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.

Navigate to the Messaging page
Click + New Message in the top right corner, 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 for the message, then click Next
Select the desired Message Type
💡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
To add an attachment, click the + Add file, then click Add when done
💡Review our Allowed File Types.
Add the message contents
Click Send Message when ready

💡If you need to add a link/hyperlink to the message, simply paste the full URL and it will be clickable.

Send a Message on the App

Follow these steps to send a message that's visible to staff, or exclusively visible to admins/managers.

💡 Use the Talk-to-Text feature on your mobile device to speak your message. Click the 🎙️ icon next to the keyboard, and it will transcribe your speech and save time! For more details, refer to these Apple and Android articles.

Navigate to the Messaging page
Click + New Message in the top right corner, 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)
  💡 If this option is selected, the message thread will clearly indicate it at the top of the page
- Entire Room(s)/Program
Select the student or room for the message, then click Next
Select the desired Message Type
💡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
To add an attachment, click the + Add file and select Media or File
1. Review our Allowed File Types as needed
2. If selecting Media, take a photo/video or use one from your library
3. If selecting File, select a file from your device and click Use file
Add the message contents
💡If you need to add a link/hyperlink to the message, simply paste the full URL and it will be clickable.
Click Send Message when ready

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 on the App and Web and click + Add File, or the paperclip icon 📎.

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.

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 drop-down to sort messages by Unread or Most Recent (set to Most Recent by default)

On the App

Tap the purple Messages tile from the Administrator Home screen
View message thread visible on the Parents tab (open by default)
Use the Students search bar or "Admin only" toggle to narrow down threads as needed
Use the Order By drop-down to sort messages by Unread or Most Recent (set to Most Recent by default)

🚩 The Admin Only toggle 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.