This module was created to ensure the transparency of information and to make communication between kindergarten / school and family more efficient.
Unlike the Live Chat module, where the communication is done either 1 to 1 or in chat groups, the Quick Messages take place between the family and the kindergarten / school. What does this mean?
If I, as an educator / teacher or manager, want to send a message, I will not be able to select a certain parent, but I will select the appropriate child for the family with whom I want to communicate. We know very well that many of the children enrolled in our kindergarten / school do not have the same name as their parents and therefore, sometimes it would be difficult to identify to which parent we want to send the message. Thus, when sending a message, we can filter by group / class or search by the child's name. The application will know and select and send the message to the family members of the selected child.
Also, more children can be selected if they wish to send the same message to several families. Thus, the messages sent in this way will reach all the members of the family who have an active account on Kinderpedia assigned to the child (mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, granddaughter, etc.).
It is worth mentioning that if I send a message to more parents we must be careful about the forms because the parents will see in the application that that message is addressed only to them (to their child) and therefore the formulation must be a general one. (Technically all parents are put in this message in BCC).
Family members can respond to that message later, without the parents of the other children included in the message (if any) being able to see this response. So all the replies to a message sent to several parents only reach the educator / teacher who sent the message and the manager of the institution.
In the same way, if a parent wishes to send a message using this module, he / she will not have to select a recipient, as the message will be received by all the educators / teachers responsible for the child's group and including the manager. So all the messages sent by parents through this module are NOT seen by other parents, but only by the representatives of the institution (educators / teachers / managers).
Following each message received, users will also receive a notification to be constantly updated with the changes that have occurred and to be able to respond in a timely manner.
The educators / teachers and the manager benefit from 3 different types of messages to keep a clearer record of the way in which the information is transmitted to the parents, namely: Simple message, Alert and Scheduled message (Reminder).
The simple message can be used to transmit any kind of information to parents. It is similar to an email or a SMS, only that the message reaches the application, not in SPAM.
The alert is intended for urgent messages or of major importance, being accompanied by an exclamation mark meant to attract the attention of parents in particular. For kindergartens / schools that opt to activate SMS messages, alerts can also be sent via text messages.
The scheduled message or Reminder is a scheduled message in the future. We choose a specific date and time, save the message, and it will be sent automatically at the chosen time. This function especially helps us when we want to remind parents of a certain requirement, activity, event, etc. (Eg: Saturday we go on the trip and we want the parents to receive a message at 7:00 in the morning informing them that they must be at the meeting place on the scheduled time, otherwise they will miss the bus. To make sure we do not forget , we schedule this message during the week and it will automatically be sent on Saturday at 7 in the morning.)
Also, parents have a set of predefined messages available to facilitate the transmission of essential information: Message for Teachers, Absent, Early Pick Up, Late Pick Up, Early Drop Off, Late Drop Off.
As with educators, the simple message is a free message that will be used to transmit any kind of information to the kindergarten / school.
Early Pick Up, Late Pick Up, Early Drop Off, Late Drop Off are predefined messages created in order to save parents time in transmitting such information and to inform educators / teachers about the time when the child arrives to make it easier for them to organize their activities.
Absent is a more special message. Once selected, 2 additional rows will appear that will need to be completed. The first is the reason, for which we can select one of the 4 options: Sick (a), Holiday, Home Day, Other. The second is the period when the child will be absent (it may be only one day, in which case only the first field is completed or there may be more cases where a time interval is missing).
