Sending a broadcast
Send one message by email or text to many parents, tutors or students, as a promotion or as an operational notice.
Updated 18 October 2026
Why this exists
Sending the same message to every parent one at a time takes hours, and it is easy to miss someone or forget who asked not to hear promotions. As admin or front desk, a broadcast reaches the right group at once by email or text, while respecting everyone who opted out. You see how many people it will reach before you send it.
A broadcast sends the same message to a group at once, for example every parent at one campus.
Before you start
You need the communications.broadcast permission. Email needs your centre's email connected; texts need Twilio connected under Settings > Integrations.
Send a broadcast
- Open People > Broadcast.
- Give it an Internal name so you can find it later.
- Choose the Recipient role: Parents, Tutors (email only), or Students (notices only).
- Choose a Location or leave All locations.
- Choose the Channel: Email or SMS (texts can be up to 1,000 characters).
- Under What is this message?, choose A promotion or An operational notice (see below).
- Write the message, or start from a template.
- Press Preview audience to see how many people it will reach, then Send broadcast and confirm.
Promotion or operational notice
Every broadcast must say what it is. Nothing is chosen for you.
- A promotion is anything that sells or invites: an offer, an enrolment drive, an event, a newsletter. It carries an unsubscribe link, a text ends with "Reply STOP to opt out", and anyone who opted out is skipped.
- An operational notice is only for a closure, lessons cancelled or moved, a safety notice, or an emergency. You pick which, and tick that it contains no promotion. A notice reaches families who unsubscribed from promotions, because they still need to know. Wording that reads like a promotion is refused as a notice.
A message to Tutors is a staff message, not a promotion: it goes as workplace correspondence with no unsubscribe link, whatever you chose above, and only a bounced address stops it. Staff have no mobile on file, so a staff message is email only.
Students only ever receive operational notices, and only where they have their own email or mobile on file. A notice never goes to an address that has bounced.
Show it in the app
If in-app notices are switched on for your centre, tick Also show in the app to show the broadcast as a notice on people's home pages, with an optional Show until date. If you do not see this option, in-app notices are not switched on for your centre yet.
Good to know
Every operational notice is recorded in your centre's audit log. To see whether each email or text went, open People > Message log (see The message log).