📱 Looking to send messages from your phone? This guide covers composing multi-channel broadcasts from a desktop computer. To send quick announcements or push notifications directly from your smartphone or tablet, see How to Send a Message from the Mobile App.

📬 Sending a newsletter? Newsletters are currently a CMS website feature, separate from Mass Communication. To build and send a newsletter (including adding photos), see Newsletters Overview. (A future product enhancement will unify newsletters under Mass Communication — for now, newsletter functionality lives in the CMS.)

Overview and management

Desktop multi-channel messaging

The "New Message" feature in Edlio Mass Communication allows administrators and authorized staff to broadcast announcements to your school community across multiple channels simultaneously: mobile app push notifications, emails, SMS text messages, automated voice calls, and social media posts.

Accessing the message composer

Navigating from your dashboard

Navigate to Mass Communication on your main admin dashboard.
Click New Message from the Mass Communication dashboard header.

🚀 Publishing from an Edlio Website (CMS)? If your school has an Edlio CMS website, you don't need to copy and paste your content manually! After publishing a news story on your website, simply click the Mass Communication button on the publish confirmation page. This automatically copies over your entire news story into your Mass Communication dashboard so you can immediately broadcast it as a voice call, text message, email, or social media post without any copying and pasting. See Cross-Posting CMS News to Mass Communications for the complete walkthrough.

Click New Message on Mass Communication dashboard

Creating a new message

The four-step message wizard

The message creation workflow is structured into four sequential steps:

Channels: Select how your message will be delivered (App, Email, Text, Voice, Social).
Targets: Choose who will receive your message (Roles, Groups, Categories, or individual People Search).
Compose: Author your message content and customize per channel.
Send: Review summary, schedule delivery, and broadcast.

Message creation four step wizard overview

Step 1: Selecting channels

Choosing delivery methods

Enter an internal name in the Name field (this is for reporting and tracking; recipients do not see this name).
Select one or more delivery channels:
- App: Sends a push notification to mobile app users and places the announcement on the newsfeed.
- Email: Delivers formatted email messages with rich text and attachments.
- Text: Sends an SMS text message to mobile phone numbers on file.
- Voice: Delivers an automated text-to-speech or recorded audio phone broadcast.
- Social: Posts to connected school social media pages (Facebook and Instagram support up to 10 images; X supports up to 4 images).
Click Continue to advance to Targets.

Step 2: Selecting targets

Targeting by audience, role, and group

Depending on the channels selected in Step 1, you can configure recipient audiences:

Roles: Target Students, Parents/Guardians, Teachers, or Administrators across your school.
Groups: Select custom saved audience groups (e.g., Senior Class, Band Boosters, Bus Route 4).
Categories: Choose subscription-based categories for app notifications.
Language Translation: For Email, Text, and Voice, select a default language. The system automatically translates messages into the primary home language on record for each recipient family.

Adding individual recipients via People Search

To message specific individuals without creating a dedicated group:

Searching for recipients: Type a student or person name in the search bar. Results display each person's role and, for parents, their related student, ensuring accurate contact selection.
Bulk upload recipients: Upload a spreadsheet list matched by Student ID to pull in related parent contacts dynamically.

💡 Parent Relationships in Search: When searching for a student, results also surface their associated parents with clear relationship badges, allowing you to quickly include whole families in important outreach.

Step 3: Composing your message

Authoring and customizing content

Enter a Title for your broadcast.
Type your core message in the rich text editor. The text automatically propagates across each channel tab.
Click into individual channel tabs (App, Email, Text, Voice, Social) to fine-tune copy for that medium (e.g., keeping SMS short while adding full formatting and file attachments to Email).
Click Continue.

Step 4: Reviewing and sending

Immediate delivery vs. scheduled broadcast

Review your message summary: verified channels, total target recipient count, and content previews.
Choose delivery timing:
- Send Now: Delivers immediately across all active channels.
- Schedule: Choose a future date, time, and confirm your local school time zone.
Click Send or Save Draft.

How to Create a New Message (Computer)