Using the Groups feature of Pathways Cloud you can send an SMS to one or more students, guardians/parents or host contacts in one run - also called a Bulk SMS. Whilst you can send bulk SMS's from the Placement Custom Lists screen also, we have found sending from the Group screen to be far and away the most popular.
Examples of Bulk SMS's sent include:
- Paperwork reminders
- Upcoming placement starting reminders
- 'Day One' placement notifications
- Placement followup notifications
Sending a bulk SMS to a group is really quick and simple:
1) Find the group in question
2) Click on the "SMS" tab within the Group Detail screen
3) Select who you wish to contact student, guardian / parent or host contact
4) Tick the contacts you wish to be recipients or select all by clicking the tick box at the top of the list
5) Type in a message or choose from one of the templates you may have previously created (common if you send similar messages regularly)
6) Send and Log!
After you send a message the following things also happen:
- Pathways will log that message to each students' Placement Activity Log automatically
- Pathways will make a note in the Group Activity log that a message was sent.
- As a bonus if a student replies to a text message, we automatically route their reply back to an email to you (to the Pathways user that sent the SMS).