Overview
Increase student attendance, collect funds, reduce administrative tasks, and get information out faster! Appazur’s optional Mass Notification is designed for district and school-wide communication, and can reach all parents, for purposes such as:
- School Emergency Alerts
- Student Absence (Attendance) Notification to Parents
- Lunch Balance Notification
- Urgent Notifications to Staff
You can initiate a message from the Appazur Dashboard and have it go out via:
- Phone Calls (“robocalls”)
- SMS Text Messages
- App Push Notifications
- Social Media (Twitter and Facebook)
- District/School Website
- Indoor Digital Signage
Push notifications, texts, and emails can be sent in each parent’s preferred language.
New Technology for a New Generation of Parents
In recent years, there have been major changes affecting School-to-Home communication:
- Parents often no longer have a home phone, and they change cell phone numbers more frequently.
- The new generation of parents is less likely to check (or even have) voice mail, and prefer, and is more likely to respond to, text messages.
- Schools are communicating more and more with push notifications to a smartphone app.
- It is now much simpler and less expensive to send text messages and voice messages, due to a new generation of cloud-based services. The investment in banks of telephone equipment made by legacy voice dialing service providers is no longer necessary.
Reduce Costs & Simplify
A unified communications solution such as Appazur may allow you to reduce the number of systems you need to use. What are you using today?
- Sending emails from your Student Information System?
- Using another vendor to send voice messages (e.g. for student absences)?
- Sending messages via your Appazur Dashboard along with social media and your website?
Contact us today for a consultation to help you streamline your workflow and reduce costs.
Student Information System Integration
Appazur works with data from your Student Information System. We have experience with many SIS systems including:
- Aeries
- Aspen/MyEducationBC
- InfiniteCampus
- MySchoolManager
- PowerSchool
- Skyward
- Synergy
How It Works
Parents and students who have already signed up in the app will get the notification according to their preferences (app push notification, email, or SMS text message), while other parents will get an email or phone call based on the contact information you have in your Student Information System.
SMS text messages, voice calls, and emails are sent using industry-leading infrastructure.
Push Notifications
Push notifications reach parents and students on their smartphones, and can be a more effective way to get your messages read while parents are busy with their work day, or unavailable to answer calls.
For more information about this option, please see: Custom School Apps.
Lunch Balance
Lunch Balance is just one possible use for Mass Notification. Messages can be unique for each recipient. For example:
This is a message from Sunnycrest High School. The lunch account balance for John Smith is $5.39.
In addition to working with SIS systems, we can also integrate with systems that manage funds for hot lunch services, such as:
Urgent Notifications to Staff
A school app is a great way to reach staff, because a push notification with the school logo will pop up on their mobile device, getting their attention wherever they are.
To reach all staff, even those who do not have a mobile device or who have not signed up for text messaging, Mass Notification allows staff who have not installed the app to receive your messages by email.
Student Absence (Attendance) Notification
Each parent will receive a message like:
This is a message from Sunnycrest High School. John Smith was absent during blocks 1, 2, 3, and 4. If this absence is excused, please contact the school office.
Because push notifications can get a guardian’s attention during the day, even if he or she is at work, you can reach parents immediately after taking attendance for each period, so that a parent can take action if their child is not present.
Sends via each parent’s preferences
Parents can use the mobile app to change their absence notification preferences and view current and past notifications.
- If an email address in the SIS export matches a verified email address in the Appazur database, the notification will be sent to the Appazur user account according to the user’s preferences.
- If a phone number in the SIS export matches a verified mobile phone number in the Appazur database, the notification will be sent to the Appazur user account according to the user’s preferences.
- If neither the email address nor the phone number in the SIS export matches a verified account in the Appazur database, the parent will be notified by voice call, SMS text, and/or email.
Administration
The App Dashboard includes Absence Notification Reports that shows what notifications were sent each day, by school, or parent/student. Administrators can manage Do Not Call requests.
Reliable, Fast, High Volume Infrastructure
Your notification messages need to be fast, efficient, and dependable. Appazur leverages today’s new generation of cloud-based services to quickly and reliably deliver millions of notifications.
The days are long-gone when you needed a service provider who has invested in banks of phone lines and voice modems! Appazur uses Twilio, the leading global cloud communications platform used by companies like Netflix, Uber, and Remind, allowing use to provide you with reliable, high volume voice and SMS text messaging.
Your Microsoft Outlook or Google Gmail email is subject to volume and sending rate restrictions. Mailgun is a high volume service for maximizing successful delivery of transactional email, used by major companies such as Lyft and Shopify.
