Send an announcement

An announcement sends the same message to many families at once, by text, email or both. Use it for closures, recital reminders, picture day and anything everyone in a group needs to know. Each parent gets their own copy, and replies come back to your inbox.

Turn on Track sign-ups when the message is meant to bring families in, like filling open spots in a class. FrontRow then adds a tracked link and, if you like, a promo code, and shows you the clicks and sign-ups it brought in. See Fill classes with a tracked announcement.

Only owners and admins can send announcements. Other staff can see the list of past announcements.

Send an announcement#

1. Open Inbox in the menu and choose the Announcements tab.
2. Select New announcement.
3. Under Audience, choose who it goes to in Send to: Whole studio, Classes, Programs, A term, Specific students or Specific families. Then pick the classes, programs, term or people.
4. Under Purpose, choose Marketing or Operational (see below).
5. Under Channels, tick SMS, Email or both.
6. Write your message under Message. If you're sending email, add an Email subject.
7. Under When, leave it to send right away, or tick Schedule for later and pick a date and time in Send at.
8. Select Review and send. Check the count and details, then select Send now (or Schedule).

The Recipients box on the side keeps a live count of who will get it, split by text and email, and how many are skipped.

Marketing or operational#

• Marketing is for news, offers and promotions. Texts wait out your quiet hours, and "Reply STOP to opt out." is added to marketing texts if you didn't include it.
• Operational is for things families need to know about their classes, like a cancellation. These still need consent but aren't held for quiet hours.

Operational is only available when you send to classes, programs, a term or specific students. A whole-studio or specific-families announcement is always marketing, and so is a tracked one.

Make writing faster#

• Template: choose a saved message to fill in the subject and text. See Message templates.
• Merge fields: the buttons above the message box (like Parent first name, All children, Family balance and Portal link) insert details that are filled in for each family. With tracking on, Portal link becomes Tracked link.
• Draft with Scout: describe what you want to say and Scout, FrontRow's assistant, writes a draft. Select Use this draft to keep it, or Improve my message to polish what you've written. Nothing is sent until you send it.

For texts, a counter shows the length and how many text segments it uses. Emoji and accented letters make each segment shorter.

Who gets it#

Only parents who can receive that channel get the announcement. People are skipped when they have no phone number or email, haven't agreed to texts, or have opted out. Inactive families are skipped too. If nobody in the audience can receive it, you'll see a note and the send button stays off. See Consent and opt-outs.

After you send#

You'll see Announcement sent (or Announcement scheduled) with the number of recipients. The Announcements tab lists everything sent to many families, newest first, with its status, audience, purpose, channels, recipient count and send time. The Tracking column shows which ones were tracked: select View results to see their clicks and sign-ups, or Finish draft for one you haven't sent yet.