Email and SMS carry your announcements, fee reminders and automations. They also carry the password-setup links that new staff and parents need before they can sign in. Set both up once, test them, and everything else uses them.
- Where Communications → Delivery setup (status and tests), Settings → Outbound Email (email), Integrations (SMS)
- Who can use it Email: the Admin or anyone with Settings. SMS: the Admin or anyone with Integrations. Anyone with Communications can see the status and send tests.
- You will need Nothing for email: it works out of the box on your hosting. For SMS, an Arkesel account with an API key.
Check what’s set up
Open Communications. The Delivery setup card at the top shows one line for each channel:
- Ready means it is set up, with the address or sender name it sends from. Email is always ready: it uses your hosting’s mail server unless you add an SMTP account.
- Not set up says what’s missing, with a Set up now link if you are allowed to change it.
Email: ready out of the box
You don’t have to set anything up. Email goes out through your hosting’s own mail server, the same way as on FinAccounting and the UMS sites. It is sent from noreply@ your website’s domain (for example [email protected]), with the school’s name as the sender and replies going to the school’s own email address.
Add an SMTP account only if you want email to come from a particular mailbox, such as [email protected]:
- Go to Settings → Outbound Email (SMTP) and tick Use SMTP for outbound email.
- Fill in the details from your email provider. For a Namecheap Private Email mailbox: host mail.privateemail.com, port 465 with SSL (or 587 with TLS), and the mailbox’s full address and password as Username and Password.
- Set the From Email to that same mailbox. If you leave it blank, the SMTP username is used, because these mailboxes only send as themselves.
- Click Save SMTP Settings, then send a test (below).
Email settings are shared by every school on this installation. Each email still carries the sending school’s name.
Set up SMS
- Create an account at Arkesel, buy credit, and copy your API key. Register a Sender ID (up to 11 letters, for example GOLDENPALM).
- In the app, go to Integrations and click to add an integration.
- Choose the type SMS Gateway, paste the API key, enter the Sender ID, and set the status to Active.
- Save, then send a test SMS (below).
SMS is set per school: each school uses its own account and Sender ID.
Send a test
- In Communications → Delivery setup, type your own email address or phone number in Send a test to.
- Click Test email or Test SMS.
- Check your inbox (and spam folder) or phone. If it failed, the message says why, for example No active SMS Gateway: add one under Integrations.
Important: a test SMS uses one SMS credit.
What uses email and SMS
| Message | SMS | |
|---|---|---|
| Password-setup link for a new staff or parent login | Yes | Yes, when an SMS gateway is set up and a phone is on file |
| Announcements from Communications | Yes | Yes (Send SMS) |
| Fee reminders and other automations | Depends on the automation | Depends on the automation |
| Lost your password? on the login page | Yes | No |
Parents who opted out of SMS don’t get their password link by text, only by email.