Private Messages/Messaging

Classlist's private messaging service allows you to connect privately with other parents in your school community, without having to exchange contact details. The messages are stored within your Classlist site.

A badge notification will let you know when there is a new message waiting for you.

Message notification badge on the desktop

and on the app.

You may also receive an email or app notification to let you know you have a message, depending on your notification settings.

Whenever you see the message icon on the site you can tap it to go straight to your Messages inbox. 

Messages sent on Classlist can only be viewed by senders and recipients.  Whilst group posts can be seen by ambassadors because they have been sent to large groups of people, messages are private and cannot be seen by anyone except recipients.

The Messages page

From the Messages page, you can read new and old messages from your inbox as well as create new messages to send to other parents.

• The Inbox. Messages sent to you by other parents or groups of parents will be displayed in a list; once you open a message, you will see all previous exchanges in that thread. New/unread messages are highlighted in yellow.

Inbox showing message history and 'new message' button

• Opening your messages. Tap on the name of the sender/s in the inbox to open a message. If there is only one sender their profile photo will be displayed next to their name. If there is more than one person in the conversation you will see the grey head&shoulders icon next to the name of the person who initiated the conversation, as shown above in the thread started by 'Farrokh Bulsara'.
• Finding out who else is in the conversation and naming a thread. To find out who else is in the conversation, even if they haven't yet added a comment, open the message and tap the sender's name at the top: eg 'Farrokh, you & 1 other', or tap the three dots to the right of the sender's name. The other recipients' names will be displayed below. You also have the option of giving your message thread a title: eg 'Cubs pick ups' has been entered in the example below. Tap the blue tick to save the name.  

Naming a thread and viewing other recipients

• Sending a message. To send a reply to a message you have received just start typing into the text box below the existing message/s. To start a brand new message tap 'new message' at the top right of the inbox page. This brings up a search box where you can enter a name, or choose the option for multiple participants. You can add up to eight recipients and you can also filter your contacts by group to allow you to select from the group. You can't send a private message to a whole group (but you can post to a group on the parent board). The system will search for name matches in your Contacts, and you can select the correct parent/s. When you have added the recipient/s, just write your message in the box and tap the blue arrow to send. 

Enter a name and select the correct person from the list 

• Adding an attachment or photo. You can write your message first, then tap the image or paperclip icon to add something to your message. Alternatively you can tap first on the image/paperclip, select your photo and then add a caption. 

Write your message in the box, then tap the blue arrow to send

Add a photo or attachment, or start with a photo and add a caption

• Adding participants or leaving an existing message thread. You can add people to an existing thread of messages, but the new participant/s will not be able to see previous messages. Adding participants after a thread has been started effectively starts a new thread. Tap on the three dots on the right in the recipients box to view details (ie who are the recipients), add participants or leave the conversation.

• Leaving a conversation. You can leave a conversation at any time by tapping the three dots as described in the section above. This will bring up a dialogue box for you to confirm you want to leave, as shown in the image below. You can't delete other people from the conversation once they've been added, so you can either ask them to leave themselves, or start a new conversation if you want someone who was originally included to be taken off the addressee list. 

• How to tell if your message has been delivered/read. Look below your sent message where the date sent is displayed. One grey tick means the message has been sent, and two blue ticks means the message has been read. The blue ticks act like a read receipt. NB This is slightly different to Whatsapp!

Notifications

When you are sent a message the default setting is that you will receive an email as well as a badge notification on the site. If you like you can change this in your notification settings.

All replies are also notified to all recipients, by email and/or app depending on their notification settings.  

Tips and tricks