“Emergency Messenger” is an Infinite Campus messaging tool, generally used at the district level, to reach parents/guardians and students in the rare cases of natural disasters, school closures, dangerous situations, etc. For general messaging, please see “Message Builder”.
“Emergency Messenger” differs from the general notifications sent via the “Message Builder” in that the messages cannot be scheduled for a later time as they begin sending immediately. Emergency messages can also go out at any time of day, overriding the limits of the time window set by the district for regular messages (7:00 AM – 9:00 PM).
Please note: “Emergency Messenger” only identifies active students, so it can only be used during the active school year while students are enrolled. To send messages over the summer break, please utilize the “Message Builder”.
Be certain to log into Chrome as the preferred Infinite Campus browser, do not use Internet Explorer.
To send an emergency message in IC, please follow the steps below:
Select the current year and the school (select “All Schools” for district level messages going to more than one school)
In the Index, go to “Messenger > Emergency Messenger”:
Select whether the message is going to “Student Messenger Contacts”, “Staff”, or both. Then select the schools, grade levels, and/or staff types:
Select an Ad Hoc Filter if you have created one for a smaller, more specific group of students (football team or a field trip group, for example).
Select which devices the message will be delivered to. “Inbox” is the message center for parents/guardians in the IC Parent Portal. “Email” and “Voice” will go to email addresses and numbers on file for contacts. “Text” will send a text message to contacts ONLY IF they have opted in for texts:
Enter a “Message Subject” and compose message. If you selected “Text”, there will be an additional text message box to enter a shortened version of your email. Please note that emails are sent from a “do not reply” email box. If you would like recipients to be able to email you back, you will need to provide an email address in the body of your message:
If you selected “Voice”, the message body of your email will go out in calls as read by text-to-speech software unless you record a voice message (NUSD recommends that you record a message). To record a voice message, select “Record Message” and you will be provided with a phone number to call to record a message as well as a PIN. You only need to dial one of the numbers, they are all toll-free. Do NOT click on the red X, leave it open.
Follow the prompts on the voice recorder to save your message. After you have pressed 3 to save your message, you may hang up. A .wav file will be created and listed under “Recorded Messages”. Download and save to your computer by selecting the second icon under “Controls”:
Close the new tab or window that opened for the recorder to return to Infinite Campus. Browse for the .wav file saved on your computer (most likely in your “Downloads” folder). Select and be sure to hit the UPLOAD button:
If you have an email attachment, browse for the file and be sure to hit the UPLOAD button. IC recommends that email attachments do not exceed 1.2 MB.
Optional: After reviewing all of your settings, click the “Save” button at the top of the page and give your message template a title if you might want to reuse the message at a later date. Otherwise, you do not need to save a template. Once sent, your message will be saved in the Sent Message Log.
Select “Test” to send your message to your own phone/email to verify it is correct. This should always be done for any message:
If the test is successful, select “Preview/Send” to review the number of recipients and devices. If you are ready to send, select “Send Message”
After sending the message, you can review status/progress by going to “Messenger > Sent Message Log”.
Click on the message to view the delivery summary. Click on “Print Sent Message Report” for more delivery details.
For more information about all messaging tools in Infinite Campus, please visit the Knowledge Base in the Infinite Campus “Campus Community”.
See also the NUSD Knowledge Base articles on “Message Builder” and “Staff Messenger”.