample call to you will be. Choose from the following: Direct Connection if the number to call is a direct number, such as a cell phone Live Attendant if a person will answer the call and then transfer the call to your extension Auto Attendant if an automated attendant will answer the call and then transfer the call to your extension
6.
In the Phone # field, enter the telephone number where you can be reached.
NOTE:
Sample Call uses the dialing rules that are configured, so even if the call is long distance, you normally do not need to type a 1.
7. 8. 9.
In the Extension field, if you chose Live Attendant or Auto Attendant, enter the extension number. Optional: In the Channel field, if you are testing outbound calls on different channels, you can enter a channel number. Otherwise, leave it blank. Click Sample Call. The system should call the number you indicated within one or two minutes.
Send a sample email

BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: You can only send a sample email for active messages that are to send emails.
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You can send a sample email to yourself to see exactly how the message appears to its recipients. STEPS 1. Click on the Notepad icon beside the message. You see a summary of the message, and a tab for each delivery method selected: Calls, Emails, and SMS. 2. 3. Click on the Emails tab. The list of email recipients appears. Select the email you want to sample (check the box next to the record).
4. 5.
In the Sample email address field, enter your email address (or the address you want the sample sent to). Click Sample Email. This does not send an email to the person selected, but any tags used in the email message are used in the sample email. The email is sent to the address you specified within a few minutes.
View the progress of a message

STEPS 1. 2. 3. Click on the Notepad icon beside the message.
Click the Calls tab to see the list of call recipients. Click the Emails tab to see the list of email recipients and the email status, or the SMS tab to see the list of SMS recipients and the SMS status.
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View a report for a message

You can see the current status of a message using a report. If the message is still being sent, you can view the report to see how many calls have been completed. If the message has completed, you can view the report to see how successful calls and emails were. STEPS 1. In the list of messages, click on the View report icon The Request a Report window appears. next to the message.
2.
For Report Name, select the name of the report you want to view. Choose from the following: If you are not using call cascading, and you want to group the results in the report by who was contacted versus who was not contacted, choose Phones and Emails - Group By How Contacted (the default). If you are not using call cascading, and you want to group the results in the report by status, choose Phon es and Emails - Group By Status. If you are using call cascading, and you want to see only those students whose parents were not contacted, choose Cascade -Not Contacted By Phone (the default). If you specified that confirmation was required, this report lists those students for whom no parent confirmed receipt of the call. If any parent or priority 1 contact confirmed receipt, that students contact information is not listed in this report. If you are using call cascading, and you want to see both students whose parents were contacted (or confirmed) and students whose parents were not contacted (or confirmed), choose Cascade - Contacted / Not Contacted By Phone.
3.
Do one of the following: To view the report online, click Get Report. A link to the report appears, and after a short delay (depending on how much data the report contains), the report becomes available at that
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link. If you click the link and the report is not yet available, wait a few minutes and try again. To have the report emailed to you or to someone else, click the Email the Report tab.
Enter the email address(es) to send the report to. Enter a subject line for the email, and any additional content for the email as appropriate, and click Email Report.
Listen to call responses

This feature is relevant only in districts where the Call Response feature is in use. If you use an absence message template that allows the call recipient to record a message explaining an absence, you need to manually listen to each response to transcribe the information into your student information system. Follow these steps to listen to the responses. STEPS 1. Click on the Dialog Balloon icon beside the message. The Edit Call Responses window appears.
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2.
Select the Responses tab.
3. 4.
Click on the Record icon. The Recording Center appears. Have the system call you so you can listen to the message. Click Play to play the message. Click Stop and Play as required until you are finished listening to the message.
TIP: You can use the text box provided to type a short summary of the response. Provided that you save your summary for each message, you can then run the Export Call Responses report to get a listing of the responses. From there, you can transcribe them to your student information system. If the message is long and important, you may want to enter it directly into your student information system.
5.
Do not click Hang Up. Click Save Text. The Edit Responses window reappears. The information you typed is displayed in the Explanation field.
6. 7.
Click Save. You can then click on the next black triangle to hear information for the next student. If you did not hang up the telephone, you do not need to go through the calling process again: You are still connected to the system.
NOTE: If you put the system on hold or do not do anything for more than two minutes, the system hangs up on you.
Reactivate a message
If a message has expired but not all of the people in the list were called, you can reactivate the message by changing the expiry date. SchoolConnects attempts to call the remaining people in the list. When you extend or reactivate a message, SchoolConnects does not call people who were already reached. Calls with the status Busy, No Answer, or Hangup are called again. Calls with the status Delivered - Confirmed, Delivered Key Pressed, Delivered - Machine, Delivered, or Tri-tone Ignored are not called again.
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STEPS 1. In the list of messages, click on the Clock icon next to the message you want to change.
The Announcement Settings window appears. 2. 3. Click on the Calendar icon beside the Expiry Date and choose a new expiry date. Click Save.
Change message settings

You can change message settings such as delivery date, call times, confirmation settings, or you can re-record your message. STEPS 1. In the list of messages, click on the Clock icon next to the message you want to change.
The Announcement Settings window appears. You can modify any settings such as the start date and end date, the call or email times, the email message or the recording. Simply click on the appropriate tab and make your changes. 2. Make any desired changes and click Save.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Send a Message Again
Send a Message Again

You can send an announcement or emergency message again if you see it in the list of announcements or emergency messages. You cannot send a message again when viewing All Messages. If you have messages that you know you are going to need to send multiple times, it is recommended that you create those as reusable messages. You can do the following with an announcement or emergency message: Send the same message again to the same recipientsYou may want to send the same message monthly, such as a pizza day announcement. Send a new message to the same recipientsYou may want to send a new message regarding a meeting date and time to the Parent Council.
Send the same message again to the same recipients

You can send an announcement again without having to re-record the message. STEPS 1. 2. 3. In the Navigation pane, click Announcement or Emergency as applicable, to view the list of messages. In the calendar, click the date the message was sent. The list of messages of that type sent that day appears. Select (check) the announcement or Emergency message you want to resend, and click Send Again. The following window appears:
4. 5.
Same message is the default, so just click Next. Specify the date and time to send the message and click Finish. The new message appears in the list of messages.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Send a Message Again
Send a new message to the same recipients

STEPS 1. 2. 3. In the Navigation pane, click Announcement or Emergency as applicable, to view the list of messages. In the calendar, click the date that an announcement or Emergency message was sent to the same recipients you want to send a message to. Select (check) the announcement or Emergency message with the same recipients, and click Send Again. The following window appears:
4. 5. 6.
Select New Message and click Next. The Recording Center appears. Record your message and click Continue. Specify the date and time to send the message and click Finish. The new message appears in the list of messages.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Create a Reusable Message
Create a Reusable Message

You can create a message that you can use multiple times. This feature makes it easy for you to create commonly-used announcement or Emergency messages and reuse them whenever you need them. They appear in a list of reusable messages and templates when you choose to reuse a message.
CAUTION: Be careful not to create more reusable messages than you need, or it will be difficult to select the correct message when you want to reuse one.
STEPS 1. 2. 3. Create a new announcement or Emergency message with a descriptive name. In Step 1 of the wizard, under Optional Settings, check Make message reusable. Continue creating the message as usual, including the date and times for the first time you want the message to be sent. When your message is created, it appears in the list of messages.
View the reusable message

You can view the reusable messages you created by looking at the list of message templates for that type of message. STEPS 1. In the Navigation pane, click Settings, then select Manage Message Templates in the work space.
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2.
Click Announcement Templates (or Emergency Templates). The list of announcements sent appears, sorted by date, newest at the top.
Those messages created as reusable have a Y displayed in the Reusable column. Those with an N are regular, single-use messages. If you want to make a message reusable you can do so. See "Make a message reusable". For instructions on reusing the message, see "Reuse a Message".
Make a message reusable

You can make an announcement or Emergency message reusable even if it was not created as a reusable message. STEPS 1. 2. 3. In the Navigation pane, click Settings, then select Manage Message Templates in the work space. Click Announcement Templates (or Emergency Templates). The list of announcements sent appears, sorted by date, most recent at the top. Locate the message you want to make reusable and click on the NotePad icon next to it.
The Edit Message Template window appears.
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4.
On the General tab, check Reusable Message and click Save. The next time you use Reuse Message to create an announcement, this message appears in the list of messages to choose from.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Reuse a Message
Reuse a Message
You can reuse an announcement or an Emergency message, provided that it is a reusable message. (To reuse a message that was not created as a reusable message, see "Send a Message Again" or see "Make a message reusable".) STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. In the Navigation pane, click Send Message. Click Announcement: Reuse Message or Emergency: Reuse Message. Select the school, if applicable. If you are logged on as a school user, your school is selected for you. In the Select Message drop-down list, select the message you want to reuse.
TIP:
If the message you want to reuse is not in the list, it was probably not created as a reusable message.
5.
Continue creating the message. You can change the recipients, or any of the delivery options. You cannot change the recorded message itself.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Create a Quick Attendance Message
Create a Quick Attendance Message

BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: Before you can use Quick Attendance, you must have one or more attendance message templates set up, and a file specification for your import data. See "Create an Attendance Message Template" for instructions on creating an attendance message template, and "Create a File Specification" for instructions on creating a file specification. In some districts, attendance messages are handled centrally via an automated process. In this case, the school user need not do anything except enter attendance data in the student information system. Everything else is automated. In other districts, the process may be manual. The school user needs to generate the absence report each day from the student information system, upload the file into SchoolConnects, and then create the attendance message. Use the Quick Attendance Message option for the manual attendance process when you do not need to make any changes to the attendance template defaults, except perhaps the start time for the message. The Quick Attendance Message option bypasses most of the steps for sending an attendance message, keeping the process very simple. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. Generate the daily absence file in your student information system. Save the file to a predictable location. (Choose a location where you can always look for the latest file.) Log in to SchoolConnectsWeb with the login provided to you by your IT department. In the right-hand pane, click Quick Attendance Message. The Create Quick Attendance Message window appears.
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5. 6. 7. 8.
If applicable, select the school. Select the correct message. Browse to the import file containing the absence data. Specify the start and end times for the calls (and emails, if applicable), or just take the defaults.
TIP: You may want to periodically change the start times of attendance messages slightly to make it harder for a student to intercept the calls.
9.
Click Finish. The message is created.
If you manually import absences 2 or more times a day using same template...
You may want to call regarding absences both in the morning and in the afternoon, or even after every period of the day. If you upload a file multiple times per day, but the information for a student does not change, only one telephone call is made for that student.
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For example, say that Joe Jones was marked absent in period 1. You upload a file immediately after period 1 and SchoolConnects begins calling at 9:15 a.m. Joes house is called and a message is delivered saying he was absent in period 1. After period 2, you generate a new absence file and upload it. Joe Jones is in this file because he was marked absent in period 1, and the new file still shows him with an absence in period 1. Joes house is not called again because the information for Joe is the same as before. It turns out that Joe, although he did show up for period 2, was absent period 3. You generate another absence file after period 3 and upload it to SchoolConnects. This time, another call goes out to Joes household saying that he was marked absent in periods 1 and 3. At the end of the day, you generate a final file and do a final upload. Joe did not miss any other classes, so no other calls go to his home. If your absence file does not include any information about periods, blocks, or other time periods, then the information for a given student does not change throughout the day. If Joe is marked absent in the morning and you upload a file at 9 a.m., his household is called at 9 a.m. If he continues to be absent throughout the day and you upload another file at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., and so on, no further calls go to Joes house.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Create a Contact List
Create a Contact List

STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Manage Contacts. In the right-hand pane, click Contact Lists. The Contact List window appears. You see any existing contact lists for your school. The lists are organized by user. 3. Click New. The Create Contact List window appears.
4. 5. 6.
In the Contact List Name field, enter a name for your contact list. The owner of the list is the user name you logged in as. If you are logged in as a district user, select the name of the school to which this list applies. Click Next. The Import Source window appears.
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7.
Specify where your contact information is to come from. If the information is contained in a file, select Import from file and skip to step 17. If all of the contacts exist in the Address Book, select Import from Address Book and go to step 8. If you want to add contacts not in the Address Book, you need to add them from an import file, or manually, one at a time. To add them manually, select Add one contact manually and skip to step 15.
8.
If you selected the Address Book as your source, click Next. The Add Contacts window appears.
9.
Click Address Book. The Select Recipients from Address Book window appears.
10.
Click Select Subset or Individuals to view a list of students to choose from. The following window appears.
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11.
In the Choose a method for selecting your recipients box, specify how you will build your list: If you plan to include an entire category of students, such as a grade or language, leave the default at Select subset by Grade, Home Room, or other category. Then select the category containing the students you want to include. You can click Continue to complete the selection, or click Total Selected to verify your list, and then click Continue.
CAUTION: Be aware that the only way to ensure you have the latest list of students in an Address Book category is to use the Address Book itself to select message
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recipients. If the list of students changes, a contact list created from the category becomes out of date. If you need to select students individually, choose Select individuals. The following window appears.
12.
Use the List By or Search By fields to locate the students you want to include by specifying the criteria and clicking Show Results. You see the list of students that match the criteria. If you leave the defaults, the students are listed by grade and sorted alphabetically by name, as shown below.
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13.
Select (check) the students you want to include in your contact list.
TIP: You can check names, then change the list or search criteria and check more names, repeating this process until you have selected everyone you want.
At any time, you can click Total Selected to see how many people are in your list so far. 14. 15. Click Continue when you have finished selecting people for your contact list, and then click Finish to complete the process. If you chose to manually add contacts one at a time, click Next. The following window appears.
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16.
Enter the name, telephone number and/or email address, and any other information required for your first contact, and click Finish. When you refresh the list of contact lists, the new contact list appears. Add the remainder of the contacts to the list. For instructions on adding contacts to a contact list, see "Manually add contacts to a contact list".
17.
If you selected an import file as your source, and no file specification exists for your import file, click File Specification and create the file specification for your import file. For instructions on creating a file specification, see "Create a File Specification". Click Next. The Add Contacts window appears.
18.
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19. 20.
Browse to the import file and select it. Click Finish.
RESULT: Your contact list is now ready to use to send an announcement. If the contacts were selected from the Address Book, the telephone number and other contact information is retrieved from the Address Book when a message is sent, so your contact information is always current. If you created the contacts manually, or loaded their telephone numbers from an import file, you must manually update them when necessary. RELATED LINKS: Difference Between the Address Book and a Contact List Contact Lists
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Modify a Contact List
Modify a Contact List

If you created a contact list by selecting people from the Address Book, the telephone number and other contact information is referenced in the Address Book at the time a message is sent, so it is always as up to date as the Address Book. If you created the records manually, you must manually update the information if it changes. If you created the contact list from an import file, you may want to import an updated list periodically. STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Manage Contacts. In the right-hand pane, click Contact Lists. The Contact List window appears. You see any existing contact lists for your school. The lists are organized by user. 3. Click on the person icon next to the contact list you want to change.
All records in the contact list are displayed. 4. Locate the record you want to change. You can use the search function to locate a specific record, or you can change the way the data is presented and sorted, to help you find a record.
TIP:
Whenever you change the way you view or sort the contact list, you must click Go for the change to take effect.
5. 6.
Click the person icon next to the contact you want to modify, and make the required changes. Click Save when you have completed making your changes.
Manually add contacts to a contact list

STEPS 1. 2. 3. Next to the contact list you want to add contacts to, click the person icon. The details for that contact list appear. Click New to add a new contact. Enter the contact information and click Save.
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Add to a contact list from the Address Book

STEPS 1. 2. 3. Next to the contact list you want to add contacts to, click the person icon. The details for that contact list appear. Click Address Book to add contacts from the Address Book. Select (check) the contacts you want to add and click Finish.
Add to a contact list from an import file

STEPS 1. 2. Next to the contact list you want to add contacts to, click the person icon. The details for that contact list appear. Click File to import new contacts from a file. The Create Contact List from File window appears.
3. 4.
Browse to the import file. Optional: If you want to replace all contacts in the current list with the new list, select Clear Contacts before import. Otherwise, the new names are added to the existing list. Click Import.
5.
Delete a record from the contact list

STEPS 1. Next to the contact list you want to delete the contact from, click the person icon. The details for that contact list appear.
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2. 3.
Select (check) the contact you want to delete. Click Delete and confirm that you want to delete the record.
Change the telephone number for a contact

STEPS 1. 2. Next to the contact list you want to change, click the person icon. The details for that contact list appear. Locate the contact in the list and click the person icon for the contact whose number you want to change. The Edit Contact Properties window appears. Change the information as required, then click Save.
NOTE: If the Use Address Book option is set to Yes, you cannot save manual changes to the telephone number in the contact list. This number is read from the Address Book. The number can only be changed in the Address Book.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Update the Address Book
Update the Address Book

In many districts, the Address Book is updated automatically from the student information system. Therefore, you should understand that any manual changes you make to the Address Book may be overwritten at the next automatic update. In other districts, the Address Book is updated manually by importing data from a file that has been extracted from the student information system. RELATED LINKS: The Address Book Difference Between the Address Book and a Contact List Address Book Fields and What They Mean
Import a new Address Book

If your Address Book is not updated automatically, you may be required to update it periodically throughout the school year and prior to each new school year.
NOTE:
Before you can import a new Address Book from a file, you must first have a file specification for your import file. If you do not have an existing file specification, see Create a File Specification for instructions on creating one.
STEPS 1. 2. 3. Ensure the file you are importing is in the correct format before importing. An incorrectly formatted file can wipe out your Address Book contents. In the Navigation pane, click Manage Contacts. In the right-hand pane, click Address Book. The Address Book window appears.
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4. 5.
If applicable, select the school. Click Import. The Create Address Book from File window appears.
6.
If you only want to import student household contact data (no relative contact information), leave the default at Import student personal information. If you want to import relative contact data from the same file, check Import other student contact information. If you want to remove any existing students from the Address Book before importing, check Remove existing Address Book students who are not in the import file.
CAUTION:
7.
Be sure the import file is in the formatted correctly before importing.
IMPORTANT: Do not clear the Address Book before importing, unless directed to do so by Synrevoice Technical Support.
8. 9.
Click Browse and browse to the import file containing your new Address Book data. Click Import. The new student data is loaded into the Address Book. This may take several minutes, depending on the size of the Address Book.
Search for a student in the Address Book

You can search for a student by name, ID, telephone number, home room, and so on. STEPS 1. Ensure you are viewing all grades.
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2. 3. 4.
In the Search By field, select the appropriate search type: Use the default Name, or select other search types from the drop-down list. In the Enter Search Text field, type in the relevant search criteria. If you are searching by name, type in the student name, or part of the name. Click Find. The first matching item is displayed. If this is not the right record, click Next until you find the correct student.
Manually add a student to the Address Book

You can manually add a student to the Address Book. However, if this information is usually propagated by importing a file from your student information system, any student information you enter here, such as telephone numbers or addresses should be considered temporary. It may be overwritten or deleted the next time you import your student information. If these students are not actually in your student information system and the Address Book is updated automatically, these fake students are removed from the Address Book each time it is automatically updated. You may want to manually add a student if you have a new student in your school and it will be some time before the student information is imported from your student information system. STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Manage Contacts. In the right-hand pane, click Address Book. The Address Book window appears.
3. 4.
If applicable, select the school. Click New. The Add Student window appears.
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5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
On the General tab, specify the Name and the Student ID. Specify any additional information you want on this tab. Click the Primary tab and specify a primary telephone number for the student. On the Primary and Secondary tabs, specify any additional information you need for this student. Click Save to add this student record to the Address Book.
Delete a student from the Address Book

You can manually delete a student from the Address Book. However, if the student information is usually propagated by importing a file from your student information system, it is unnecessary to delete students from the Address Book in this way. When the Address Book is updated automatically, students no longer listed in the update are deleted automatically. You may want to manually delete a student if the student moved to a new school and you want to stop calling them (you could also add them to the Do-Not-Call list), and it will be some time before the student information is imported from your student information system. STEPS 1. 2. 3. In the Navigation pane, click Manage Contacts. In the right-hand pane, click Address Book. The Address Book window appears. Locate and select the student (check the box next to the student in the list), then click Delete.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Search for Contact Information
Search for Contact Information

You can search all of the information in SchoolConnects for all instances of a name, phone number or email address. You can specify a phone number and see all locations in the Address Book, every contact list, and the Do-Not-Call lists where the number occurs. You can also search on a partial name. For example, you can see all students with a particular surname. STEPS 1. 2. On the Navigation pane, click Manage Contacts. Click Search the Address Book or Lists. The following window appears.
3.
Do one of the following: If you want to locate a student by name, in the Student Name field, enter the entire student name as it appears in your Address Book, such as Lee, Adam, or enter enough of the student name to ensure uniqueness, such as Lee, A, and click Find. This option searches all name fields in the Address Book and all lists for the text specified. If you want to locate a person in all fields except the student name field in the Address Book, in the Contact Name field, enter the name or part of the name, and click Find. This searches relative information in the Address Book and names in all contact lists. If you want to locate all occurrences of a telephone number anywhere in the Address Book and other lists, in the Phone Number field, enter the telephone number, and click Find. If you want to search for a combination of phone number and name, where you want to see only those Lees with a specific phone number for example, leave the default Search contact(s) by matching ALL criteria entered checked, enter the search criteria, and click Find.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Prevent Calls to a Student or Phone Number
Prevent Calls to a Student or Phone Number

You can prevent calls going out to a particular student, or you can prevent calls from going out to a telephone number. In both cases, you use the Do-Not-Call list. When you add a particular student ID to the Do-Not-Call list, any messages to that student are not called or emailed. This does not prevent calls from going to that telephone number for another student in the household. When you add a telephone number to the Do-Not-Call list, any telephone messages to that telephone number are not called. Therefore, if you want to stop calls or emails to a student, add the student ID to the Do-Not-Call list. If you want to stop calls to a phone number, add the telephone number to the Do-Not-Call list. STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Manage Contacts. In the right-hand pane, click Do-Not-Call List. The Do-Not-Call List window appears.
3.
Click New. The following window appears.
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4.
In the Specify Types of Messages to Block box, select the type of messages this applies to. You can choose to block only Attendance, only Announcement and Emergency messages, or all. In the Block Messages to Phone Number or Student? box, do one of the following: To block all calls to a phone number, leave the default at Block calls to the specified phone number, and in the Phone Number field, enter the telephone number in exactly the same format as it appears in the Address Book.
NOTE:
5.
Entering a number such as 911 prevents calls to all numbers that begin with the numbers 911. A 10-digit number does not match a 7-digit number in the Address Book. To block all messages to a particular student, select Block calls and emails for the specified student ID, and in the Student ID field, enter the student ID. To block emails for a student and block calls at a phone number only for that particular student (allowing calls for other students in the household), select Block emails for the specified student ID and calls to the specified phone number for this student ID, in the Phone Number field, enter the telephone number in exactly the same format as it appears in the Address Book, and in the Student ID field, enter the student ID.
SchoolConnects uses the information you enter in this window to match to a student record in the Address Book. The match must be exact for all fields entered. 6. In the Comment field, enter a brief comment as a reminder why this student or number is being added to the Do-Not-Call list.
RELATED LINKS:
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Do-Not-Call Lists
Delete a record from the Do-Not-Call list

STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Manage Contacts. In the right-hand pane, click Do-Not-Call List. The Do-Not-Call List window appears.
3.
Select the student or telephone record by checking the box next to it and click Delete.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Prevent Text Messages for a Specific Student
Prevent Text Messages for a Specific Student

If a parent has a mobile telephone that can receive text messages, but they do only want to receive them for some of their students, you can prevent text messages from being sent for a specific student. STEPS 1. Ensure the parent has subscribed to receive text messages from the mobile telephone. This checks the SMS check box in the Address Book for every occurrence of that phone number, for every student. In the Navigation pane, click Manage Contacts. In the right-hand pane, click Address Book. The Address Book window appears. 4. 5. Locate the student in the Address Book. Locate the mobile telephone number in the Address Book by clicking either the Edit Student or Edit Student Contacts icon, depending on whether the telephone number is in the student household record, or in one of the student relative records. If the telephone number is in the student household record, click the Edit Student icon. Then click the Primary or Secondary tab and find the number. If the telephone number belongs to a relative, click the Edit Student Contacts icon. Locate the relative in the list, and click the relative icon. Then click the Primary or Secondary tab and find the number.
2. 3.
The window should look like the following:
6.
To the right of the phone number, uncheck the SMS check box. This tells SchoolConnects not to send text messages to this telephone number for this student.
7.
Click Save.
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Restrict Messaging for a School or District
Restrict Messaging for a School or District

