How do I message Preferred Contacts?
There are two Default settings in Setup Messaging (requires Administrator access) for Preferred Contact. They are Preferred contacts priority (Primary Family) and Preferred contacts priority (Non-Residential Family):
Note: For Preferred Contact, if a parent does not have an applicable contact type (i.e. No email address for Email or Mobile No. for SMS), or their Allow Method is set to ‘No’ they will NOT be listed here.
If the Primary Family setting is ‘Contact 1 à Contact 2’ or ‘Contact 2 à Contact 1, then only the applicable contacts in the Primary family will be chosen, regardless of the Non-Residential Family setting.
In this case, if a preferred contact does not have a contact email or mobile (as applicable), or the Allow Method is set to ‘No’, it will move to the next contact on the settings list (e.g. Contact 1 à Contact 2 will check Contact 1 first and then use Contact 2 if unable to select Contact 1).
Custom Settings
When using ‘Preferred Contact’, if you have a student that requires different settings to the default, then you can override these. Situations may be:
Default for school is Contact 1, but you need to send to both parents for some students (whether part of Primary Family or Non-residential Family)
An Emergency Contact needs to be included temporarily or until further notice
You need to turn off a particular contact for a family*
*Note: In this instance, it is recommended to set ‘Allow Method’ to No, as choosing ‘Both Primary Contacts’ does NOT use the Custom settings against a student, only Preferred Contact’.
To use Custom setting, locate the family in Address Book/Contacts and click on the Student:
Set the Preference under ‘Available Contacts’ to Custom and then select who to message. Note you will have access to Primary Contacts, Emergency Contacts and Non-Residential contacts* who have an Email OR a Mobile recorded.
*Note: Non-Residential contacts will only be available here if Preferred contacts priority (Non-Residential Family) is not set to ‘Do not contact’.
You will need to repeat this for each applicable student in the family.
- Default settings in Setup Messaging are ONLY used for ‘Preferred Contact’
- Custom settings in Address Book are ONLY used for ‘Preferred Contact’
- The Recipients list shown on selection will only filter out a parent with no contact details when using ‘Preferred Contact’, NOT ‘Both Primary Contacts’.
- The Preferred contacts priority (Non-Residential Family) is only used in ‘Preferred Contact’ when the Preferred contacts priority (Primary Family) is set to Contact 1 & Contact 2, unless a Custom setting exists.
- To access Non-Residential contacts through custom settings, the Preferred contacts priority (Non-Residential Family) must not be set to ‘Do not contact’