In-app announcements & messages

§ 01In-app messaging vs SMS broadcasts

Simusim has two distinct ways to reach families, and it's worth knowing which is which before you start typing:

The two aren't entirely separate. When you publish an announcement or reply to a message, you can optionally push a text as well — for families who haven't opened the app. Those SMS extras are covered in § 08; the wallet, sender ID, and pure broadcast tools live in the School Admin and Finance guides.

§ 02Composing an announcement

School admins compose announcements in School Admin; teachers compose them in the Staff Console. The two forms are near-identical — the difference is reach, which we cover below.

1. Open Announcements. Admins see "Broadcast messages to parents and students across the school or a class."; teachers see "Class announcements you have sent to parents and students." Press New announcement.
2. Fill in a Title (e.g. "School Closed Tomorrow") and the Message body. The body counter tops out at 4000 characters.
3. Choose the Scope. In School Admin this is School-wide or Specific class; pick the class from the "— Select a class —" dropdown if you choose the latter.
4. Pick the Audience: tick Parents, Students, or both. At least one is required.
5. Under Options, decide whether to tick Require acknowledgement and SMS fallback (see § 03 and § 08).
6. Press Publish now, or Save as draft to finish later.

Who can send what

• School admins can send School-wide announcements to everyone, or scope to a single class.
• Teachers can only send to a class they are assigned to (homeroom or subject) — the Staff Console form lists only those classes. There's no school-wide option for teachers.

Because the recipient list is a snapshot taken at publish time, a student who joins the class after you publish won't receive that announcement, and one who leaves still keeps the copy they received. Publish once the roster is settled.

§ 03Read & acknowledge tracking

This is what makes in-app announcements more useful than a text blast: you can see who has seen each one. Two distinct signals are tracked per recipient:

• Read — set automatically the first time the recipient opens the announcement in their portal.
• Acknowledged — set only when the recipient explicitly taps the acknowledge button. This is opt-in per announcement, via the Require acknowledgement option ("Recipients must tap "I acknowledge" to dismiss").

To check delivery, open the announcement and press Recipients. The page ("Delivery stats for this announcement") summarises:

Below the summary, a per-recipient table shows each person's Role, Read at (or "Not read") and Acknowledged at time.

§ 04How parents & students see Notices

Published announcements arrive in the recipient's portal under Notices — the Parent Portal tile is labelled "School announcements". The Student Portal has the same feed.

• Unread count. The Notices shortcut on the parent home screen carries a small number badge showing how many announcements are still unread; unread items in the feed also wear an Unread dot.
• Marking read. Opening a notice marks it read automatically. Unread items also offer a Mark as read link.
• Acknowledging. If the school required it, the notice shows an Acknowledge button (it reads "Acknowledging…" while it saves). Once done, the item shows an Acknowledged pill.

An empty feed simply reads "No notices yet. Check back later."

§ 05Starting a message thread

Messages are two-way conversations, always tied to one child. A parent usually opens the thread, but staff can start one too.

From a parent's side

1. In the Parent Portal, open Messages (the tile reads "Direct messages to the school") and press New message.
2. Pick the child the message is about under About child *. A parent can only message about children linked to their own account.
3. Add an optional Subject (optional) (e.g. "Absence on Monday") and write the Message * (placeholder: "Write your message to the school…").
4. Press Send message. The thread opens with status open.

If a parent's account has no linked children yet, the form explains: "We can't find any children linked to your account. Ask your school admin to link your account before sending a message." And if the school has switched parent messaging off, they'll see "The school has disabled parent messaging. Please contact the school office directly."

§ 06The shared school inbox & who sees what

On the school side, threads land in a shared inbox — not a personal mailbox. In School Admin, Messages is described as "Shared school inbox — parent↔school conversations, all in one place." Any staff member with the right access sees the same threads; there's no per-thread assignment.

Access is decided by the child each thread is about:

• School admins see every thread in the org.
• Teachers (in the Staff Console / Teacher Portal) see only threads about students in their assigned classes — "Parent↔school messages for students in your classes." A teacher can't see threads for a child they don't teach.

Filter the inbox with the All / Open / Closed tabs. The list shows each thread's Subject (or "(no subject)"), the Student it's about, its Status, and the Last message time. Press View to open a thread. An empty inbox reads "No messages in this inbox."

§ 07Replies, open & closed

Inside a thread, messages are labelled by sender — School on the staff side, and either You or Parent depending on who's looking. Type into the Reply box ("Write your reply…") and press Send reply.

Every thread is either open or closed:

• Staff (admins and teachers via Staff Console) can wrap up a conversation with Close thread, and bring it back with Reopen thread.
• Parents can't close or reopen. On a closed thread they see "This thread is closed. Contact the school to reopen it."
• In the Teacher Portal, a closed thread reads "This thread is closed. Use Staff Console to reopen it." — closing/reopening lives in the Staff Console.

Parents get the same unread treatment as Notices: the Messages tile on the parent home screen carries a number badge when there are unread replies.

§ 08Optional SMS nudges

In-app delivery is the default, but Simusim can fall back to a text for families who haven't opened the app. This reuses your SMS wallet — so it only goes out if your school has an SMS balance and the recipient isn't opted out.

• Announcements. Tick SMS fallback when composing ("Also send as SMS to recipients without the app"). It's a per-announcement choice the sender makes, sent best-effort after publishing — a failed text never blocks the in-app announcement.
• Messages. A school can switch on a one-per-thread nudge so the linked parent gets a text when staff reply. It's off by default and set in the school's messaging settings. Parent replies never trigger a nudge.

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