This article is for schools wishing to receive email alerts when new SMS messages are sent to the school's virtual number via XUNO.
Email alerts for received SMS
XUNO has the ability to send email alerts when new SMS are received at your school's dedicated XUNO virtual mobile number. This means you don't necessarily need to keep refreshing your SMS inbox in XUNO just to see if any new SMS have arrived.
If your school is hosting XUNO on premise (i.e, not in the cloud), you will need to complete the steps to ensure you are receiving the messages before you can enable the alerts below. Click here for those instructions.
How to setup email notifications for SMS
- Go to Options > Software Settings > Messaging & SMS.
- Find the setting called SMS email alerts.
- Enter in the email addresses of the people that want to be alerted of any new SMS being received by the school. You can add as many email addresses as you like, separated by commas.
Below you will find answers to FAQs that have come up so far.
Handy hints
- Remember that it is better not to add too many email addresses in the SMS email alerts. If 6 people are checking the same SMS each day, it might be a bit of wasted effort and double handling.
- If you are going to nominate multiple users to be alerted of any new received SMS, we recommend that you put into practice the use of the Acknowledged checkbox. This is found in the School > Communication > Received SMS Messages page, next to every received SMS. This way, you can easily see if someone else is dealing with or has dealt with the SMS in the inbox.
- The entire SMS, as well as the details of the person who sent the message, are visible within the alert notification, so it is important to be discerning about who is receiving the SMS email alert, and ensuring the email address is valid and only accessible to permitted staff.
- The people whose email address is nominated to receive the SMS email alerts should also have the Read SMS permission in XUNO, so that they may view the message in more detail. If they do not have this permission, they will not be able to deal with the message via XUNO at all, and will only see the SMS in the email alerts. The permission can be changed through Options > Software Settings > User Groups & Permissions, under Reports > Received Messages.
- If the people whose email address is nominated to receive the email alerts regarding the received SMS do not have permission to Read + Acknowledge SMS within XUNO, then they will not be able to view or select the Acknowledged box in XUNO. This permission can be set via Options > Software Settings > User Groups & Permissions, under Reports > Received Messages.
- If the people whose email address is nominated to receive the email alerts regarding the received SMS do not have permission to Send SMS within XUNO, they won't be able to reply to the SMS, if required. This permission can be set via Options > Software Settings > User Groups & Permissions, under School > Send Message.
FAQs
Do we have to have email alerts for SMS?
No - you do not have to activate the email alerts for SMS. However, if you are an on-premise school, you need to make sure that your Check SMS task is running correctly on your Xuno server regardless of whether you require the email alert to be sent.
Are we going to receive hundreds of emails throughout the day, for every single SMS?
The email is generated periodically - so don't worry, you won't receive one email for every single SMS! You will receive one email periodically, and if multiple messages have been sent within that period, the received SMS will all be listed in that email. If you're a hosted school, the email is generated every few minutes automatically. If you're an on-premise school, your technician will set up how often the email is sent. It could be as often as every 10 minutes, or as infrequent as every 60 minutes.