The Messaging platform enables administrators to send updates, reminders, alerts, and more to parents through brightwheel. Messages can be sent to individual students, multiple students, entire rooms, or all students in the program. Messages are delivered to all parent contacts added to the student's brightwheel account.
Admins and Managers can choose to send messages are visible to staff, or message individual parents privately so messages and responses are hidden from non-admin staff.
💡Similar to text messages or emails, while brightwheel messages can be deleted by Admins, they can’t be edited once they’re sent. With this in mind, please review the message content and recipients before sending to ensure completion and accuracy!
Message Parents Privately
Admins and Managers have the option to send a message to individual parents and have the thread be viewable by all staff OR be viewable by only Admins/Managers.
Choosing to send a direct Admin/Manager to Parent message ensures the conversation remains private, preventing staff from viewing the messages and parent responses. This can be a great option if there's a matter that should only be discussed between these parties without staff involved.
🚩 Please be aware that this is not a direct message between a specific Admin/Manager and Parent Contacts, it will visible to all program Admins/Managers and all parent contacts associated with a student.
🚩 A direct message from an Admin/Manager to a Parent creates a clearly labeled and separate thread visible only to admins. Parents should reply within this thread if they want to keep their response confidential from staff.
ℹ️ To better understand the parent experience, view our Messaging the Childcare Provider resource.
Send a Message on the Web
Follow these steps to send a message that's visible to staff, or exclusively visible to admins/managers. Once you send a message, it will be visible in the child's existing message thread.
Send a new message
Navigate to the Messaging page
Click + New Message, then choose Parents
Choose whether to send the message to:
Individual parent(s) (and visible by all staff)
Individual parent(s) (and only visible by admins/managers)
Entire Room(s)/Program
Select the student or room, then click Next
Select the desired Message Type
To add an attachment, click the + Add file
Click Send Message when ready
Reply in a thread
Navigate to the Messaging page
Locate the existing message thread on the Parents tab and open it
Input the message contents
To add an attachment, click the paperclip
iconTo send the message as an Alert, select the chat bubble
and choose Alert or Alert with SMS text messageWhen ready, click Send Message
ℹ️ Important Notes
If you need to add a link/hyperlink to the message, simply paste the full URL and it will be clickable.
If sending a message to an individual parent and have it viewable by only Admins/Managers, you will not be able to change the Type
Review the Allowed File Types that can be sent in messages
Send a Message on the App
Follow these steps to send a message that's visible to staff, or exclusively visible to admins/managers.
Send a new message
Navigate to the Messaging page
Tap the new message icon at the bottom right of the screen
Choose Parents and select if you'll send the message to individual families (visible to all staff or just admins) or entire room(s)
Select the student(s) or room(s) > Click Next
Select the desired Message Type
To add an attachment, click + Add file
Add the message contents
Click Send Message when ready
Reply in a thread
Navigate to the Messaging page
Locate the existing message thread on the Parents tab and open it
Input the message contents
To add an attachment, click the paperclip
or plus
iconWhen ready, click Send or the airplane
icon
ℹ️ Important Notes
If choosing to send a message to an individual parent and have it viewable by only Admins/Managers, you will not be able to change the Type
Review the Allowed File Types that can be sent in messages
If you need to add a link/hyperlink to the message, simply paste the full URL and it will be clickable.
If a message thread is between between parents and admins only, it will be labeled at the top of the thread
Send Message Attachments
Administrators can send files, media, and documents to parents via Brightwheel messages. Unlike our Shared Files feature for school-wide or room-wide sharing, message attachments allows providers to send files directly to individual families.
To attach a file to a message, take steps you normally would to send a message and click + Add File, the paperclip clip or plusicon.
View Parent Messages
Easily view and filter all messages sent to parents at your program, whether they were sent to and viewable by all staff assigned to selected rooms, admins/managers only, or the entire program. You can even mark messages as read or unread!
On the Web
Navigate to the Messaging page
View message thread visible on the Parents tab (open by default)
Use the Recipient, Room, Student, and Student status filters to narrow down threads as needed
Use the Order By filter to sort messages by Unread or Most Recent (set to Most Recent by default)
On the App
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🚩 The Admin only button will not be visible within the brightwheel app when accessing Messages from the Rooms tab. You must access Messages from the Administrator Home Screen to see the Admin/Parent messages.