TS School Manuals - Messaging

MESSAGING

Introduction

The Messaging Module is used to keep people informed, primarily of upcoming events. Staff, learners and even guardians can be notified via email and SMS. PC messages can also be sent to logged in users.

Features

SMS
Email
PC pop-up messages

Contents

Handling Old Messages

Transmission Rates

TS School needs to know how often you would like messages to be sent out. This is done in the Message Rates screen. The following is required:

PC message - How often you would like PC messages to be sent out.
Email - How often you would like messages via email to be sent.
SMS - How often you would like SMS’s to be sent.

Reminders

The messaging module is actively involved in reminding people of upcoming events. In order to know just when and who to remind, this information has to first be set up in the Default Reminders screen. The various types of default reminders are as follows:

Class Tests
Exam Sessions
Important Events
Practice / Trials

Class Tests

Indicate when you would like to be reminded of class tests. The following types of people can be reminded:

Educators – The educator of the subject class writing the test (often used)
Learners – The learners writing the test (sometimes used)
Guardians – The guardians of the learners writing the test (seldom used)

Exam Sessions

Indicate when you would like to be reminded of formal exam sessions.The following types of people can be reminded:

Invidulators – All invidulators of the exam session (often used)
Learners – The learners writing the exam (sometimes used)
Guardians – The guardians of the learners writing the exam (seldom used)
Department heads – The department heads of the subjects being written (seldom used)

Important Events

Indicate when you would like to be reminded of important events such as award ceremonies, school galas, school plays and so on. The following types of people can be reminded:

Staff – Staff members that need to attend the event (often used)
Learners – Learners that need to attend the event (often used)
Guardians – Guardians that need to attend the event (often used)

Practice / Trials

Indicate when you would like to be reminded of sports practice or trials. The following types of people can be reminded:

Coaches – The coach of the team undergoing the practice session or trial (often used)
Team Members – The team members undergoing the trial (sometimes used)
Guardians – The guardians of the team members undergoing the trial (seldom used)

Message Templates

In order to produce messages that can pull information directly from the TS School database at the time they are sent off, message templates need to first be set up. A message template consists of two types of text:

Fixed – text that never changes
Merge Field – text pulled directly from database fields

Practical Example:

Emails to guardians might begin as follows:

Dear Mr. Thompson
Dear Mrs. Smith
Dear Miss. Brown

As you can see, each email begins with the word Dear, followed by a space, then the guardian’s title, followed by yet another space, followed finally by the guardian’s surname.

Instead of having to type out a separate email for each guardian, you simply create a single message template with both fixed and merged fields as follows:

Dear {Guardian_Title} {Guardian_Surname}

As you can see, the message template begins with the word Dear, followed by a space, then the {Guardian_Title} merge field, followed by yet another space, followed finally by the {Guardian_Surname} merge field. Merge fields always begin and end with a { and } respectively.

When each email is compiled, the relevant title and surname are pulled through from the database.

The Default Templates

TS School ships with default templates. It's not recommended you delete or alter any of them. Rather clone from them and customize the clones to your specific requirements.

How to SMS

One form of message sending is via SMS. Initially the SMS that reaches the cell phone starts off by TS School sending off an email to an internet site usually hosted by the cellular network. Some sites are free whilst others charge a nominal fee. The service provider then converts the email message content to a standard cell phone SMS and relays it off. In order to SMS though, TS School needs to know where to send the email to. The Sms screen is used for this. The following is required:

Prefix – The information preceding the target cell phone number
Followed by – The information following the target cell phone number

Note:

Any character within the cell number that is not a number is simply dropped.

Practical Example:

If the prefix is FreeSms., the target cell number (072) 123-4567 and the info to follow the cell number @cellphonecompany.com, then an email with the current message is sent off to the following email address:

FreeSms.0721234567@cellphonecompany.com

Handling Old Messages

Sent messages are kept in a message table in the TS School database. In order to avoid the eventuality of a huge message table that will eventually take up a great deal of database space, it may be prudent to get TS School to automatically delete old messages.

