Mass Notification Message Send Tips

Overview:

Tips that should help Mass Notification users sending messages. You can also visit the Blackboard Help site for info on Creating and Sending Messages.

Every Tuesday and Thursday Blackboard live streams short "Blackboard Basics". You can get to it from their FB page - https://www.facebook.com/BlackboardK12. You can look at these videos anytime, from https://vimeo.com/showcase/7579987. These videos will be for our District Website (WCM), Mass Notification, Teacher Messaging and the Mobile App.

IMPORTANT NOTES:
All of your employees not receiving your messages?
  • You need to send to these three Blackboard roles (School Administrators, Teachers, Staff) to reach your administrators, teachers and classified staff.
  • Observers will be your building subs. You can choose to include them.
  • Employees who are not assigned your location in Munis will need to be added manually at time of sending. See KB "Blackboard Import a text file with contacts".
Limited to sending to only 10 recipients:
  • If you are a school administrator go to your Account Settings (click on "Account" at the top right), scroll to the bottom and uncheck "Limit message sending to 10 or fewer recipients and no groups".
  • If you are a staff member you can ask your administrator (Principal/Admin Sec) to uncheck the same box for you. They can search for you in the Account Search box, open your account and then uncheck the box at the bottom of the window.

Instructions:

  1. Adding manual recipients who aren't in your school recipient list:
    1. refer to KB "Blackboard Import a .txt file with contacts" 
  1. Finding the right Recipient Tips: Type in the Recipient box and it will filter and suggest as you type. It separates results based on role and groups, i.e. Parents/Students/Staff/Teachers/Groups.

  1. Type in bus and under groups you’ll see a drop down list of buses.
  2. Or type the number and get just that bus. Notice the 11th Grade student group that is there as well.
  3. Looking for all football groups? Type foot and go to groups.
     
  1. SMS Messages: Texts will not display a sender so you need to include your school name or initials in the text body, so that users will know which school it comes from.
  1. Community Messenger: Include community members who have signed up for your school, using the community messenger sign up located on Community Quic Links. 
    1. Open School Name and click on Community Member
    2. Select all names in Community Member list by choosing select
    3. Select individuals by clicking on their name.
  1. Saved Messages:

    1. Miscellaneous Messages are messages sent in the past. 
    2. School Library Templates are created for you. See the Blackboard Mass Notification Library Templates KB for more on using/editing these.
    3. Transportation has a Late bus notice for phone/sms/mobile app push notification. If you want to connect this to an announcement app on your homepage or your school’s Facebook account select Request Service for assistance from a technician.
    4. If you can delete these you’ll see a trash can at the right.
  1. Advanced Options:

    1. Do not un-check the Deliver to Parents of Students box. All messages addressed to students should also be delivered to parents.
    2. By default the email delivery name will be that of the specific sender. You can choose to use the school’s generic email so the email will be easily recognizable for the recipient.
  1. COPE: Use COPE (Create Once, Publish Everywhere) to write your message once & send via any combination of the following delivery options. Phone messages, emails, mobile site, website, any RSS feeds, or social networks. See COPE KB for more info.

If this did not solve your problem, click the Request Service button below to work with a technician.

Request Service: Other Software Issues

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