Composing, sending, and resending broadcasts is limited to the administrator and supervisor roles. Monitors, parents, and students do not have access to compose a broadcast, though they can receive one and read it from their own notification history. See Notifications.
Composing a broadcast
Open the compose screen
Go to
/broadcasts for the history list, or straight to /broadcasts/new to compose.Apply a template (optional)
Pick a saved template to fill in the Subject and Message body. Applying a template never changes the audience you have already chosen.
Write the subject and message
Subject is limited to 200 characters. The message body is limited to 5000 characters.
Choose the audience
Pick a scope: school-wide, one or more centres, one or more grade levels, or hand-picked individuals. Then pick recipient types: parents, students, staff, or a combination.
Check the recipient preview
A live “Will reach N recipients” count updates as you adjust scope and recipient types. Submission is blocked until at least one recipient resolves.
Audience and recipient types
| Scope | Who can pick it | What it targets |
|---|---|---|
| School-wide | Administrator only | Everyone in the org matching the chosen recipient types |
| Centre | Administrator, supervisor (own centres only) | Everyone in the selected centre(s) |
| Grade level | Administrator, supervisor | Everyone in the selected grade level(s) |
| Individual | Administrator, supervisor | Hand-picked people |
Channel
Email is the only active send channel, and it bundles an in-app notification for anyone with a Zion account. SMS appears in the interface as disabled and marked coming soon, and is never sent.Templates
Save the current subject and body as a named template (up to 120 characters for the name). Templates are scoped to your organization, so any administrator or supervisor in the org can reuse one. Re-applying a template only refills the subject and message. It does not touch whatever audience you already selected.Sending now vs. scheduling
- Send now
- Schedule for later
The server re-checks your role and your org’s active subscription, re-resolves the audience against the current roster, and delivers immediately. You land back on
/broadcasts, where the new row shows its status and delivery tally right away.Because a scheduled broadcast re-resolves its audience at send time, someone who joined a targeted centre or grade after you scheduled the message can still receive it, and someone who left will not.
Delivery ledger and resend
Open any broadcast from the/broadcasts history to reach its detail page at /broadcasts/[id]. The page lists a per-recipient delivery ledger with recipient type, contact, channel, status (sent, failed, queued, or skipped), and an error message where applicable.
Check the failed tally
If the broadcast has failed deliveries, the detail page shows a “Resend to failed (N)” action.
Confirm and resend
Click it and confirm in the dialog. Only the failed rows are reset to queued and retried.
Broadcast history
/broadcasts lists past and scheduled broadcasts, 20 rows per page. Each row shows the subject, status, and delivery tally; clicking a row opens its detail page and ledger.
Related
Notifications
The in-app notification centre, bell, and history every role uses to read what they’ve been sent.
Deliverability and audit
Email suppression handling and the org-wide notification audit log, administrator only.
Roles and permissions
Who holds which of the five roles and what each can do.
Reference: roles and permissions
Full permission matrix across all features.