Comms Hub: How do I send a message multiple ways (SMS, email and / or App Message)?

Overview

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

If you decide to send a message through two or three methods, it will be sent via all the methods where the user has shared their contact details.

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 given permission to send messages using each method you select by a user with one of the following user roles / permissions: Account owner, Account Admin or Full Edit.
Enough SMS credits to send SMS messages to your recipients (see Comms Hub: How many SMS credits do I have? for further guidance).

Instructions

Select:
1. Compose from the Comms Hub Home page / Dashboard:
2. Or select Communications, then select Compose to open the Compose New Message window:
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.
Select a message Category.
Enter a suitable Subject to appear in your email / App message (this will not be used for the SMS).
Select the type(s) of messages that you want to send from Send Via:
1. Select App Message to send an App message. The App Message fields are displayed.
2. Select Email to send an Email message. The Email fields are displayed.
3. Select SMS to send an SMS message The SMS Message field is displayed.
Enter the contents of your App Message into App Message - Message Body. Optionally, format your message using the text formatting tools. These work like other text formatting tools on your computer or tablet.
Enter the contents of your email into Email - Message. Optionally, format your message using the text formatting tools. These work like other text formatting tools on your computer or tablet.
Enter the content of the SMS message into SMS - Message.
Optionally, add up to 10 attachments to App Message - Attachments and Email - Attachments:
- Drag and drop one or more files (under 10Mb in size each) onto the Attachments part of the page.
- Or, select the Attachments part of the page and use the File Manager on your device to select the file(s) you want to attach.
If you are sending email attachments, consider the size of these as some recipients' email systems will not accept messages containing large attachments.
Select Send.

Outcome

Your message will be sent using your choice of App Message, Email and SMS to the pupils, contacts, and/or staff you selected.
Your SMS balance will be reduced for each successful recipient. The number of credits deducted will be determined by the SMS length as shown in Step 8 above (for further guidance see Comms Hub: Do I pay for emails or texts?).
If a recipient doesn't have a mobile telephone number recorded, the message will not be sent to them by SMS and your SMS balance will not be reduced.
If a recipient doesn't have an email address recorded, the message will not be sent to them by email.
If the recipient doesn't use the app, the message will not be sent to them in the app.
The status of sent messages can be viewed in Sent items (see Comms Hub: How do I know what I've sent?).

Related information

Updated 17 December 2025 12:33