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 (not just those who install the app), for purposes such as:

• Daily Health Check Reminders (COVID-19 Pandemic)
• 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
• Email*
• Social Media (Twitter and Facebook)
• District/School Website
• Digital Signage

Push notifications, texts, and emails can be sent in each parent’s preferred language.

* Powered by and .

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

You may be able 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 App Dashboard along with social media and your website?

Contact us today for a consultation to help you simplify and reduce costs.

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 very effectively, on their smartphones. If you don’t already have a school app from Appazur, you have two choices:

Voice Messages

It’s easy to try the voice messaging feature. This video explains how.

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.

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.

Messages can be sent at a scheduled time.

Because push notifications can get a parent’s attention during the day, even if he or she is at work, some schools will want to start notifications as early as possible so that a parent can take action if their child is not present.

Works with your existing attendance system

Appazur works with data from your existing attendance system (including MyEducationBC). We support OneRoster and other data formats.

Sends via each parent’s preferences

Parents can use the 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 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.

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 365 or Google Workspace for Education 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.