The settings of the Old Messages screen are as follows:

Delete PC messages older than x number of days
Delete emails older than x number of days
Delete SMSs older than x number of days

Note:

Once the messages are deleted, there will be no way of obtaining what messages where actually sent. It may thus be wise to periodically print out message reports in order for a permanent record to be kept physically on file.

Batch Runs

The purpose of the Batch Run screen of the Documentation Module is to identify all the people for which documents are to be printed in a single batch. For example you may wish to send a certain letter to the guardians of all grade 8 learners in your school. These guardians are identified through one or more filters (in this case the grade filter). All the customized mail-merged letters are produced from the TS School document template that drives them. The various types of people that documents can be produced for are of course exactly the same as the data sources that drive the documents concerning them. In other words, information about guardians comes from the guardian data source, information about learners comes from the learner data source and information about staff comes from the staff data source.

The various types of people that documents can be produced for are thus:

Guardians
Learners
Staff

Guardians

The guardians of certain learners may need to be sent batches of documents based on the following filters:

Grade - Guardians whose children are in certain grades (e.g. all guardians of grade 8 learners)

Class

Form Class – Guardians whose children are in certain form classes (e.g. all guardians of learners in form classes 9A and 9B).
Subject Class – Guardians whose children are in certain subject classes (e.g. all guardians of learners in subject class SCI-12-O1).

Subject - Guardians whose children take certain subjects (e.g. all guardians of learners taking Science). If you want those guardians whose learners take a particular SGL (subject for a grade on a level) then filter by Subject Class.

Sport

Regular Sports – Guardians whose children take certain sports (e.g. all guardians of learners taking Rugby). If you want those guardians whose learners take a sport for an age group on a particular level then filter by Team.
Athletics – Guardians whose children take certain athletics disciplines (e.g. all guardians of learners participating in the Javelin Throw)
Gymnastics – Guardians whose children take certain gymnastics disciplines (e.g. all guardians of learners participating in the Rings event)
Swimming – Guardians whose children take certain swimming disciplines (e.g. all guardians of learners participating in Freestyle)

Team

Regular Sports – Guardians whose children belong to certain sports teams (e.g. all guardians of the team members of Soccer-B13-A).

Athletics – Guardians whose children belong to certain athletics teams (e.g. all guardians of the team members of 100sp-B13-A)

Gymnastics – Guardians whose children belong to certain gymnastics teams (e.g. all guardians of the team members of Horse-B13-A)

Swimming – Guardians whose children belong to certain swimming teams (e.g. all guardians of the team members of 50FrSt-B13-A)

Schoolhouse - Guardians whose children belong to certain schoolhouses (e.g. all guardians of learners belonging to the Blue House)

User Group - Guardians whose children belong to certain user groups (e.g. all guardians of learners who are library monitor users).

Other

Guardians of new learners
Guardians of learners receiving awards

Learners

Certain learners may need to have batches of documents printed based on the following filters:

These individual documents (e.g. report cards) are then usually addressed to the guardians of the learners.

Grade - Learners in certain grades (e.g. all learners in grade 8)

Class

Form Class – Learners in certain form classes (e.g. all learners in form classes 9A and 9B).
Subject Class – Learners in certain subject classes (e.g. all learners in subject class SCI-12-O1).

Subject - Learners taking certain subjects (e.g. all learners taking Science). If you want those learners taking a particular SGL (subject for a grade on a level) then filter by Subject Class.

Sport

Regular Sports – Learners taking certain sports (e.g. all learners taking Rugby). If you want those learners taking a sport for an age group on a particular level then filter by Team.

Athletics – Learners taking certain athletics disciplines (e.g. all learners participating in the Javelin Throw)

Gymnastics – Learners taking certain gymnastics disciplines (e.g. all learners participating in the Rings event)

Swimming – Learners taking certain swimming disciplines (e.g. all learners participating in Freestyle)

Team

Regular Sports – Learners belonging to certain sports teams (e.g. the team members of Soccer-B13-A).

