This article covers how to send an internal alert using the Legacy form.
Overview
The Internal Alert form is used to send internal notifications to your staff, volunteers, team members, organizations, and more. The alert form is user-friendly and populates based on the selections you choose.
The instructions below pertain to the legacy alert form, if you are looking for instructions for the new alert form, click here.
Send an Alert
- Click Send Internal Alert from the left-hand navigation menu.
- Choose a template if applicable. If you are starting a new alert without a template, Review the Basic Information section and make any relevant changes to name, email, and always remember to change your subject. There are other things you could change in the Basic Information section, such as adding a location, changing the expiration time, or scheduling the message to be delivered in the future. These features are covered in other Reference Guides.
- The Build Message section is where you will type the message you want to send to your Internal Members or Groups. There is a character counter here. The maximum character length is 1500 characters. This section enables selection with a Standard or Emergency flag to the user. You can preview the message prior to sending if you are including voice calls to hear the text-to-speech. Simply type your 10-digit phone number in the Add Phone field and click Preview Voice. A voice call will be sent to that phone number to hear. Some agencies will see a split box for voice and text while others, standardly, will see a single box for both voice and text.
- The Select Alert Delivery Method(s) section is where you choose how you want your recipients to receive the message. You can choose from several options such as text, voice, email, mobile app. You can also determine the standard or priority text message. Most agencies will have priority as the default. Standard=SMTP; Priority=SMS.
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Choose groups and/or individuals that should receive the message. A single click on the left moves the groups and/or individuals to the right side. Any group or individual on the right side will receive the message. To remove a group or member, click on the name on the right column to move back to the left. An individual cell can be added to receive the alert that may not be entered into the system.
- The last step is to click Submit. You will see a summary then confirm your submission.
- Once you click Yes, the message will be sent and a summary will be shown.
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Click View Alert Status Report to go directly to the Alert History for the message that was sent, otherwise, you can always click History/Reports on the dashboard to view all alerts.
Resend and Alert History
If you need to send a message to the same people as a follow-up message, simply click Resend from the Alert History. When re-sending, all that needs to change is the information in the Build Message section since the recipients will remain the same. You can add or subtract recipients if desired prior to sending the message.
History/Reports link allows access to all alerts sent in the system. The view will show the history of the message including the full audit trail of the message:
- Time/Date Stamp
- Name/Username of who sent the message
- Subject
- Priority
- The message of the alert
- Delivery methods chosen
- Recipients and Groups • Details of message
receipt by individual including text, email, mobile app voice delivery.
Attachments can be added to any alert in the Attach Content Section. Anything added in this Rich Text editor will be “embedded” in your recipients’ email and delivered to the mobile app. Recipients will not need to download anything to view this attachment type.
Images, text formatting, and links will all display just as shown in the editor.
Create a Poll
Polling notifications are a way to send alerts and ask for a response from your teams with specific answers determined by the alert sender.
The instructions below pertain to the legacy alert form, if you are looking for instructions for the new poll form, click here.
To create a Poll, simply click the Create a Poll checkbox in the Build Message section. Once clicked, the message box will change to a question/answer creation.
5 possible response options could be available to your recipients. You must have at least 2. Recipients can respond to your message by text, email, mobile app, or phone call. Only the first response from any individual is recorded in the Alert History. For text responses, the sender can create a unique keyword, or the system will auto-generate a keyword that will be used for text responses.
The results of your poll are seen in Alert History.