District users can restrict messages at the District level, for any or all schools. School users can create a restriction only for their own school. They can also see whether a restriction has been set up by the District. There can be only one restriction scheduled at a time per district, and one per school.
NOTE:
Message restriction does not affect Emergency calls made through the Rapidconnects feature.
STEPS 1. 2. 3. Log in to SchoolConnects as a user who has permission to restrict messaging. In the Navigation pane, click Settings. Under Suspend Messaging, click Restriction Schedule. The Notification Restriction Schedule window appears.
4.
Select the District Restriction tab if you are creating a restriction for an entire district. Otherwise, select the School Restriction tab.
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5. 6. 7.
Click the Calendar icon next to the Restriction Start Date input field and select a start date in the calendar pop-up window. Repeat for Restriction End Date. In the Reason field, enter an explanation. In the Restrict field, choose the type of messages you want to restrict.
NOTE:
Calls Only stops both telephone calls and SMS text messages. If you choose Calls Only, emails still go out. Similarly, if you choose Emails Only, calls and SMS text messages still go out. If you choose Calls and Emails, no messages go out. In the Do Not Deliver field, choose one or more message types to restrict by checking their corresponding check boxes. Check one or more choices from Attendance, Announcements, and Emergency Messages. If this is a district restriction, in the No Delivery Schools field, choose ALL Schools to restrict the entire district, or Select Schools to specify one or more schools to be restricted.
8.
9.
If you select only some schools from the list, the restriction applies only to messages in the selected schools. 10. Click Save.
RELATED LINKS: Message Suspension
Change the restriction schedule

STEPS 1. 2. 3. In the Navigation pane, click Settings. Under Suspend Messaging, click Restriction Schedule. The Notification Restriction Schedule window appears. Click on the tab with the restriction you want to change: Either School Restriction or District Restriction. The current restriction schedule is displayed. 4. Edit the fields as appropriate and click Save to save the new restriction schedule.
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Cancel the current restriction schedule

BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: You must be a District or School administrator to cancel the current restriction schedule. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. In the Navigation pane, click Settings. Under Suspend Messaging, click Restriction Schedule. The Notification Restriction Schedule window appears. Click Clear. If you want existing messages to go out, do the following: in the Navigation pane, click All Messages. a b c In the Navigation pane, click All Messages. Select (check) each of the messages you want to go out. Hover over Resume, and click All (Call, Email and SMS).
RESULT: If a message was already in existence when the restriction was created, it is already suspended; clearing the restriction does not resume the message. The status remains the same after the restriction schedule for this task is cleared or the Start Date or End Date is changed. In this case, you must manually resume the message if you want the calls and emails to go out.
IMPORTANT:
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Using SchoolConnectsWeb Set Up SchoolConnects Connection to Twitter Account
Set Up SchoolConnects Connection to Twitter Account

BEFORE STARTING THIS TASK: You must have an existing Twitter account to which you want SchoolConnects to post messages. STEPS 1. Log in to the Twitter account.
TIP: This is the simplest way to make the connection. However, if you do not log in first, Twitter will prompt for the login password during this process.
2.
In SchoolConnects, select Settings > Manage User Accounts > Twitter Accounts. The list of Twitter accounts set up to be used by SchoolConnects appears. Click New. The Authorize Access to a Twitter Account window appears.
3.
4. 5.
In the Twitter Account Username field, enter the name of the existing Twitter account. Leave the Send Tweets Using default at SchoolConnectsWeb.
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6.
Click Request PIN from Twitter. If you are not already logged in to Twitter, Twitter requires the login password to be entered before it provides the PIN. Twitter provides you with a numeric code that you must enter into SchoolConnects. This code provides the authorization to tweet to this account.
7. 8. 9. 10.
Write down the PIN from Twitter.

NOTE:
You cannot copy and paste the PIN from this page.
In SchoolConnects, enter the PIN you received from Twitter in the PIN from Twitter field. If you want to allow other SchoolConnects users to tweet to this account, uncheck Only I can tweet to this account. Click Save.
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SchoolConnects Templates Set Up SchoolConnects Connection to Twitter Account
SchoolConnects Templates
A SchoolConnects template defines the structure of the message and the default calling and emailing options. The template typically defines calling and emailing times, message priority, file specifications when importing contacts from a file, call cascading options, and so on. Attendance and canned message templates also define the message that is sent. A call-in profile defines who is called, and the recorded message can be recorded at the last minute. You only need to create a template once, and then it can be used over and over again to create messages. Before you can create an attendance message, you must first have an attendance message template. Contents: Create an Attendance Message Template Create a Canned Message Template Create a File Specification Set Up a Call-In Profile
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SchoolConnects Templates Create an Attendance Message Template
Create an Attendance Message Template

Use this procedure to create a new absence, tardy, or absence and tardy message template.
ATTENTION: It is recommended that you have Synrevoice Technical Support set up your initial templates for you.
You can have more than one attendance message template. This is necessary if you want to send out one absence message first thing in the morning, but a different message in the evening. In a District, you can choose whether to have one template for each school or use the same template for all schools. You can have one template for the high schools, which use period attendance, and a second template for the middle schools, which use daily attendance. Ask your Synrevoice Technical Support representative for advice. At any time throughout this procedure, instead of clicking Next, you can click Finish, provided that the default options meet your needs. For a list of defaults, see "Attendance Message Defaults". Also, if you know what tab you want to change, you can click the tab, make your changes, and then click Finish. STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Settings. Hover over Manage Message Templates, and click Attendance Templates. The list of Attendance message templates appears.
NOTE:
3.
Click New. The Create Attendance Message Template window appears .
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4.
Give your template a meaningful name that describes the type of message the template is used for. For example, Pleasantville High School Evening Period Attendance, for a school template, or Pleasantville District Daily Morning Attendance, if this is a district template to be used by more than one school.
5.
On the School tab, do the following: a b If this template is to apply only to a single school, select the school. Select the name recording to be played in the message when the phone is first answered (Pleasantville District calling, please hold). Choose from the following: If you always want the school name to be played, even if the district sends out the message, select School name. NOTE: If the call is combined with a call from another school, the district name is played, even if you choose School name here. If you always want the district name to be played, select District name. Otherwise, leave the default at Allow system to select. SchoolConnects plays the school name unless the call is combined with one from another school, or the school name is not recorded, in which case it
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plays the district name. NOTE: For attendance messages, SchoolConnects plays the school name wherever possible. c If you do not want the message to begin with "This is a message from <school name>" (or <district name>, if the district name is selected to be played), uncheck Also play name recording at beginning of message.
NOTE:
Throughout this procedure, you can always see the message that will be delivered as it is displayed in the Preview Message frame at the bottom. The message changes depending on the options you select. Click Next.
d 6. a b 7. a b 8. a b c
On the Type of Message tab, do the following: Select the type of messages to be sent using this template. Absence is the default. Click Next. Specify how you want to identify the student in the message. Grade and students first name are the defaults. Click Next. Specify the type of attendance messages to send. Period attendance is the default, with a period length of 1. If you chose period attendance, specify the number of characters used to identify the period: 1 or 2. Click Next.
On the Student tab, do the following:
On the Attendance tab, do the following:
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9.
Do one of the following, depending on the type of attendance: If you chose Period attendance, on the Period tab, specify the list of periods at which time you want the message to say the student was absent all day, rather than having to list every period.
Do this by typing the list in the input field next to the Add button, and then click Add. If you chose Morning, afternoon, or full day absence, on the Day tab, specify the absence codes within the import file that represent morning, afternoon, and all day.
If you do not have morning, afternoon, and all day codes in your import file, click Previous, and select Play a generic message instead. 10. 11. Click Next. On the Explanation tab, select one or more methods you want to use for requesting an explanation, and click Next.
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12.
On the Delivery tab, do the following: a b c Specify whether this message is for calls only, calls and emails, and so on. If you want this message to be sent with a priority less than High, change the priority. Click Next.
13.
Do each of the following as applicable: If you chose Call as a delivery method, on the Call tab, specify the times at which you want the calls to be made. If you chose Email as a delivery method, on the Email tab, specify the times you want the email to be sent, and create the email contents.
14. 15.
Click Next. On the Call Cascading tab, specify if you want to call each selected contact or to cascade contacts (cycle through a list of contacts until a person or answering machine is reached), and click Next. On the Confirmation tab, specify any desired confirmation options, and click Next. On the Import tab, specify whether to remove duplicate records from the list to call, then select the types of phone numbers to be called, such as the student home phone and relative home phone. Click Next. Optional: On the Sample tab, you can listen to the message that will be sent. To listen to the message, do the following: a b c Check Listen to a sample message. Enter a telephone number where you can be reached. Fill in the remaining fields with test data. When the template is created, a message is also created to make the sample call to you.
16. 17.
18.
19.
Click Finish. The template is created. Before you can use this template, it must have a file specification that tells SchoolConnects how to read your attendance data. For instructions on creating a file specification, see "Create a File Specification".
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SchoolConnects Templates Create a Canned Message Template
Create a Canned Message Template

Use this procedure to create a new canned message template, which is very useful when you want to record a message once and send out the same message each week, twice a year, or however often is required. A popular example is Saturday School, in which each week, you send a message home to notify parents that their child must attend Saturday School that week.
NOTE: At any time throughout this procedure, instead of clicking Next, you can click Finish, provided that the default options meet your needs. For a list of defaults, see "Canned Message Defaults". Also, if you know what tab you need to change, you can click on the tab, make your changes, and then click Finish.
STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Settings. Hover over Manage Message Templates, and click Canned Message Templates. The list of canned message templates appears.
Note that the list of templates includes Stock message templates, which you cannot edit or delete. 3. Click New. The Create Canned Message Template window appears.
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4. 5.
Give your template a meaningful name that describes the type of message it sends. On the School tab, do the following: a b If applicable, select the school, if this template is to apply to a single school. Select the name recording to be played in the message when the phone is first answered (Pleasantville District calling, please hold). Choose from the following: If you always want the school name to be played, even if the district sends out the message, select School name. NOTE: If the call is combined with a call from another school, the district name is played, even if you choose School name here. If you always want the district name to be played, select District name. Otherwise, leave the default at Allow system to select. SchoolConnects plays the school name if a school user sends the message, or the district name if a district user sends the message. If the call is combined with
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one from another school, or the school name is not recorded, it plays the district name. c If you do not want the message to begin with "This is a message from <school name>" (or <district name>, if the district name is selected to be played), uncheck Also play name recording at beginning of message.
NOTE:
Throughout this procedure, you can always see the message that will be delivered as it is displayed in the Preview Message frame at the bottom. The message changes depending on the options you select. Click Next.
d 6.
On the Language tab, select the language in which the message will be recorded. If you require multiple languages, leave the default at Multilanguage.
NOTE: It is recommended that you consult with Synrevoice Technical Support if you need to create a canned message in a language other than English to ensure you are set up correctly to do so.
7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Click Next. On the Recording tab, click Record Message, and record your message. When you have finished your recording, click Next. On the Student tab, if your message requires information about the student in it, specify the information you want to include, and click Next. On the Delivery tab, do the following: a b c Specify whether this message is for calls only, calls and emails, and so on. If you want this message to be sent with a priority greater than Low, change the priority. Click Next. If you chose Call as a delivery method, on the Call tab, specify the times at which you want the calls to be made. If you chose Email as a delivery method, on the Email tab, specify the time you want the email to be sent, and create the email contents. If you chose Text (SMS) or Twitter as a delivery method, on the Text Message tab, specify the time at which you want the messages to be sent, and create the text message contents.
12.
Do each of the following as applicable: a b c
13. 14.
Click Next. On the Call Cascading tab, specify if you want to call each selected contact or to cascade contacts (cycle through a list of contacts until a person or answering machine is reached), and click Next. On the Confirmation tab, specify any desired confirmation options, and click Next.
15.
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16.
On the Import tab, specify whether to remove duplicate records from the list to call, then select the types of phone numbers to be called, such as the student home phone and relative home phone. Click Next. Optional: On the Sample tab, you can listen to the message that will be sent. To listen to the message, do the following: a b c Check Listen to a sample message. Enter a telephone number where you can be reached. Fill in the remaining fields with test data. When the template is created, a message is also created to make the sample call to you.
17.
18.
Click Finish. The template is created. When you use this template, you specify the recipients.
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SchoolConnects Templates Create a File Specification
Create a File Specification

