Often school-based support necessitates notifying guardians of an event, asking a family a question, requesting a student be picked up at school, consulting a faculty member about a student, etc. The best practice is then to document this communication and any responses received from the family or faculty member. By embedding messaging capabilities into the documentation experience practitioners can communicate with families and leave a documentation history in one place.
There are two ways to send the messages in August:
Within an encounter
Via the Student Card
You can decide whether to ping the whole family, or a single user or recipient from the contacts populated from your school's student information system (or add a contact directly to August).
The system is "thread based" with access to a thread contingent upon access to either an encounter or a Student Card. This way practitioners can count on messages staying private to only the participants in the thread and only practitioners who have access to the encounter or Student Card.
Waiting for a reply? Don't worry about staying in a given encounter's or Student Card's message tab to receive a reply, you'll be notified (however you choose) when there's a response with a link back to the thread.
SMS will be sent from a pool of phone numbers dedicated to each client, please discuss the best area code for your school or district with your Customer Success Manager.
Below are the step-by-step guides for sending messages:
From within an Encounter
From within an Encounter
Start by documenting an encounter, populating the subject as usual. Then find the Messages tab within the encounters experience.
If you are just getting started, click the "Add thread" button.
Click on your name to enter into the thread.
Click in the Participants field to add people to the thread. Your name (as a user) is listed as a participant, because you are!
Add a guardian by typing their full name and selecting from the drop down.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click in the bottom box.
Enter your message to the guardian here and select the blue "Send" button.
Your message will display above, awaiting a response from the guardian, with an indicator that shows whether it was delivered.
When the guardian responds, you will receive a small pop-up on the left and hear a short ping. You can close the pop-up by clicking on the “X.”
If a guardian sends a response after the encounter is closed, you will be notified with the same pop-up and sound, and the message will save to the messages tab within that encounter
The message will display within the encounter on the left hand side.
When finished, you close the encounter as normal by clicking on the “shield” icon at the top of the encounter.
From the Student Card
From the Student Card
Note: Sending messages from the student card will keep the thread open indefinitely.
Navigate to the appropriate Student Card and select the Messages tab.
If you are just getting started, click the "Add thread" button.
If threads have been sent in the past by others, select "New" to start a new thread with your account.
Click on your name to enter into the thread.
Click in the Participants field to add people to the thread. Your name (as a user) is listed as a participant, because you are!
Add a guardian by typing their full name and selecting from the drop down.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click in the bottom box (way down!).
Enter your message to the guardian here and click the blue Send button.
Your message will display above, awaiting a response from the guardian, with an indicator that shows whether it was delivered.
When the guardian responds, you will receive a small pop-up on the left and hear a short ping. You can close the pop-up by clicking on the “X.”
The message will display within the thread on the left hand side.
When finished, you can close the student card by clicking on the X in the top right corner.
Questions or Concerns?
Please do not hesitate to reach out to the August Schools Support Team at via live chat with the "Help" icon or via email at [email protected].