• Getting started with the Sematime Messaging service

  Congrats on successfully registering your school on Sematime. Now lets get you started with the 'Sematime Messaging' service. But what is it? (https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/e59b9b7Some readers

• How to send SMS messages to a few parents

  Sending messages to a few parents is a little different than sending messages to a class, stream or the whole school. In this section, we look at how to send messages to a few parents whose phone numbers you have beforehand. You begin by entering the phone numbers of the pFew readers

• How to generate and download the 'message logs' report

  The message logs tell you what happened to the SMS you sent, whether it was successfully delivered or failed to be delivered. They also provide timestamps, network information if available, andFew readers

• Understanding SMS message delivery reports

  When we send messages to parents we expect that they will all be delivered and read by the recipients. Well, this is not always the case - some get delivered immediately, others much later on and some do fail completely. To access the message delivery report of your message click on the 'View Report' button under your sent messages. This will open the 'Delivery report' dialog window shown below. (https://storage.crisp.chat/users/helpdesk/website/e59b9b7a5e03a000/messagesreportssummFew readers

• How to send SMS messages to a class, stream or the whole school

  On this article we look at the process of sending messages to a large group of people such as a class, stream or even all the parents in the school. This is called group-based messaging.Few readers

• How to add parent contacts from an Excel file

  Sematime organizes parent contacts using 'groups'. This way you can have different groups for each of the classes in your school or even create own custom groups such as latecomers, Football team, Drama club etc where group members are students from different classes. Phone numbers have been masked for privacy protection The first step of adding contacts from an Excel file is ensuring that you aFew readers

• How to add a few parent contacts manually one-by-one

  There are times when you need to add one or two parents into your contacts. Of course, you can use an Excel file to save their contact details first then use the how to add parent contacts from an Excel file process but that is an overkill especially when you only need to add one contact and do it fast. Login to your Sematime Messaging account, go to 'Contacts' on your menu and click the blue 'Add Contacts' button. ThePopular

• How to rename, delete or download a group to an Excel file

  There are many reasons why you may want to make some changes to your groups. For example, When students move into a new academic year you may want to 'rename' their contacts group to reflect the new class changes. i.e Form 1 2023 now become Form 2 2024. You made some errors while adding contacts and wish to 'delete' the erroneous group so that you can add it afresh. Your final year class has left school and you no longer wish to retain the contacts in your active students lFew readers

• How to edit or delete parent contacts

  When a parent has a new phone number it is important to capture it accordingly in your contacts database. To do that, Start by searching for the student whose parent info you want to change by either using their name or admission number. You do this in the 'search box' on the top right corner of your 'Contacts' page. See the box highlighted below in red. Since you may get many search results be sure to select the correct student by clicking on the 'check box' highlighted withSome readers

• How to edit the message signature, add salutations or allow recipients to reply

  You may want to change the 'signature' appended to your messages or add 'salutations' at the beginning of your message such as 'Dear John, Good morning, Greetings etc'. To do this, you need to edit your 'Message Settings' by clicking on the link highlighted below with a red arrow. Signature - when enabled Sematime will append the text you have entered at the end of each meFew readers

• How to send fee balance reminders using an Excel file

  Instead of sending a general message to all parents asking the to clear their fee balances, you want to send each parent a unique message showing exactly how much they owe the school and also provide instructions on how to pay. For starters, we need an Excel file containing the fee balances for each student. The system expects your file to have at least three columns arranged in this order: student ID(or admission number), student name and fee balance amount as shown in the image below. (htFew readers

• How to send exam results to parents via SMS using an Excel file

  When students sit an exam you may to notify their parents on how they performed. Most schools will print result slips and give them to students to take home. However, some deceitful students may want to change their bad grades to appear like they did well in the exam or hide the slips altogether. Sematime allows schools to send exam results to parents via SMS. Each parent receives a unique message showing what their student scored per subject, overall grade, position, etc. (https://storage.Popular