SchoolConnects requires a file specification for any file used to import data into the system. The file specification tells SchoolConnects how to read your file. If your data is always in the same format regardless of the import file or type of data, you can use the same file specification for all import files. STEPS 1. When you click the File Specification button from anywhere in SchoolConnects, you launch the File Specification wizard.
2.
Specify the type of import file by doing one of the following: If the file is an Excel spreadsheet, select the version of Excel as appropriate. If the file is a comma-separated (.csv) file, where each person is listed on a new line, select CSV text file (one record per line). (Ensure the file has double quotes around every field. For example: "field 1", "field 2", "field 3". Any field that is not enclosed in double quotes is ignored.) If the file is a formatted text file, select Formatted text file.
NOTE:
You should open any non-Excel import files in a text editor such as Notepad to verify their format. If you have not already done so, browse to locate the import file. If the import file is already identified, a link to the file appears below the Browse button.
3.
4.
Click Next.
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5.
If the file type is Excel or .csv, skip this step. If the file is a formatted text file, the following window appears:
a b
In the Record Definition box, select the applicable option to specify how a record is defined within the file. If you chose End of record character(s), you must define which character is used to identify the end of each record. Click Choose to specify the character. Select the character from the list, click Add to add it to the definition, and then click Close. If fields in the record are separated by separation characters (such as commas), in the Field Separator box, click Choose to specify the character. Select the character from the list, click Add to add it to the definition, and then click Close. Click Next.
d 6.
If the file contains a heading record, select the heading record, and click Skip Record(s). This prevents the heading information from being loaded as data.
NOTE:
Ensure that your import file always contains a header record. If a file does not contain a header record, you then need to update the file specification to prevent the first record from being skipped. Select a record in the file to use as a sample record for specifying the fields to SchoolConnects, and click Sample Record.
7. 8.
Click Next. The following window appears, showing the SchoolConnects fields on the left, and the fields in your file on the right.
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9.
Select a data field in the import file on the right by clicking on the field. That field is highlighted in the import file and all fields are highlighted in the list of SchoolConnects fields. Click on the corresponding SchoolConnects field in the left-hand column. Continue mapping the fields until each field in the import file is mapped to a SchoolConnects field. If you are creating a file specification for an Address Book and you want to import relative contact data from your import file, click the Relative tab and map any applicable fields on that tab. When you have finished mapping all necessary fields, click Next The following window appears.
10. 11. 12.
13.
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14. 15.
If you want to ensure you do not have duplicate entries, select the method that works best for the type of data you are importing. Click Finish.
RELATED LINKS: About Importing Contact Data from a File
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SchoolConnects Templates Set Up a Call-In Profile
Set Up a Call-In Profile

You can launch announcements and Emergency messages by calling in to the system, provided you have the following: A numeric user ID (so you can enter it over a telephone) A numeric password (so you can enter it over a telephone) A call-in profile for the message you want to send
The call-in profile specifies who receives the message, when the message is delivered, and any message parameters, such as the number of retries. You only need to record the voice message when you call in to launch your announcement.
TIP: It is recommended that you create profiles for the most common scenarios. For example:
Emergency - All Students (24 hours) Emergency - All Staff (24 hours) Emergency - All Students and Staff (24 hours) Emergency - All Students (early morning 6 - 8 a.m.) Emergency - All Staff (early morning 6 - 8 a.m.) Emergency - All Students and Staff (early morning 6 - 8 a.m.) Emergency - Washington DC bus trip (24 hours)
Use this procedure to create the call-in profile and print the instructions you use to launch a message using this call-in profile. It is recommended that you create your first profile as a template, which you can then use to create the remaining profiles. STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Settings. Hover over Manage Message Templates and click Call-In Profile Setup. The list of call-in profiles appears.
TIP:
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3. 4.
Click New. Optional: Customers who subscribe to the Rapidconnects service see the Create Profile window, and can select which service makes the calls: the local server or Rapidconnects. Select the service, and click Next. If you are not a subscriber to Rapidconnects, you do not see this window. The Enter Profile Settings window appears. Do the following: a b c Select the school. Give the profile a descriptive name. Avoid using names such as Profile 1 and Profile 2. Use names such as Emergency Call to All Staff and Students. Ensure that the profile has a unique ID. You can use the Profile ID that is automatically generated or create your own (it must be between 3 and 15 digits). Profile ID must be all numeric. You can use this ID to identify the profile you want when you call in to launch the message, or you can record the profile name and use that to select the profile when you call in. d Record a descriptive name for the profile. The name should be as descriptive as possible so that it can be used to select the right profile over the telephone. For example, Emergency Priority Call to All Staff and Students, or Girls Basketball Team sent any time of day or night, or Announcement to Grade 9 Students, sent between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. e f You can designate a maximum length for messages recorded for this profile, or leave it at unlimited. Click Next. The Specify the message template to use window appears.
5.
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6.
Do one of the following: Choose a template from the list, and click Next.
IMPORTANT: Do not select any of the templates whose names include "Default Settings" in them, such as Emergency Default Settings or Announcement Default Settings. Click Create a new template. (Recommended for your first profile.)
The window expands as shown:
Give the template a descriptive name that identifies who it is calling, what priority, and what hours. For example, Emergency All Students 24 hours. Specify the number of days to allow the calls to complete. NOTE: A template that covers the end of day may need the number of days to be 2 to allow the message to continue after midnight. The priority must be Emergency if you want the calls to go out before 7:30 a.m. Otherwise, choose the appropriate priority. Although the interface gives you a weekday and weekend start and end time, make the weekday and weekend start times the same. (Rapidconnects does not use the end times.) 7. 8. Click Next. Specify whether to call all contacts or to use call cascading, and click Next. If you select Cascade until the message is successfully delivered to all priority 1 contacts, you then need to specify how to stop the cascade, and click Next again. 9. Specify how you want duplicate telephone numbers tor student IDs to be handled, and click Next.
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10.
Select the kind of numbers you want to call (primary, secondary, relative), and click Next. The If using contact list window appears. If you want this profile to call everyone in a particular contact list, check Include the following Contact List(s) and select (check) the lists to be bound to the profile. You can select as many lists as required.
11.
12.
Click Next. The If using Address Book window appears.
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13. 14.
If applicable, select the school or schools to include, and then students you want to include. Select the students to include in the call list: To select all students in the selected schools, leave the default at Select All Students. To select all students in a group, such as all Grade 9 students, choose Select Students Using Basic Criteria, and select the group or groups to call. To select students using other criteria, choose Select Students using Advanced Criteria, and use an SQL query to generate a list of students.
15.
Click Next. The Assign to User Account window appears.
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16.
Assign one or more users to the profile as follows: a b Assign a user to the profile by checking the box to the left of the user ID. Optional: Assign Administrator privileges to one or more users by checking Administrator for that user. If you do not assign Administrator privileges to any users, all users who can access the profile can administer it. c Optional: Specify that approval is required for a user to launch calls using this profile by checking Approval Required for the user.
Only the users you select have access to the profile and can use it to launch messages. Others cannot see it or use it.
NOTE:
You must have a user account that has a numeric user ID and a numeric password to be able to continue from this point. You can now view a summary of the call-in profile you created.
17.
Click Next.
NOTE:
Any settings can be changed except the choice of Local Voice Server or Rapidconnects. You see a confirmation message that the new profile was created successfully.
18. 19.
Click Finish. Click Close. You see a list of call-in profiles, with your newly-created profile highlighted in the list.
CAUTION:
You can change your profile settings. However, you must be aware that changing the Messages tab also changes the template you based the profile on, and any other profiles based on the same template.
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20.
To print the instructions to launch a call using this profile, do the following: a Edit the call-in profile by clicking the Notepad icon beside the new profile:
Click the Users tab. The list of users appears.
The instructions to launch a call differ for each user. Next to your user ID, click the Printer icon to see your personal instructions. The instructions pop up. For example:
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Print these instructions to keep them handy in your wallet or purse.

TIP:
You can copy and paste the instructions for each of your profiles into a single set of instructions in a Notepad or Word document. Be sure you include the profile number and a description in your document. Then print the document and carry it with you: You can then access any of your profiles remotely. For security reasons, do not include your password in the printout.
RELATED LINKS: Call-In Profile Messages
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SchoolConnects Reports Set Up a Call-In Profile
SchoolConnects Reports
SchoolConnects has numerous built-in Crystal reports available. All reports can be generated and emailed for viewing, or they can be viewed online. Users can generate notification reports at any time to follow the progress of an ongoing message or to view a previous message. Reports can be sent automatically as attachments by email to the email addresses configured in the school properties window for each school and to other individuals. System administrators can also create scheduled tasks to email reports to various people automatically. Contents: Available SchoolConnects Reports Status Used in Reports PIN Responses Used in Reports Viewing Reports Request a Notification Task Report Request an SMS Summary Report Request an Export Call Responses Report Request a Call-In Profile Report Request a Report of Call-In Messages Schedule a Recurring Report Retrieve Message History View Message Activity Summaries
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SchoolConnects Reports Available SchoolConnects Reports
Available SchoolConnects Reports

This section describes the reports available to you and when you might use them.
Use the report named ... Task Summary
To ... See a summary of the total number of attendance or announcement calls sent for each school. See detailed status of calls made for a particular message. This is the most commonly-requested report, and the report that is often configured to be sent automatically. See how many calls each voice channel made during the selected date range. See how many call attempts were made in each hour during the selected date range. See how many call attempts were made each day during the selected date range, and the status of the attempts (Busy, No Answer, and so on). See a list of templates (Attendance, Announcement, Canned Message) in the system. You see the properties (time settings, priority, and call attempts) for each template. See the telephone numbers and student IDs that are on the Do-Not-Call list. You also see the type of notifications, and the comment field.
This report can be used ... By a District administrator to track each schools use on a daily basis, and to ensure that all schools are using the system as expected. As an early warning for telephone line problems, or as proof of contact to parents.
Notification Task
Call Attempts By Channel
For troubleshooting a telephone line problem.
Call Attempts By Hour
For checking capacity or usage, or troubleshooting a telephone line problem.
Call Attempts By Date
For troubleshooting a telephone line problem.
Template
To see a summary of the templates defined.
Do Not Call
To obtain a copy of all records in the Do-Not-Call list. This is useful for backup purposes.
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SchoolConnects Reports Available SchoolConnects Reports
Use the report named ... Notification History
To ... See the history of messages for a particular ID, name, or telephone number during the selected date range. You see a detailed list of every call made that meets the selected criteria, and the status of each call. See the history of when a record in the Do-Not-Call list was filtered from calls. You see the data sorted by student ID, the name of the student, the phone number, and the dates that the number appeared on a message, but was not called. See a list of users on your system. You see the name of the user, the school, their user ID, and a list of their permissions. See a list of schools, and the properties of each school.
This report can be used ... To find individual history, rather than school-wide history.
Do Not Call History
To see if a telephone number or ID was filtered.
User
To obtain a copy of all users. This is useful for backup purposes.
School
To verify whether all schools in your district have messages recorded or email addresses entered for reports. To retrieve survey responses.
NOTE:
Export Call Response
Retrieve the responses from a survey or from messages that allow the recipient to respond with a menu option. See detailed status of SMS text messages sent during the selected date range.
This is the only way to retrieve them. To track SMS usage, verify SMS phone numbers, and to see a list of people who have opted out of receiving SMS messages.
SMS Summary
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SchoolConnects Reports Status Used in Reports
Status Used in Reports

