SMS

The SMS page sends text messages to guardians and staff: a reminder about a parents' meeting, an exam date change, a holiday. You choose who gets it, see exactly how many SMS credits it will cost before sending, and keep saved texts for messages you send often. Every school has an SMS credit wallet that Infotech tops up.

Open Communication › SMS. You need the sms:send permission: the Owner, Principal and Office admin roles have it.

The page has three tabs, Write, Saved texts and Sent, and the SMS credits card on the right.

SMS credits

One credit pays for one SMS part. The SMS credits card shows the Credits left, the credits Used this month, and the last few top-ups with their notes. A new school starts with some free starter credits.

To buy more, contact Infotech: "Need more credits? Contact Infotech to buy an SMS package." Infotech adds the credits from the console (see Schools), and they appear in the card at once.

What uses credits:

If the school runs out of credits, messages sent from this page and notice alerts are refused before anything is sent. An automatic SMS (such as a fee receipt) that finds no credits is not sent and shows as Failed in the Email & SMS log. If the SMS provider fails to send a message, its credits are given back.

How long is an SMS?

The operator bills by parts, and Bangla takes more parts than English:

One Bangla letter, a single emoji or even a curly dash in an English message makes the whole message Unicode. Under the message box the counter shows, for example, "212 characters · 4 part(s) · Unicode / Bangla (70 per part)".

Send an SMS

1. On Write, under To, choose Guardians, Staff or both. For guardians, choose Whole school or Some classes or sections and tick them. Guardians get one SMS per family.
2. To add numbers by hand, type them in Other numbers, one per line or separated by commas.
3. Write the Message (up to 1,000 characters), or pick one from Use a saved text.
4. Choose Check cost. You see the Recipients, the Parts per message and Credits needed / left. Numbers that are not mobile numbers are listed ("Not mobile numbers: …"); fix or remove them.
5. Choose Send and confirm ("Send to 120 numbers? This uses 240 SMS credits.").

The same number is never sent twice in one go, even if it belongs to a guardian and a staff member. Up to 10,000 numbers can be sent at a time.

The SMS page with a message, its cost check and the credits card

Tip: If you change the audience, numbers or text after Check cost, check the cost again before sending.

Saved texts

On Saved texts, choose New text, give it a Name and write the Message (the same character counter helps you keep it to one part). Choose Create. Edit a saved text with the pencil (Save changes), or remove it with Delete. Names must be unique ("This name is already used").

What was sent

Sent lists every message sent from this page, newest first:

For each single SMS (delivered or not), including notice alerts and fee receipts, see the Email & SMS log.

Examples

A parents' meeting in English. "Dear guardian, the parents' meeting for Class Nine is on Saturday 14 Dec at 10 am. - Green Valley School" is 104 characters: 1 part. Sent to the 95 families of Class Nine, it costs 95 credits.

The same in Bangla. "সম্মানিত অভিভাবক, নবম শ্রেণির অভিভাবক সভা ১৪ ডিসেম্বর শনিবার সকাল ১০টায়।" is 73 characters, just over 70, so 2 parts. Sent to the same 95 families, it costs 190 credits. Shortening it to 70 characters or fewer halves the cost.