Click on a topic to view related questions and answers:

• Setting up School Announcement
• School Accounts and Log-in
• Creating Contact Lists
• School Announcement Messaging
• Voice Messaging
• Email Messaging
• Message Results and Delivery
• Parent Information
• Payments
• Customer Support and Training
• School Announcement General FAQ

Setting Up School Announcement

Q: Does School Announcement require the installation of any hardware?
A: No. School Announcement does not require any hardware or installation process as it is accessed using the internet or by telephone.

Q: Does School Announcement require the installation of any software?
A: No. School Announcement does not require any software installation as it is accessed using the internet or by telephone.

Q: What equipment do I need to initiate a message broadcast?
A: School alerts can be initiated in two ways: by telephone calling a toll-free number or through the internet.

School Accounts and Log-In

Q: How do administrators use School Announcement?
A: School Announcement is used to send a variety of messages including: school and event cancellations, absentee notifications, weather cancellations and delays, fund raising reminders, early dismissals, on‐campus violence or emergency alerts, PTA/PTO meeting reminders, schedule changes, meeting notification, missing child alerts, bus delays, field trip updates and more.

Q: Can a school have multiple logins for various users?
A: Yes. Simply advise us of which personnel in your school you wish to have access and each individual will have their own unique username and password to login.

Q: Can there be permission rights for varying levels of access?
A: Yes. Varying levels of access can be set up so that certain users access is more restricted than others. For example – a district administrator will need access to reach every contact under every school but each school administrator can only access data for their school. This is a straightforward with School Announcement.

Creating Contact Lists

Q: Can I have more than one contact person per student?
A: Yes. Each student can have multiple contact people (such as parents, guardians, nannies, grandparents, etc) as well as multiple contact methods for each person (eg. Home phone, cell phone, email address, work phone).

Q: Can I segment my student list to send a message to a sub-group of students?
A: Yes. School Announcement allows you to create and save multiple lists such as a master emergency list, sports team lists, PTA list, bus route lists, etc. Furthermore, when setting up a broadcast you can also filter a list “on the fly”.

School Announcement Messaging

Q: What types of messages can I send using School Announcement?
A: You can send alerts by email, phone call or SMS text message using School Announcement.
Note that we do offer an economy phone call only package. Both packages offer unlimited messaging for one low per student annual fee.

Q: Am I limited in the number of messages I can send out?
A: No. School Announcement provides you with unlimited messaging for one low per student per year cost.

Q: How fast will the messages be sent?     
A: If you set up the broadcast to be delivered immediately your message will reach recipients almost instantly. School Announcement supports the sending of thousands of alters per minute.

Q: Can I set the start and end time for calls to be broadcast if I wish?
A: Yes. You can define a call window so that calls start and stop at certain times. This is convenient for non-emergency messages to ensure you do not contact people at inappropriate hours.

Voice Messaging

Q: Can SchoolAnnouncement voice messages be set up so that if the recipient presses a number on their phone keypad the call is transferred back to the school as an inbound call?
A: Yes. Our ‘hot key’ feature enables you to assign a digit on the phone keypad that a call recipient can press to transfer that call as an inbound call to a number of your choosing. ‘Hot keys’ can also be used to set up features such as “Press 1 to repeat this message”.

Q:Do I have to record the voice message I want to send out?
A: In addition to offering a toll-free number to call into record your messages we also offer a text to speech tool so you can simply type in your script and the message will be delivered as an automated voice call to recipient’s phones.

Q:Can I create a different message for when an answering machine or voicemail picks up versus a connect to a live person?
A: Yes. Our system intelligently detects when an answering machine or voicemail picks up the call and we allow you to create two distinct messages when setting up your voice broadcast: one for a live connect and one for voicemails.

Q: Can the message be repeated for the caller if they didn’t catch it all the first time?
A: Yes. By using our ‘hot key’ tool you can assign a key to enable the “Press 1 to repeat this message” feature.

Q: What number will display on the Caller ID when I send a school announcement?
A: When you set up a voice broadcast you can enter a phone number of your choosing to display as the Caller ID. Typically the school main phone number would be used for parent recognition but when broadcasting to sub-groups you may wish to enter the soccer coach’s number or the field trip chaperone’s cell for instance.

Email Messaging

Q: Can I send attachments to emails using SchoolAnnouncement?
A: Yes. While most messaging systems do not afford this feature School Announcement enables you to attach documents to your email broadcasts. This eliminates sending home papers in backpacks and missing report cards! And don’t forget, going paperless helps the environment too.

Q: Can I send e-newsletters in our HTML design template?
A: Yes. Most of our competitors do not offer this feature but with School Announcement you can send attractive looking eNewsletters and professional looking HTML emails. Create or upload your own into your schools template library or choose from our global template library of free designs for your use.