Call status
The following describes the status for telephone calls:
If you see this status ... Delivered - Confirmed
It means ... SchoolConnects delivered the message and the person who answered pressed the 2 key to confirm receipt of the message. SchoolConnects delivered the message and the person who answered pressed a key in response to the message. SchoolConnects delivered the message to an answering machine. SchoolConnects delivered the message and the person who answered did not press any keys in response to the message. The phone was not called because the telephone number is in the Do-Not-Call list. The phone was not called because the student ID is in the Do-Not-Call list. The phone was not called because either the phone number is a duplicate of another number called, or the student ID is a duplicate of another called. SchoolConnects did not call this number because the message was already delivered to a higher-priority contact. SchoolConnects called but received a busy signal. SchoolConnects called but there was no answer after the maximum number of rings. On hosted, this is 6 rings or the approximate time it takes for 6 normal rings. This number can be changed on a local system. SchoolConnects called but the line was disconnected (hung up) before SchoolConnects could deliver the message. SchoolConnects called but did not deliver the message because a modem was detected on the line.
Delivered - Key Pressed
Delivered - Machine
Delivered
Filtered By Phone #
Filtered By ID
Duplicate Not Phoned
Cascade Finished
Busy No Answer
Hangup
Modem Detected
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If you see this status ... Fax Detected
It means ... SchoolConnects called but did not deliver the message because a fax machine was detected on the line. SchoolConnects has not yet called this number. If the task has expired, there was not time to call this number, or there is no phone number to call for this record. The local telephone carrier was unable to connect to deliver the call. Sometimes this is a temporary error, and a later attempt to deliver the call is successful. Sometimes this is a permanent error. Because the various telephone carriers do not use error codes consistently, SchoolConnects groups several responses into this general category. The common reasons for Carrier Rejected are as follows: The phone number is not assigned to anyone. It is not in service. The user has call screening or call blocking turned on. If this is a cell phone number, the call phone is either turned off or is in an area where it has no signal. All telephone trunks to the area are in use and the local phone provider cannot accept any more calls at this time. This usually occurs only in small communities. SchoolConnects continues to retry the phone number until the number of retries or the calling period expires.
Not Phoned
Carrier Rejected
Bad Connection
SchoolConnects could deliver the message because there was no response from the receiving telephone. The message could not be delivered. Please notify your Synrevoice Technical Support representative.
Unexpected Termination
Email status
The following describes the status for emails:
If you see this status ... Failed - Missing Email Address Failed - A valid address is required
It means ... The recipient was selected to receive an email message, but no email address was found for this recipient. The email address is not in a valid format such as jsmith@example.com.
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If you see this status ... Failed - Address rejected by destination IP Y
It means ... The email address was rejected by the internet provider. The email address may be incorrect, or the internet provider may be experiencing difficulties. The email was delivered to the address provided.
NOTE:
Occasionally, the email may appear to have been delivered correctly, and then at some time later, status is returned from the internet provider that the email could not be delivered after all.
SMS status
The following describes the status for text messages:
Status Delivered-Confirmed
Description Confirmation was received that the message was delivered to the phone. The message was delivered to a carrier that does not support delivery notifications. Generally, this is considered to be successful. The message was not delivered to the phone. An unknown delivery notification was received from the carrier. Generally, this is considered to be unsuccessful. No delivery notification was received within the allotted time period before timing out. Usually, this is two days. The message was rejected. This is not an SMS-capable phone. The recipient received the message successfully, but has chosen to opt out, and not receive future SMS messages. The phone number is not recognized as a valid phone number format. It may not have the correct number of characters, or it may start with a 0 or 1.
Delivered-Not Confirmed
Undeliverable Error
Timed Out
Rejected Opt Out
Invalid Phone Number
RELATED LINKS: Viewing Reports Request a Notification Task Report
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SchoolConnects Reports PIN Responses Used in Reports
PIN Responses Used in Reports

The following is an explanation of the status you see when a PIN is required to hear the message.
If the call recipient ... Enters the PIN Presses # Hangs up Does nothing
The report shows the status as ... Delivered - Key Pressed Hangup, not completed Hangup, not completed Hangup, not completed
RELATED LINKS: Request an Export Call Responses Report
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SchoolConnects Reports Viewing Reports
Viewing Reports
There are two ways to view a report: Have it emailed to one or more recipients, or view the report online. When you view a list of messages, you can click on the Report icon next to any message to see a report for that message. When you click on the Report icon, a window appears where you select how you want to receive your report: Via email or view it online. You can access many types of reports from the Reports menu, and generating a Custom Report. This chapter focuses on the reports you access from the Reports menu. RELATED LINKS: Status Used in Reports
Email a report
You can send yourself or others a report. STEPS 1. 2. On the Navigation pane, select Reports. Click Custom Report. The Request a Report window appears.
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3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
On the Select Report tab, in the Name of Report field, select the type of report you want to send out. In the Format of Report field, select the format in which you want to see the report. If applicable, select the school. In Type of Message, select the type of message you want to report on. In Task Start Date, specify the start date of the time period for which you want a report. In Task End Date, specify the end date of the time period for which you want a report. For Date Format, select the date format to use for the report.
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10.
Specify any other applicable options on this tab, and then click the Email the Report tab.
11. 12.
Select the appropriate options, such as whether to send a copy of the report to the person who created the message. If you are sending a district report, specify the district settings. Otherwise, specify the school settings. Specify who to send the email to, and who should be copied. Click Email Report.
13.
View a report online

STEPS 1. 2. On the Navigation pane, select Reports. Click Custom Report. The Request a Report window appears.
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3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
On the Select Report tab, in the Name of Report field, select the type of report you want to send out. In the Format of Report field, select the format in which you want to see the report. If applicable, select the school. In Type of Message, select the type of message you want to report on. In Task Start Date, specify the start date of the time period for which you want a report. In Task End Date, specify the end date of the time period for which you want a report. For Date Format, select the date format to use for the report. Specify any other applicable options and then click the View the Report Online tab. Click Get Report. When the report is generated, you see a link to that report. Click the link to view the report. This opens a new tab in your browser. You can keep the report open and return to the previous window by clicking the SchoolConnects tab at the top. Clicking on the Report tab returns you to the report. To close the report, locate the tab at the top with the name of the report on it and click the small red X.
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SchoolConnects Reports Request a Notification Task Report
Request a Notification Task Report

The Notification Task Report is the most commonly requested report. It provides a detailed status of all calls made for a particular message. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. In the Navigation pane, click Reports. Click Custom Report. For Name of Report, select Notification Task (the default). For Format of Report, choose one of the following: If you are not using call cascading, and you want to group the results in the report by who was contacted versus who was not contacted, choose Phones and Emails - Group By How Contacted (the default). If you are not using call cascading, and you want to group the results in the report by status, choose Phon es and Emails - Group By Status. If you are using call cascading, and you want to see only those students whose parents were not contacted, choose Cascade -Not Contacted By Phone (the default). If you specified that confirmation was required, this report lists those students for whom no parent confirmed receipt of the call. If any parent or priority 1 contact confirmed receipt, that students contact information is not listed in this report. If you are using call cascading, and you want to see both students whose parents were contacted (or confirmed) and students whose parents were not contacted (or confirmed), choose Cascade - Contacted / Not Contacted By Phone.
5. 6. 7.
For Output File Type, leave the default at PDF for best results. Optional: Check Profile Messages Only if you only want to include messages launched via telephone. For School, District users may select all schools or individual schools. Select multiple schools by pressing Ctrl while selecting each of the desired schools. If you select ALL, you can only select District-level templates in the Message Template option below.
8. 9. 10.
For Type of Message, choose the type of message you want to report on. For Message Template, select a specific template or choose ALL. For Data to Include, select what pieces of information to display in the report in addition to the defaults. In an Attendance report, only two columns of data can be shown even if more were selected. In an Attendance & Emergency report, only three columns of data can be shown.
NOTE:
11.
For Sort By, the default is to sort records by student ID within each category. You can change to sort by student name or phone number. If you chose a Contacted / Not Contacted report, you cannot sort by phone number.
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SchoolConnects Reports Request a Notification Task Report
12.
For Call Recipients Name, choose Student Name or Student & Relative Name. If you want the name of the actual recipient for each number displayed, select Student & Relative Name. For Task Start Date and Task End Date, select the date range for the report. For Display Duplicate Not Contacted Information, select Yes if you want to see duplicate numbers that were not called. In cases where there are a lot of students that have siblings attending the same school or district, those duplicates are not telephoned, and you can remove the duplicates from the report. To remove this information from the report, select No. For Date Format, select the date format you prefer for the report. If you want the report emailed, do the following: a b Click the Email the Report tab and fill in the email information. For Send District and School Report, use the default Yes. This emails a copy of the report to each of the email addresses specified in District Properties and School Properties. For Send Report To Task Creator, select Yes if you want to ensure that the person who created the message receives a copy of the report. The default is No, which means that reports are emailed to the email addresses specified in the School Properties. In the Reply To field, enter a dummy email account. For example, name@domain.com e f Enter the email address and contents in either the District Settings or School Settings. Click Email Report.
13. 14.
15. 16.
17.
If you want to view the report online, click the View the Report Online tab, and click Get Report. When the report is available, a link appears and you can click the link to view the report.
RELATED LINKS: Status Used in Reports
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SchoolConnects Reports Request an SMS Summary Report
Request an SMS Summary Report

The SMS Summary Report provides a detailed status of all SMS text messages made within the specified time frame. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. In the Navigation pane, click Reports. Click Custom Report. For Name of Report, select SMS Summary. For Output File Type, leave the default at PDF for best results. Select All Schools or select a single school as appropriate. For Task Start Date and Task End Date, select the date range for the report. Click the View the Report Online tab. Click Get Report. A link to the report appears when the report has been generated. Then you can view the report online or save it to another location.
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SchoolConnects Reports Request an Export Call Responses Report
Request an Export Call Responses Report

If you sent out a survey or any message, such as an attendance message, where the call recipient can provide input (menu selections, recordings, and so on), you use the Export Call Responses Report to find out the results. STEPS 1. 2. 3. In the Navigation pane, click Reports. Click Custom Report. The Request a Report window appears. In the Name of Report drop-down list, select Export Call Responses. The following window appears:
4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
In the Export File Type field, select the format for the output file. Choose from Fixed Field Length, COMMA, or CSV (comma-separated). In the Include Column Titles field, check the box if you want column titles displayed in the report. In the Notification Type field, select Attendance or Announcement & Emergency. In the Message Template field, choose the message to retrieve responses for. Specify the start and end dates for the message. If you want to view the report online, click View the Report Online, then click Get Report. Otherwise, skip to the next step. Click the Email the Report tab to have the report emailed to you. The following window appears:
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SchoolConnects Reports Request an Export Call Responses Report
11.
In the Send District and School Report, select Yes if you want both District and School reports sent. If the call response report is for a district message, under District Settings, specify Yes for Email District Report, and enter a district email address in the To field. If the call response report is for a school message, under School Settings, specify Yes for Email School Report, and enter an email address in the To field.
12.
Click Email Report.
RELATED LINKS: PIN Responses Used in Reports
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SchoolConnects Reports Request a Call-In Profile Report
Request a Call-In Profile Report

This report lists the parameters of each call-in profile. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. In the Navigation pane, click Reports. Click Custom Report. For Report Name, select Template. For Output File Type, leave the default at PDF for best results. Check Profile Messages Only. Select All Schools or select a single school as appropriate. In the Profile Template drop-down list, select the template for which you want a report, or select ALL to see a report on all call-in profiles. Select the date format. Click the Email the Report tab. Enter the email information required to send the report, and click Email Report.
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SchoolConnects Reports Request a Report of Call-In Messages
Request a Report of Call-In Messages

You can generate a report for any call-in profile messages (launched by calling in to SchoolConnects). Because multiple messages can be associated with a single call-in profile, it is possible to generate a single report for all messages generated for a single profile. STEPS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. In the Navigation pane, click Reports. Click Custom Report. For Name of Report, select Notification Task (the default). For Output File Type, leave the default at PDF for best results. Check Profile Messages Only. Select All Schools or select a single school as appropriate. In the Profile Template drop-down list, select the template for which you want a report, or select ALL to see a report on all call-in profiles. For Data to Include, choose the relevant report data. For Sort By and Display By, choose how you want the report to look. For Call Recipients Name, choose Student Name or Student & Relative Name. If you want the name of the actual recipient for each number displayed, select Student & Relative Name. For Task Start Date and Task End Date, select the date range for the report. For Display Duplicate Not Contacted Information, select Yes if you want to see duplicate numbers that were not called. In cases where there are a lot of students that have siblings attending the same school or district, those duplicates are not telephoned, and you can remove the duplicates from the report. To remove this information from the report, select No. For Date Format, select the date format you prefer for the report. Click the Email the Report tab. Enter the email information required to send the report, and click Email Report.
11. 12.
13. 14. 15.
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SchoolConnects Reports Retrieve Message History
Retrieve Message History

