A news item should highlight positive events and achievements, such as a bake sale, charity event, sports result, or similar activities. These "nice to know" PR posts are intended to paint the school in a positive light for the public.
Everyone registered on the school app can see these news items, as they are public.
If your School does not have the News tab on your main App and you would like to have it added please contact our Support Team.
1. Click on the News menu on the side bar and select Manage News
2. Click the Add button to begin creating a news item
3. Enter the Title and the Message contents
4. Add to Category
- Click on the Category Drop Down List
- Choose the Category you wish the news item to be displayed in
The news feed can be split into sub-categories e.g. Sports, Trips, PTA etc. to display only relevant content in each category.
5. Add Images (Highly recommended)
- To add images to the news item, click on the Choose Files button
- The Gallery dialog box is displayed
- Choose each image to be added to the news item and then click OK
- To upload a new image not currently in the Gallery click on Browse Files and navigate to the Image on your device
- Select the image(s) and click Upload
- Select the newly added images from the Gallery and then click OK
Adding images when posting items is vital for engagement. Otherwise, the school crest will show by default on every item posted.
6. Adding a PDF
- Click the Upload PDF button to add a PDF to the message
- Browse your device to select the PDF to be uploaded
- To add a 2nd PDF click on the second Upload PDF button
- A maximum of 2 PDF files can be added to a single News item
7. Schedule Date
- Click into the Schedule Date field
- Select the future Date and Time that the news item should be sent
8. Unpublish Date
- Click into the Unpublish Date field
- Select the date that the news item should be unpublished from the App News Feed (if no date is chosen the news item will un-publish after 60 days)
9. Post to Social Media
- Click the Facebook checkbox to automatically post the message contents to the school's Facebook page (only 50 images can be posted)
- Click the Twitter checkbox to post to school's X (Twitter) account
- Use the Copy Title or Copy Message buttons to select either the Title or the Message contents to automatically post to the schools Twitter Feed (tweets are limited to 280 characters including spaces)
- Click the Website checkbox to automatically post the message contents to the school's website (for Wordpress websites only)
6. Send as SMS
- Click the SMS checkbox to send an SMS message to all non-App users
- Non-App users will receive the message via text along with links to download the App
- The Title of the news item is displayed in the SMS plus a link to the rest of the message
10. Click on Save to post the News item to the app
Images
If you do not select any images on your News item, the user will see the school crest by default. We recommend adding an image that the user can associate with the message received.
We advise using this feature only if necessary as PDFs are made to be viewed on an A4 screen, as users are seeing the message on their mobile device can be quite hard to read messages on PDF. Instead, you can copy message from your PDF and paste it onto your Description.
Send SMS
This feature will identify users who don't have the school app and only those will receive an SMS with the message and links to download the school app. Everyone else will receive a notification via the School app.
Searching for previous News item sent
You can use filters to search for a News item previously sent.
Feel free to reach out to us directly via email or book a free Zoom training session via the button below