• How to buy SMS units for your Sematime account

  It is inevitable that at some point you will need to load your account with more SMS units. While the 100 free SMS units you get at registration are enough to test and familiarize yourself with Sematime Messaging, they certainly won't be enough to send messages to hundreds of parents in a school.Few readers

• Here is how to purchase the unlimited SMS subscription

  The unlimited SMS subscription allows the school to make one payment per year and then get to send as many message as they wish for the rest of the year without making any other extra payment. For example, instead of buying 3,000 SMS units every two weeks, you make a one-time payment of Ksh 50 per student in January 2024 and only pay again when your subscription expires after 12 months, that is, in January 2025. It will not matter how many messages you send in a year as the price willFew readers

• How to save money on your Sematime Messaging account with our daily deals

  The Sematime Deals present your school a great way to save money with every purchase you make from us. To access the current 'Deals of the Day' go to the menu and click on 'Deals'. Here are all the top 3 deals you can purchase right now on Sematime. Volume-discount bundles - instead of buying SMS units at KES 1.00 per SMS, our bundles offer very low per unit cost with prices ranging from KEFew readers

• How to apply SMS branding to your Sematime account

  The 'sender name' of your messages determines whether a parent will open and read your message or they will discard it like hot porridge for suspicion of being a spam or marketing message. It is, therefore, important for your school to ensure that every message sent out to the parents bears the name of the school as the sender. The school needs to make an application to each of the mFew readers

• How to check parents portal usage statistics for your school

  The portal allows parents or guardians to access information and resources related to their child's education, pay school fees, send pocket money, access academic and financial statements from the school, etc by dialling '48310' or using the Sematime mobile app. You may want to check how parents have been using this service or even help troubleshoot problems for parents struggling to use it. To do so click on 'Portal' on your menu to view a page similar to the onFew readers

• How to add other users to your Sematime account and assign them rights

  You may want to delegate the sending of some messages to other teachers and staff members in your school. For example, you can delegate the sending of fee balances to the bursar or the sending of exam results to the dean of studies. Every new user gets separate login credentials and you can even restrict system access to the functioFew readers

• How to change password, set-up low balance reminders and change other settings for your account

  The 'Settings' page is where you go to tweak and adjust your Sematime Messaging account tastes and preferences. My profile - allows you to edit the profile photo, name, phone number, email address and bio of the user who is currently logged in. Use this section to change the phone number or the email address you use to login to your Sematime account. Sms branding - allows you to chaFew readers

• How to schedule a message to be sent on a future date or time

  Suppose you have a teachers meeting on Monday morning at 8:00 AM and you want the participants to be reminded of the same on Sunday evening at 4:30PM. Being a weekend, you may not be in school to send the reminder and that's where the Sematime scheduling functionality comes in handy. It lets you compose a message, add the recipients then specify the date and time you would wan the message to be sent. When it's time Sematime will automatically send your message without your involvement even whenFew readers

• How to add attachments to your SMS messages

  Sometimes you want to send more information to parents that you fit in a text message. For example, a fee structure document, end of term students circular, etc. Sematime makes it really easy to send such extended messages through our 'add attachment' feature as highlighted in the image below. We support the following attachments: Files - we support all file formats from Excel documents,Few readers

• How to view archived messages

  At the beginning of each year Sematime automatically moves the past year messages to the 'Archives' and opens a new messages folder for the new year. We do this to declutter your account and make it more organized especially if you send thousands of messages per year. To view an archived message, expand the 'Archives' folder and select the year of the messages you want to see. Use the search fFew readers

• What is the outbox and why do some of my messages end up there

  The 'Outbox' contains messages that failed to be sent due to system breakdowns between Sematime and the mobile network providers. Our system then automatically retries to send the message severally, upto 5 times in a span of 30 minutes, where the message is either sent successfully or Sematime stops retrying. You will get the error message below whenever you try to send a message but Sematime cannotFew readers