If you want to see a history of calls for a particular student, telephone number, or email address, you use the Message History report. You select a date range for the data you want and all related messages are displayed online. STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Reports. Click Message History Report. The Request Message History window appears.
3. 4.
In the Type of Message field, select the type of calls you want to retrieve history for. Use the fields provided to select a particular student to see the history of messages for that student. Enter values in one or more of these fields to narrow the scope: For Student ID, you can enter part or the entire student ID to retrieve message history for a particular student. For Student Name, you can enter the students last name or the first few letters of the last name. You can enter partial information but keep in mind that the system looks for a match based on the characters from left to right. Because student names often appear in the system as last name,
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first name, if you enter just the students first name, it does not find a match. 5. For Phone Number, you can enter the students telephone number beginning with the area code and then the exchange. If you are retrieving email history, for Email Address, enter the email address.
Select a date range to search by clicking the calendar next to Message Start Date and choosing a start date. Then click the calendar next to Message End Date to choose the end of your date range. SchoolConnects always defaults to the current date for both start and end dates. Select Yes for Call History to receive telephone call history, and Yes for Email History for a history of emails sent. Click Get History.
6. 7.
In the following example, we entered the name Jones and the date range April 1 to April 9, 2008:
After clicking Get History, we receive the following result:
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The ID and full name of the student are returned. If there are multiple matching students (for example, multiple students in the school with the last name Jones), you see all of the records for one match followed by all of the records for the next match, and so on. This report displays all attempts made by SchoolConnects.
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SchoolConnects Reports View Message Activity Summaries
View Message Activity Summaries

You can view the voice server activity, email activity, or SMS activity for your school or district using the Activity Summary Reports. Each activity summary lists all the activity for a message, by date. For example, if your message spans three days, there is a summary of activity for each day. All messages for the selected date are listed, similar to the All Messages display. However, in this view, you cannot manipulate the messages. The icons to the left of the messages allow you to review a summary of the types of activity that occurred. For example, if a message is sent by both call and email, you see an icon for voice server activity and an icon for email activity next to the message. You can use the activity summaries for several purposes, including seeing why a call didnt go out, seeing if there are email addresses entered incorrectly, or seeing a list of phone numbers that are not SMS enabled.
Review SMS activity

To see a list of the phone numbers that SMS messages were sent to, those that the message could not be sent to, and see the recipients that opted out of receiving SMS messages, use the SMS Activity Summary report. STEPS 1. 2. 3. In the Navigation pane, click Reports. Click Message Activity Summary. The list of messages for the currently selected date is displayed. In the calendar, click on the date for which you want to see the summary. The list is refreshed with the list for that date. An activity icon is displayed to the left of the message name for each delivery method, such as call, email, or SMS. If all three methods are selected, the icon looks like this:
4.
Locate the message you want to review and click the SMS Activity Summary icon. The summary is displayed, as shown:
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SMS activity status

The following describes the status you may see in an SMS Activity Summary report, and what it means.
If you see this status ... Not Attempted
It means ... The SMS message was not sent, perhaps because the notification was canceled or expired. The SMS message was attempted, but has not yet been delivered. An unknown delivery notification was received from the destination. The SMS message could not be delivered. The phone is probably not SMS-enabled The SMS message was sent, but the carrier for this phone does not provide a confirmation that the message was delivered. The SMS message was sent, and a confirmation was received that the message was delivered. No delivery notification was received from the carrier within a reasonable amount of time. The SMS message was delivered, but the recipient has requested not to receive any more messages from SchoolConnects on this phone.
Attempted Not Delivered
Rejected
Delivered - Not Confirmed Delivered - Confirmed
Timed Out
Opt Out
Review email activity

To see a list of the email addresses that email messages were sent to, and review the status, such as email addresses that are not valid or incorrect, use the Email Activity Summary report. You can also see from this report which students have no email addresses on record. STEPS 1. 2. In the Navigation pane, click Reports. Click Message Activity Summary. The list of messages for the currently selected date is displayed.
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3.
In the calendar, click on the date for which you want to see the summary. The list is refreshed with the list for that date. An activity icon is displayed to the left of the message name for each delivery method, such as call, email, or SMS. If all three methods are selected, the icon looks like this:
4.
Locate the message you want to review and click the Email Activity Summary icon. The summary is displayed, showing each email address attempted, and the results.
5.
Look for any email addresses with the status Failed. Address rejected by destination IP. This status indicates that the email address is incorrect in your SchoolConnects Address Book, and most likely in your student management system, or the destination considers it to be junk mail. Make note of the student name and email address, and follow up with the parent or student to input the correct email address in your student management system.
6.
Look for any email addresses with the status Failed. A valid address is
required.
This status indicates that the email address is not in the correct format. Sometimes an incomplete email address has been entered. Make note of the student name and email address, and correct the email address in your student management system. Ensure it is in the format jsmith@example.com.
Email activity status

The following describes the status you may see in an Email Activity Summary report, and what it means.
If you see this status ... Failed - Missing Email Address Failed - A valid address is required
It means ... The recipient was selected to receive an email message, but no email address was found for this recipient. The email address is not in a valid format such as jsmith@example.com.
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If you see this status ... Failed - Address rejected by destination IP Y
It means ... The email address was rejected by the internet provider. The email address may be incorrect, or the internet provider may be experiencing difficulties. The email was delivered to the address provided.
NOTE:
Occasionally, the email may appear to have been delivered correctly, and then at some time later, status is returned from the internet provider that the email could not be delivered after all.
Review voice server activity

To see additional information about your calls, you can review the Voice Server Activity Summary report for a message. This report shows the results as voice servers query the message to see if there is work to be done. If there is no work to be done for this message, the status is updated to show why. Some of the reasons include that it is outside the call times for this message, or that there are no active records at this time, or that there is no recorded message. STEPS 1. 2. 3. In the Navigation pane, click Reports. Click Message Activity Summary. The list of messages for the currently selected date is displayed. In the calendar, click on the date for which you want to see the summary. The list is refreshed with the list for that date. An activity icon is displayed to the left of the message name for each delivery method, such as call, email, or SMS. If all three methods are selected, the icon looks like this:
4.
Locate the message you want to review and click the Voice Server Activity Summary icon. The summary is displayed.
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5.
If the message is scheduled to go out over multiple days, in the date field at the top of the report, select the date the message started, and click Refresh.
The list is re-displayed, with the earliest activity from that date at the bottom of the page, and the latest activity at the top of the page. 6. Scroll through the page to locate the start time of the calls. If all is working correctly, you see the status TASK notification is ACTIVE. If the status is Missing Recording(s), the voice message has not yet been recorded. Edit the message and record the voice message to fix the problem.
Voice server activity reasons

The following describes the reasons you may see in a Voice Server Activity Summary report, and what they mean.
If you see this status ... Missing Recording(s)
It means ... The voice message has not been recorded so the calls cannot go out. SchoolConnects was not running at this time.
Notification System Deactivated Message template not found Missing Recording(s)
The corresponding message template could not be located, so the call could not go out. The voice message has not been recorded, so the call cannot go out. The voice server queried for work either before the start of the message calling time, or after the end of the message calling time for the current date. The voice server found no calls to make at this time. Either the calls were all completed, or the system was waiting before retrying some numbers. The call was not made because a message restriction was put in place to stop calls for the date this call was scheduled.
Outside of task call time
Task has NO active detail records
Task cancelled by notification restriction
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If you see this status ... TASK notification is ACTIVE Task has been sent to Synrevoice Server
It means ... This voice server was actively making these calls at that time.
The message has been sent to RapidConnects, or call volumes on the system are extremely high, and the message has been passed to another server to expedite it in a reasonable amount of time. In very rare cases, this may indicate that the message has been passed to a third-party calling system to expedite it. A higher-priority message, such as an emergency message is currently being delivered.
Higher priority task is currently active
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SchoolConnects Reference View Message Activity Summaries
SchoolConnects Reference
This section contains additional information about various topics. It contains descriptions of some of the SchoolConnects features you can use. Contents: Address Book Fields and What They Mean What the Message Icons Mean Use School Announcement Settings Option User Permissions The Call Cascading Feature The Telemarketer Zapper
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SchoolConnects Reference Address Book Fields and What They Mean
Address Book Fields and What They Mean

Student (Household) Contact Data
Name Name ID
Description The full name of the student. The unique identifier for this student within the schools student information system. This is a mandatory field. The students grade. This is one of the fields a user can select as criteria when sending a message. The name or room number for the students home room, usually where they start their day. This is one of the fields a user can select as criteria when sending a message. The primary language spoken in the students home or place of residence. This is one of the fields a user can select as criteria when sending a message. The name of the students home room teacher. This is one of the fields a user can select as criteria when sending a message. If used, a field available for use however the school or district prefers. A common example is bus route. This is one of the fields a user can select as criteria when sending a message. If used, a field available for use however the school or district prefers. A common example is bus route. This is one of the fields a user can select as criteria when sending a message. If applicable, the number that must be entered before telephone messages regarding this student can be played. Indicates if a PIN is required to listen to messages regarding this student. When set to Yes, a value must be entered in the PIN field if the task is defined to require it. Indicates that this telephone number is known to have a device enabled that sends an Out-of-Service tone, which is used to discourage telemarketers. These devices have not been sold in several years. When flagged as Y, SchoolConnects ignores these tones for this number.
Grade
Home Room
Language
Teacher
Custom Info 1
Custom Info 2
PIN
PIN required to listen to messages
Zapper
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Name Home Phone
Description The primary home telephone number for this student and usually, the primary home number to contact regarding this student. Note that it is possible for this to be a cell phone number, if a parent does not have a land line. The primary home email address, occasionally for the student, but more frequently for the primary parental contact for the student. The secondary mobile (cell) telephone number, occasionally for the student, but more frequently for the primary parental contact for the student. This field is no longer used for notifications. A secondary telephone number to be called, usually if a message cannot be delivered to the home telephone number. Frequently, this is the parents work telephone number. If applicable, the extension number to be requested when contacting the alternate telephone number. A secondary email address for emailing messages about the student. This may be the primary parental contacts work email address, or it may be the email address of an alternative parental contact. The students street address at home. For example, house number and street name, or building number, street name, and apartment number. The city in which the student lives. The province or state in which the student resides. The postal code or zip code for the location at which the student resides.
Home Email
Mobile Phone
Pager Alternate Phone
Alternate Phone Extension Alternate Email Address
Address
City Province/State Postal Code/Zip
Relative Contact Data
Name Student ID
Description This is not an input field. This is the unique identifier for the student this relative contact data is associated with.
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Name Student Name
Description This is not an input field. This is the name of the student this relative contact date is associated with. The name of the relative this record applies to. The relationship of this relative to the student. For example, Grandmother, or Babysitter. Depending on your configuration, this may appear as a code such as 1, 2, MO, FA and so on. If PIN required to listen to messages is Yes in the student primary record, this is the number that must be entered before telephone messages regarding this student can be played. The priority of this relative. A number from 01 (highest) to 99. Priority is used to determine which relatives are called, and the order in which they are called during call cascading. The primary home telephone number for this relative. The primary home email address for this relative. The secondary mobile (cell) telephone number for this relative. This field is no longer used for notifications. A secondary telephone number to be called to contact this relative, usually if a message cannot be delivered to the home telephone number. Frequently, this is the relatives work telephone number. If applicable, the extension number to be requested when contacting the alternate telephone number. A secondary email address for emailing messages to this relative. This may be the relatives work email address. The relatives street address at home. For example, house number and street name, or building number, street name, and apartment number. The city in which the relative lives. The province or state in which the relative resides. The postal code or zip code for the location at which the relative resides.
Contact Name Relationship
PIN
Priority
Home Phone Home Email Mobile Phone Pager Alternate Phone
Alternate Phone Extension Alternate Email Address
Address
City Province/State Postal Code/Zip
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Address Book Buttons