Athletics – Learners belonging to certain athletics teams (e.g. the team members of 100sp-B13-A)

Gymnastics – Learners belonging to certain gymnastics teams (e.g. the team members of Horse-B13-A)

Swimming – Learners belonging to certain swimming teams (e.g. the team members of 50FrSt-B13-A)

Schoolhouse - Learners belonging to certain schoolhouses (e.g. all learners belonging to the Blue House)

User Group - Learners belonging to certain user groups (e.g. all learners who are library monitor users).

Other

Guardians of new learners
Guardians of learners receiving awards

Staff

The staff members may need to be sent batches of documents based on the following filters:

Staff Type - Particular types of staff members (e.g. Educators)

User Group - Staff members belonging to certain user groups (e.g. Educator Users)

Department - Staff members teaching subjects belonging to certain school departments (e.g. the Science Department)

Grade

Class Administrators – taking care of learners in certain grades (e.g. all grade 8 class administrators)
Educators – teaching learners in certain grades (e.g. all grade 9 educators)

Class

Form Class – Class administrators in charge of certain form classes (e.g. the class administrators of form classes 9A and 9B).
Subject Class – Educators teaching certain subject classes (e.g. the educator of subject class SCI-12-O1).

Subject - Educators teaching certain subjects (e.g. all educators teaching Science). If you want those educators teaching a particular SGL (subject for a grade on a level) then filter by Subject Class.

Sport

Regular Sports – Staff members coaching certain sports (e.g. all Rugby coaches). If you want those coaches taking a sport for an age group on a particular level then filter by Team.
Athletics – Staff members coaching certain athletics disciplines (e.g. all coaches of Javelin Throw)
Gymnastics – Staff members coaching certain gymnastics disciplines (e.g. all coaches of the Rings event)
Swimming – Staff members coaching certain swimming disciplines (e.g. all coaches of Freestyle)

Team

Regular Sports – Staff members coaching certain sports teams (e.g. the coach of the Soccer-B13-A team).
Athletics – Staff members coaching certain athletics teams (e.g. the coach of the 100sp-B13-A athletics team).
Gymnastics – Staff members coaching certain gymnastics teams (e.g. the coach of the Horse-B13-A gymnastics team).
Swimming – Staff members coaching certain swimming teams (e.g. the coach of the 50FrSt-B13-A swimming team)

Schoolhouse - Staff members assigned to certain schoolhouses (e.g. all staff assigned to the Blue House)

Other - Staff members receiving awards

Previewing Messages

Before actually sending off the batch of messages, you have the opportunity to see just who is going to receive what. Shown are the following:

Each individual message, showing the recipient’s:

Username – for PC pop-up messages
Email address – for messages via email
Cell phone number – for SMS’s

An example of how a cell phone is going to display the first message. This is very useful in keeping messages short and sweet. Since message templates can always be sent via SMS, it is always good to design them with this in mind.

Send via pc, email, mobile – If the message is driven by a message template, the means whereby the message is to be sent is defaulted here. You can then change just how these messages are to be sent at this final stage.

Quick Messages

The purpose of the Quick Message screen is to send a quick once-off message on-the-fly instead of a batch of pre-defined messages as before. These types of messages are very useful for quick instructions or reminders. For example, the school principal could SMS and email the following messages to all department heads: Department head meeting tomorrow 14:00. Regards.

The same recipient structure as for batches is used in selecting the recipients of the messages. You can even manually type in database merge fields (if you know them). As with message batches, the quick message is first previewed.

Viewing Messages

You can, at any time, view which messages were sent and which still have to be sent.

Shown are the following:

Message Type – The type of message (PC pop-up, email or SMS)
Date & Time – The date and time the message is scheduled to be sent

Since older messages could be continuously being deleted, it is wise to make hard copies of all messages sent out.