Q: Does your email service utilize my schools server or bandwidth?
A: No. School Announcement does not consume any of your bandwidth or server space. It is important that your emergency alert system does not rely on internal resources at your school in case of fire or similar disaster it would be rendered useless. School Announcement prevents this risk.
School Announcement has ample bandwidth to manage hundreds of thousands of messages. By having many servers across multiple locations we ensure uninterrupted service.

Q: What email address and senders display name will the emails come from?
A: When setting up an email broadcast you can enter the ‘from’ email address and associated display name of your choosing.

Message Results and Delivery

Q: Are there reports to show me the delivery status of the alerts I have sent?
A: Yes. Our reports are available 24/7 via the internet and are updated in real-time.
For email you can even track who clicked through to any links in your email. Placing a link in an email is a great way to have student families acknowledge receipt of a notice and track that.

Q: How can I confirm that my student families received the message?
A: The real-time reports accessible online display the delivery status of your messages. Furthermore you can use the ‘hot-key’ feature to have recipients press a digit to confirm their receipt of your message.

Q: If a parent has two children at my school will they get sent the message twice?
A: Our system de-duplicates broadcast lists so that the same message is not sent to the same number twice.

Q: If the first attempt to reach a contact fails will the School Announcement system make another attempt automatically?
A: You can set up your broadcasts to resend up to three times. The attempts can be set to retry immediately or you can choose to increase the interval between attempts.

Parent Information

Q: What is the ‘parent portal’?
A: The Parent Portal is a secure website for your parents to administer their own contact information and preferences. For example, a parent may want multiple numbers contacted in the event of an emergency, but would only want one number called for general announcement. Parents can choose how they want to be contacted through this portal, ultimately increasing message deliverability for the school or district.

Q: What is the importance of having an emergency alert system?
A: In case of an emergency, parents want to be informed with up-to-date and accurate information from the sources they trust – school administrators. Knowing that you will be immediately notified of an emergency situation is comforting.

Payment

Q: How much does School Announcement cost?
A: School Announcement offers two packages, both priced on a per student per year basis:
Economy package – unlimited voice calls only - $2.50 per student per year. There is a $75 set-up fee for economy accounts that includes training.
Premier package – unlimited voice calls + unlimited emails + unlimited SMS texts - $4.00 per student per year. There is a $150 set-up fee for premier accounts that includes training.

Q: I don’t have a budget for an alert system. Can I get School Announcement for free?
A: It is possible to get School Announcement for ‘free’. Due to the low per student per year cost for the School Announcement service you will likely find that student families will willingly absorb the cost. Furthermore, we will help you communicate the offer to parents by providing you with free email campaigns to propose this to them. We can also help in collecting and processing these payments on your behalf.
For private schools, consider using this as a profit center rather than a cost. By charging parents more than the cost of the service you can easily raise additional funds.

Customer Support and Training

Q: Do you provide customer support?
A: Yes. Customer service and technical support is included within the cost of School Announcement. Support can be reached via a toll-free number or by email. Off-hours support offers a 15 minute callback for emergency situations.

Q: Do you provide training?
A: Yes. Training is provided and included in the set-up fee. Training takes place via a weekly interactive webinar. You may attend this weekly session as many times as you like!
On-site training is available for an additional fee – please contact us for details.

Q: What is the set-up process? How long does it take?
A: As School Announcement is an internet based service there is no set-up required on your end. From receipt of your order we can have you set-up as quickly as the next business day. We simply provision to you a username and password, schedule you for training and you’re up and running!

School Announcement General FAQ

Q: How do I import student records and contact data from my Student Information System (SIS)?
A: Easy! It is easy to import a CSV file into School Announcement. CSV is a common export format but excel files can easily be converted to csv by selecting this format under ‘Save As’ in excel. For more advanced integrations we do offer full API documentation or contact our support team for more information.

Q: Who owns School Announcement and how many years have you been in business?
A: School Announcement is a division of BLI Messaging. Based in Providence, RI, BLI Messaging has worked with clients such as the New York Times, Cadbury and the New York Stock Exchange. BLI Messaging was founded in 1989 and is a privately held company backed by Catalyst Investors. We have over 50 employees.

Q: Where are your servers your located?
A: We have servers across four co-location facilities in MA, RI and PA.

Q: Is School Announcement secure?
A: The School Announcement platform is a secure site and only accessible via a unique username and password.

Q: Will my data be safe and remain confidential?
A: Yes. Your school data is stored within your password protected account and is not accessible to third parties. Your data will never be sold or shared. Our confidentiality agreements uphold the utmost data privacy standards.

Q: Is School Announcement SIF compliant?
A: We enable you to make the most of your investment in SIF certification by providing a wealth of integration tools and associated technical expertise.

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