Import The Import button is used to import a new Address Book from an import file, replacing the contents of the current Address Book. Typically, this is used to import student records from the student information system.
CAUTION: Importing of the Address Book should be performed by experienced users of SchoolConnects, or under the guidance of Synrevoice Technical Support.
Clear The Clear button is used to erase the entire contents of the Address Book.
CAUTION: Clearing of the Address Book should only be performed under the direction of Synrevoice Technical Support.
Contact Seq This button is used for Call Cascading. You click Contact Seq to specify the order in which to contact relatives and to specify telephone number types. You can assign global priorities for different relative codes. You can also set the order in which each type of telephone number should be called. RELATED LINKS: Update the Address Book The Address Book Difference Between the Address Book and a Contact List
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SchoolConnects Reference What the Message Icons Mean
What the Message Icons Mean
When you click the ... Select a Message check box
Which looks like this ...
The following happens ... The message is selected. If you want to delete or cancel the message, check the box and click the appropriate button. When you click this icon, you see the Settings window for that type of message. You can change the expiry date of the message, the times for it to call, the priority or delivery method, the number of attempts, the language, the PIN requirements, and so on. When you click this icon, you see the Call Details window. Here you can select what information you want to view. Click OK to display the details of the message, organized by student. When you click this icon, you can request a report that you can view online, or you can receive the report via email. Either option allows you to save a copy of the report as a PDF file. There are several real-time reports for you to choose from. When you click this icon, you can view logs that show whether emails are being sent for a message or whether there is a problem preventing the emails from going out.
Edit Message Settings icon
Edit List Details icon
Real-Time Report icon
Email Activity icon
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SchoolConnects Reference Use School Announcement Settings Option
Use School Announcement Settings Option

There are two sources of announcement settings: One is at the school level and the other is at the district level. In most systems, the default settings are set only at the district level. They enable you to send your messages out at the correct times and to import text files properly. If you check the Use School Announcement Settings option when creating a message, and there are no default settings configured for your school, you may not have all the features that you want for your announcement. There are situations where it is appropriate to check this box, such as if your school has a particular file structure that is different from what the other schools use.
NOTE:
Only use this option if instructed to.
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SchoolConnects Reference User Permissions
User Permissions
User permissions determine what kinds of SchoolConnects objects a user can access or modify.
Permission Highest Priority
Description Specifies the maximum priority this user can set for a message. For example, if you set the permission to Medium, this user can specify Low or Medium priority for a message, but not High or Emergency. If set to Yes, the user can create new message templates for Attendance and Canned messages. If set to Yes, the user can modify message templates.
Create Message Template Edit Message Template Delete Message Template Create Message Edit Message Delete Message Create User Account
If set to Yes, the user can delete message templates.
If set to Yes, the user can create messages. If set to Yes, the user can change messages. If set to Yes, the user can delete messages. If set to Yes, the user can create new user accounts. If set to No, the user can only change their own password. If set to Yes, the user can modify user accounts. If set to No, the user can only change their own password. If set to Yes, the user can delete user accounts. If set to No, the user can only change their own password. If set to Yes, the user can create, modify, and delete contact lists. If set to No, the user can see and use contact lists, but cannot create or change them. If set to Yes, the user can add to or modify the Do-Not-Call list. If set to No, the user cannot create announcements with their own message. The user can still send out attendance messages and can still create announcements from canned messages, If set to Yes, the user can modify system settings.
Modify User Account Delete User Account
Create, Edit and Delete Contact List
Do-Not-Call List Record Message
Edit System Settings
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SchoolConnects Reference User Permissions
Permission Add, Edit and Delete Relationship Code Update Address Book Call-In Profile Setup
Description If set to Yes, the user can modify relationship codes.
If set to No, the user cannot modify the contents of the Address Book. If set to Yes, the user can set up a profile to be able to send a message from a telephone. If set to Yes, the user can restrict times when messages can be sent, or remove an existing restriction. If set to Yes, the user can receive attendance reports via email, provided their email address is specified as a recipient. If set to Yes, the user can receive announcement reports via email, provided their email address is specified as a recipient.
Create and Edit Restriction Schedule Receive Attendance Reports Receive Announcement Reports Receive Emergency Reports Access Student Personal Information Submit to Rapidconnects Processing Override Before and After Call Times Send Attendance Message
If set to Yes, the user can receive Emergency reports via email, provided their email address is specified as a recipient. If set to No, the user cannot view any student contact information or receive reports that include student contact information.
Applicable only if you have a subscription to Rapidconnects. If set to Yes, the user can use special features to expedite certain types of calls. If set to No, this user cannot launch calls to Rapidconnects. If set to Yes, the user can send calls outside of the allowed calling times. If set to Yes, the user can send attendance messages. If set to No, the user can still see attendance messages for their school, but does not see the options to create the messages. If set to Yes, the user can post to a common Twitter account. When set to No, the user can post only to a Twitter account specifically set up for them.
Send message with public Twitter account
RELATED LINKS: Add a New User
179
SchoolConnects Reference The Call Cascading Feature
The Call Cascading Feature

The call cascading feature allows SchoolConnects to consider multiple numbers associated with a student, either directly or via parental contacts, and call those numbers, but only until certain criteria are met. Call cascading should be used in situations where it is important to be sure that someone associated with the student receives a call, by attempting all selected numbers in a certain sequence. Each parental contact is assigned a priority ranging from 1 (or 01) to 99. Priority 01 contacts have a special distinction that whenever they are considered, the system ensures that the contact is successfully reached at one of their numbers, time and retry limit permitting. What constitutes a successful call depends on the options selected when the message is created. Note that there can be multiple priority 01 contacts. In this topic: Overview of call cascading Contact priorities How call cascading works Call cascading sequence Examples of call cascading Selecting call cascading options
Overview of call cascading

When setting up any message, you can deliver the message to all selected telephone numbers, or you can cascade the callscall the numbers in sequence until someone answers at one of the numbersthen end the cascade (stop calling). Without call cascading, it is possible to call many numbers per students, and parents can receive the same message on several different telephones. With call cascading, SchoolConnects considers all phone numbers selected (primary, secondary, parental) but ensures that the message is delivered to all priority 01 contacts, or the allocated calling time expires, whichever happens first. When you choose to use call cascading, you specify what it means to deliver the call: Is it good enough if the system leaves the message on an answering machine and only goes on to additional phone numbers if it gets no answer or a busy status on the first number(s) called? If leaving the message on a machine is not sufficient, the recipient must press 2 to confirm they received the message. If the message is delivered to a number but the recipient did not confirm receipt, should the system keep retrying that number? How many times?
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There are three options when choosing call cascading, regarding calls to priority 01 contacts: Consider the message delivered if a person or answering machine picks up the phone. A person must answer the phone and confirm receipt of the call. If they fail to press 2 to confirm receipt, do not call them back. A person must answer the phone and confirm receipt of the call. If they fail to press 2 to confirm receipt, call them back x times until they confirm.
Contact priorities
To use Call Cascading most effectively, it is important to understand how contact priorities work. You can assign priorities 01-99 to all contacts in the Address Book, where 01 is the highest priority, and 99 is the lowest. The student (household) record in the Address Book is always considered priority 01. This record contains a primary telephone number (usually Home) and up to two secondary numbers (Mobile and Alternate). Each student record can also be linked to multiple contacts. Each of these contacts may also have up to three telephone numbers. You can assign priorities to contacts, either individually, record by record, or globally based on the relationship code. To assign priorities globally by relationship code, from the Address Book window, click Contact Seq. You can also assign the order in which to attempt each type of telephone number: Home, Mobile, or Alternate. To assign an order to telephone number types, from the Address Book window, click Contact Seq, then select the Phone Sequence tab.
How call cascading works

When you choose call cascading, SchoolConnects delivers the message to all contacts identified as priority 01. In addition, SchoolConnects also attempts to call all selected telephone numbers identified as priority 02-99 until it delivers the message to either a priority 02-99 number or to a priority 01 number. When a call is delivered to any telephone number, all of the additional non-priority 01 numbers associated with the same student are given a status of Cascade Finished. No further attempts are made to call non-priority 01 numbers. However, SchoolConnects continues to attempt priority 01 contacts until the message is delivered to all of them. Note that one contact in the Address Book may have up to three telephone numbers. When SchoolConnects delivers the message to any one of the numbers belonging to a priority 01 contact, the remaining telephone numbers for that contact are marked with a status of Cascade Finished and no further attempts are made.
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For example, if Mother is a priority 01 contact and she has a home telephone, a mobile telephone, and a work telephone, and SchoolConnects successfully delivers the message to the mobile phone, no attempt is made to call Mothers home or work numbers. If Father is also a priority 01 contact and also has a home telephone, mobile phone, and work telephone, even though the message has been delivered to Mothers mobile phone, SchoolConnects still attempts to call Fathers three numbers until the message is delivered to one of them. The student (household) record in the Address Book is always considered priority 01. This cannot be changed. If only the student Primary and Secondary telephone numbers are imported, SchoolConnects attempts all three numbers until the message is delivered to one of them. Then it marks the other telephone numbers for that student as Cascade Finished and makes no further attempts. If only contacts are selected for import and no contact is defined as priority 01, then as soon as the message is delivered to any one of the telephone numbers available, no further attempts are made to any of the other telephone numbers for that student. RELATED LINKS: About Call Cascading
Call cascading sequence

If Student Primary and Secondary telephone numbers and all relative telephone numbers are selected for calling: 1) The first call attempt is made to the students home phone number. The mobile or alternate telephone numbers are attempted only if the message is not delivered to the home telephone number. Next attempted is the home telephone number for the first contact identified as priority 01. Then the second or third telephone numbers available for the first priority 01 contact are attempted. If priority 01 contacts have no secondary numbers, SchoolConnects starts calling the home telephone numbers for the next priority 01 contact. If and when all telephone numbers for all priority 01 contacts have been attempted but not delivered, SchoolConnects begins calling the next-highest priority telephone numbers. In each round, SchoolConnects attempts the highest priority number that was not yet attempted or has had the fewest attempts.
2) 3)
4)
5)
Examples of call cascading

Refer to the following examples, which demonstrate who is called and what happens when calls cascade.
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Cascade primary and secondary numbers

If your Address Book contains only records for the student household , which is implicitly a priority 01, selecting primary and secondary numbers results in the following. Refer to the illustration below: 1) 2) SchoolConnects calls the household primary phone number [1]. If the call is "delivered", no further calls are made to that students phone numbers. For any calls not "delivered", SchoolConnects cascades to the household secondary phone numbers [2] then [3], then starts over with the primary number again until the call is "delivered" or the number of retries is exhausted. (If you specified that confirmation was required, and a person answers but does not confirm receipt of the message, SchoolConnects retries as defined for call cascading.) Cascade primary and secondary
Figure 1:
Cascade primary and relatives

If your Address Book also contains relative records , selecting primary and relatives (but not secondary numbers) results in the following. Refer to the illustration below: 1) 2) SchoolConnects calls the student household primary phone number [1]. SchoolConnects also calls a priority 01 relative, first calling the primary phone number [2], cascading in succession to the mobile [3] and alternate [4] phone numbers. If the call is "delivered", SchoolConnects calls each of the remaining priority 01 relatives in succession. For any calls not "delivered" to either the household or a priority 01 relative, SchoolConnects cascades to the next lower-priority relatives, first calling the
3)
183
primary phone numbers [5], cascading in succession to the mobile [6] and alternate [7] phone numbers until the call is "delivered" or the number of retries is exhausted. (If you specified that confirmation was required, and a person answers but does not confirm receipt of the message, SchoolConnects retries as defined for call cascading.) In this example, as shown in the Figure 2, none of the phones is answered on the first pass, so the entire cascade sequence for this student is retried. On the second pass, the call is delivered to the household primary number, but not to the priority 01 relative, so the third pass will retry just the priority 01 relatives numbers. The priority 02 relative is not called on the second pass because the call was delivered to the household (a priority 01 contact), which marks the status of the priority 02 phone numbers Cascade Finished.
NOTE:
If multiple contacts share a phone number, such as parents having a common home telephone number, if a call is delivered successfully to one parent at that shared number, the call to the other parent is marked Cascade Finished. Figure 2: Cascade primary and relatives - First pass
184
Figure 3:
Cascade primary and relatives - Second pass
Cascade primary, secondary, and relatives

