Overview

This article explains how you can send a text message (SMS) to one or more pupils, parents, contacts and/or staff from Comms Hub.

When your SMS is successfully sent, your SMS balance will be reduced by 1 for each person who successfully receives the message; for example, a message successfully sent by SMS to 100 recipients will reduce your SMS balance by 100. 

When creating a message, contacts with a court order will be displayed; however, they will be greyed out as they are not contactable.

Prerequisites

You must have:

• Been granted permission to send SMS messages by an individual with one of the following user roles / permissions: Account owner, Account Admin or Full Edit to approve badges.
• Enough SMS credits to send the message to your recipients (see Comms Hub: How many SMS credits do I have? for further guidance).

Instructions

1. Select:
   1. Compose from the Comms Hub Home page / Dashboard:
      
   2. Or select Communications, then select Compose to open the Compose New Message window:
      
2. Select your recipients:
   1. To add one or more pupils (or pupil-related contacts as recipients), select Add pupils and/or contacts:
      • Select one or more Pupils / Groups.
      • Select Next.
      • Select one or more recipients (Contacts) for the selected pupils:
        • Parental Contacts - send to contacts with parental responsibility.
        • Non-Parental Contacts - send to contacts without parental responsibility.
        • Emergency Contacts - send to contacts who should be contacted in the case of an emergency (sometimes referred to as P1s).
        • Include pupils as recipients -  send to the selected pupils (if you have a record of their email address).
      • Select Continue.
   2. To add a member of staff, select Add staff:
      • Select one or more members of Staff.
      • Select Continue.
3. Select a message Category.
4. Enter a suitable Subject to appear in your message. 
5. Select SMS for Send via. The SMS Message field is displayed:
   
6. Enter the content of your SMS in Message:
   
7. Select Send Now.

Outcome

1. Your SMS will be sent to the pupils, contacts, and/or staff you selected, reducing your SMS balance by 1 for each successful recipient.
2. The number of credits deducted will be determined by the SMS length as shown in Step 7 above (for further guidance see Comms Hub: Do I pay for emails or texts?).
3. If a recipient doesn't have a mobile telephone number recorded, the message will not be sent to them, and your SMS balance will not be reduced for that individual. 
4. The status of sent messages can be viewed in Sent items (see Comms Hub: How do I know what I've sent?).

Related information

• Comms Hub: How many SMS credits do I have?
• Comms Hub: Do I pay for emails or texts?
• Comms Hub: Who can send messages?
• Comms Hub: How do I know what I've sent?

Updated 17 December 2025 12:31