If your Address Book also contains relative records , selecting primary, secondary, and relatives results in the following. Refer to the illustration below: 1) 2) SchoolConnects calls the student household primary phone number [1]. If the call is "delivered", no further calls are made to that students household numbers. For any student household calls not "delivered", SchoolConnects cascades in succession to the student household mobile number [2], and if required, the alternate number [3]. SchoolConnects also calls a priority 01 relative, first calling the primary phone number [4]. If the call is "delivered", no further calls are made to that relatives phone numbers. If the call is not "delivered", SchoolConnects cascades in succession to the relatives mobile number [5], and if required, the alternate number [6]. If the call is "delivered", SchoolConnects calls each of the remaining priority 01 relatives in succession [7], cascading to secondary numbers as required. For any calls not "delivered" to either the household or a priority 01 relative, SchoolConnects cascades to the next lower-priority relatives, first calling the primary phone numbers [10], then if required, cascading in succession to the mobile [11] and alternate [12] phone numbers until the call is "delivered". SchoolConnects continues to cascade through lower-priority relatives until a call is "delivered".
3)
4)
5)
185
In the following example, the student household mobile phone is answered on the first pass, so the alternate number is given a status of Cascade Finished. The call was delivered to the first priority 01 relatives alternate phone number, but SchoolConnects retries the second priority 01 relative. The priority 02 relative is not called because the call was delivered to the household, which marks the status of the priority 02 phone numbers as Cascade Finished.
NOTE:
If multiple contacts share a phone number, such as parents having a common home telephone number, if a call is delivered successfully to one parent at that shared number, the call to the other parent is marked Cascade Finished. Figure 4: Cascade primary, secondary and relatives
Selecting call cascading options

When you are creating an announcement, you reach the step where you specify who to send the message to, as follows:
186
STEPS 1. Click Call cascading. The page expands to display the call cascading options:
2.
Select Cascade until the message is successfully delivered to all priority 1 contacts. The page expands again to display the options for ending the cascade:
187
3.
Do one of the following: If you want to stop cascading to additional numbers when a person or an answering machine picks up the call, leave the default at A priority 1 contact answers the call in person or via an answering machine. No additional numbers for this priority 1 contact are called. Any remaining priority 1contacts are still called until each contact is reached directly or an answering machine answers one of their phones. NOTE: Particularly for non-hosted systems, detection of a human or machine answering is not exact. For example, a message from the phone company to indicate a number is not valid may be interpreted as a machine answering the call. If you want to ensure that a live person is reached for each of the priority 1 contacts, but do not want to keep calling people back if they fail to press 2 to confirm that they received the call, select A priority 1 contact confirms receipt of the message by pressing 2. With this option, if the contact presses 2, no additional numbers for this priority 1 contact are called, and no lower priority contacts are called.
188
Any remaining priority 1 contacts are still called until each answers a phone directly. If the contact does not press 2, their additional numbers are called because they did not confirm receipt. However, any numbers that were answered by a person are not called back. If you absolutely must confirm which priority 1 contacts have been reached for each student, select A priority 1 contact must confirm receipt of the message by pressing 2. The page expands again to allow you to specify how many times to call back if someone answers and does not press 2, and how long to wait between call backs.
With this option, if the contact does not press 2, their additional numbers are called because they did not confirm receipt, but after the specified minimum wait time, SchoolConnects calls them back at this number. The process is repeated until the specified number of retries is reached. 4. Click Additional contact options. The page expands to allow you to select the phone numbers you want to call, and the priority of relatives to include.
5.
Check the numbers you want to call for the student home record and for relatives, or uncheck those you do not want to call.
189
6.
If you want to limit the calls to a range of priority relatives, such as priority 01 and 02, select the range, or limit it to priority 01 by selecting from priority 01 to priority 01. Click Next and complete the message.
7.
190
SchoolConnects Reference The Telemarketer Zapper
The Telemarketer Zapper

People can buy devices to connect to their home telephones that block calls from automated dialing systems, such as the predictive dialers used by telemarketers. These are very simple devices that emit a tone when any call comes in. The tone sounds like the beginning of the tri-tone that precedes a message saying the number you are dialing is out of service, or that you dialed the number incorrectly. Automated dialing systems hang up when they hear this tone and the family at home never even hears the telephone ring. This works wonderfully to prevent receiving unwanted calls from telemarketers. When SchoolConnects hears this zapper tone, it continues to deliver the message. If there really is a telemarketer zapper device involved, a person may actually receive the call. If this person presses a key to confirm receipt, SchoolConnects reports the call as Delivered - Confirmed or Delivered - Key Pressed. However, if nobody presses a key, the call is reported as Tri-Tone Ignored. You should verify and correct all telephone numbers reported as Tri-tone ignored.
191
SchoolConnects Reference The Telemarketer Zapper
192
A
Address Book check boxes 10 choosing recipients from 64 description of 7 difference from contact list 32 field descriptions 172 household information 8 icons, description of 8 importing new 106 manually add student to 108 manually delete a student from 109 Primary tab 9 relative contact data 9 relative fields description 173 searching for a student in 107 Secondary tab 10 select a grade 64 selecting individuals 65 sending to everybody 64 SMS check box 26 student record 8 updating 106 announcements adding recipients to 80 changing settings 86 creating
viewing list of recipients 79 viewing progress of 82 ways to create 15 when delivered 15 attendance messages creating template 122 listening to responses 84 overview 12 shortcut 93 stopping automated 38
C
call cascading how it works 181 order in which contacts are called 182 priorities 181 call cascading feature description of 40, 180 call responses listening to 84 Call-In Messages report obtaining 160 call-in profile messages overview 18 Call-In Profile report obtaining 159 call-in profiles example 19 instructions for using 18 overview 18 reference card 18 setting up 135 calling lists changing 103 creating 96, 103, 106, 108, 109, 111, 113 calling times for messages 22 calls restricting 115 canned message templates creating 127 canned messages creating an announcement 69 overview of 16 when delivered 16 cascade call cascading 40, 180 Change School description of 3
from canned message 69 your own message 50 creating reusable 89 description of 11 emergency 16 expiry of 21 listening to sample call 80 overview 15 reactivating 85 reusing 92 sending again 87
sending again to same recipients 87 sending new to same recipients 88 sending sample emails 81 sending to all grade 9s 64 sending to all students 64 sending to entire contact list 66 sending to individuals 65, 67 sending to list from import file 68 sending to subset of contact list 66 types of 15
193
check boxes in Address Book 10 contact lists changing 103 choosing recipients from 66 creating 96, 103, 106, 108, 109, 111, 113 difference from Address Book 32 overview of 31 selecting a subset 66 selecting entire list 66 selecting individuals 67 contacts choosing from Address Book 64 importing from file, overview 36
H
Home description of 3
I
icons description of 176 import files defining fields in 131 mapping fields in 131 sending to list 68 supported file types 36
M
message expiry overview 21 message history report 161 message length for text messages 24 message recording creating using text to speech 57 message restriction types 38 messages about stopping 38 absence 12 adding recipients to 80 attendance 12 calling times 22 canned 16 changing settings 86 creating attendance template 122 creating reusable 89 default period absence message text 13 email times 23 expiry of 21 icon description 176 late 12 launched by telephone 18 listening to call responses 84 listening to sample call 80 reactivating 85 restricting 115 restrictions of 38 resuming
D
district administrator description 34 permissions 35 district user description 34 Do-Not-Call lists global 37 overview 37
E
email times overview 23 emails sending sample 81 students missing email addresses 165 students with invalid email addresses 165 viewing summary of activity 165 Emergency messages overview 16 preempting other messages 16 reusing 92 when delivered 16 explanation message description of 5 Export Call Responses report obtaining 157
F
file specifications creating 131 files defining import files 131 supported file types 36 global Do-Not-Call lists 37
entire message 79 one delivery method for a message 79 reusing 92 sending again 87 sending again to same recipients 87
194
sending new to same recipients 88 sending sample emails 81 sending SMS 59, 74 sending text 59, 74 suppression of 38 tardy 12 types of 11 types that can be restricted 38 viewing list of recipients 79 viewing progress of 82 working with existing 78 mobile phones stop sending text messages to 114
N
name message description of 5 names searching for 110 Navigation pane description of 3 Need Help option description of 4 Notification Task report obtaining 154
O
online reports obtaining 152
P
passwords changing 45 permissions description of 178 phone numbers preventing calls to 111 searching for 110 stop sending messages to 114 PIN status reports 149 Primary tab of Address Book 9 profiles creating 135 overview 18
relative contact data description of 173 relative contact information 9 reports call history 161 call-in messages 160 call-in profile 159 description of 144 Email Activity Summary 165 email history 161 emailing 150 export call responses 157 list of available 144 message history 161 notification task 154 obtaining via email 150 SMS Activity Summary 164 SMS Summary 156 status used in 146 text message activity 164 text messaging summary 156 viewing 150 viewing online 152 Voice Server Activity Report 167 when PIN is required 149 Reports option description of 4 restriction schedules canceling 117 changing 116 creating 115 reusable announcements creating 89
S
sample calls listening to 80 overview 80 sample emails sending 81 school administrator description 34 school announcement settings description of 177 school code description of 5 school Do-Not-Call lists overview 37 school name recording
Q
Quick Attendance using 93
R
recipients viewing list of 79
195
changing 44 school properties 5 editing 44 school user description 34 SchoolConnects web interface 2 SchoolConnects window description 2 schools code 5 creating 42 description of 5 explanation message 5 name message 5 properties 5 Secondary tab of Address Book 10 Send Message description of 3 Settings option description of 4 SMS status descriptions 165, 166 viewing summary of activity 164 SMS messages about sending 24 message length 24 Opted Out status 27 prevent sending to a phone 114 Rejected status 27 selecting phone numbers 26 sending 59, 74 SMS check box 26 SMS Summary report 156 status of email messages 166 of SMS messages 165 of text messages 165 of voice servers 168 TASK notification is ACTIVE 169 used in reports 146 viewing 82 student contact data description of 172 student contact information 8 student contacts editing 9 student data
importing to Address Book 106 student information system importing to Address Book 106 student properties description of 8 students locating in Address Book 107 manually add to Address Book 108 manually delete from Address Book 109 preventing calls to 111 surveys listening to call response 84
TASK notification is ACTIVE status 169 telemarketer zapper description of 191 telephone numbers preventing calls to 111 templates creating attendance 122 creating canned message 127 text messages about sending 24 message length 24 Opted Out status 27 prevent sending to a phone 114 Rejected status 27 selecting phone numbers 26 sending 59, 74 set up for Twitter 118 SMS check box 26 status descriptions 165 viewing summary of activity 164 text messaging summary report 156 text to speech creating a recording 57 Twitter account authorizing SchoolConnects to tweet to 118 user accounts changing passwords 45 creating 46 deleting 49 overview 34 types of 34 User Manager overview of 34 user permissions
196
description of 178 user properties overview 34 users adding new 46 deleting 49 permissions 178
V
View Messages options description of 3 voice server status descriptions 168 voice server activity viewing 167
W
web interface description of 2 weekday call times 22 weekday email times 23 weekend call times 22 weekend email times 23
Z
zapper description of 191
197
198

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SchoolConnects

Web Users Guide

Synrevoice Technologies Inc.

SchoolConnectsTM Version 9.30

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SchoolConnects Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

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SchoolConnects Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

SchoolConnects Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

SchoolConnectsWeb Users Guide

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SchoolConnects Basics The SchoolConnectsWeb Window

The SchoolConnectsWeb Window

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SchoolConnects Basics The SchoolConnectsWeb Window

The Navigation Pane

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics The SchoolConnectsWeb Window

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SchoolConnects Basics SchoolConnects Schools

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics SchoolConnects Schools

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SchoolConnects Basics The Address Book

The Address Book

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SchoolConnects Basics The Address Book

The student household contact data

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics The Address Book

The relative contact data

The Primary tab

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics The Address Book

The Secondary tab

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics Types of Messages

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics Attendance Messages

Types of attendance messages

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics Attendance Messages

What do the messages sound like?

How is the data retrieved from the student information system?

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics Attendance Messages

How are attendance messages initiated?

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics Announcements

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics Announcements

About Emergency messages

About canned messages

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics Announcements

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics Call-In Profile Messages

Call-In Profile Messages

Call-in profile reference card

SchoolConnects Web Users Guide

SchoolConnects Basics Call-In Profile Messages

Example: the football coach