Send SMS from the School ERP

Once JPRAXC SMS is active, the School ERP sends SMS in three ways: messages you write and send from Communication, automatic messages when something happens (a fee received, a student marked absent), and fee-due reminders from Dues & Reminders. Every SMS must match a message text registered for your school on DLT, so the ERP's own templates are the safest starting point.

Before you start#

• JPRAXC SMS is active and Send on SMS is ticked in General Settings › SMS Configuration. See Get JPRAXC SMS and complete the setup.
• The SMS balance is enough for the messages you plan to send. See SMS packs and balance.
• Your role can create and update Communication.
• Parents' and staff members' mobile numbers are recorded in the ERP.

Send a message to a group#

1. Open Communication.
2. In Create communication queue, under Channels, tick SMS. You can tick other channels too; one batch is built for each channel.
3. Choose the Audience, for example:
   • The whole school — parents and staff
   • Every student — father or Every student — mother
   • One class or section (then choose the Class and, if needed, the Section)
   • Transport users or Students with fees due
   • All staff, Teaching staff, Non-teaching staff or Class teachers
4. Under Template, choose one of the school's templates. It fills the message, which you can still edit. Or leave Write the message below and type your own.
5. Check the Message. Under it, the ERP shows the number of characters and how many SMS segments each message will use.
6. Select Build recipient queue. The ERP confirms how many recipients the queue was built for.
7. In Recipient queue, select Send now on each message you want to send.

{recipient_name}, {school_name} and {date} in the message are filled in for each recipient.

Check what was sent#

• Recipient queue lists every message with its Recipient, Type, Destination, Channel, Status and Error. Filter it by When, Channel, Recipient and State.
• A message that has gone shows Done and its button becomes Resend. One that could not go stays Pending with the reason in Error.
• Message batches lists each batch. A batch nobody has begun sending can still be changed with Edit or removed with Delete.

See Message status and why messages are refused.

Switch on automatic SMS#

1. Open General Settings › SMS Configuration.
2. Under Sent without being asked, choose Yes for each message that should go by SMS: Fee received, Marked absent, Admission confirmed, Result published, Certificate issued, Salary paid, Salary slip issued, Birthday wishes.
3. Choose the Language of every message: English only, हिंदी only or Both languages.
4. Tick or untick State the amount in the fee message. Unticked, the SMS says the fee was received and gives the receipt number, without the amount.
5. Select Save SMS configuration.

Each automatic SMS uses the school's own wording for that event, the one registered with DLT, and goes to the parent or staff member it concerns.

Send fee reminders by SMS#

Fee-due reminders are set up in Dues & Reminders, in the Reminder settings panel. Tick SMS under Channels there. The reminder SMS uses the school's fee-due wording registered with DLT. The full steps are in the School ERP section.

Keep messages short#

• A plain English SMS holds 160 characters in one segment. A single Hindi letter, or any character outside plain English, makes the whole message Unicode, which holds 70 characters a segment.
• Each segment is charged, for every recipient. The counter under Message shows the segments before you build the queue.
• Curly quotes, long dashes and similar characters also turn a message into Unicode. The ERP's own English SMS templates use plain quotes and dashes for this reason; do the same when you type.
• An SMS carries text only. Pictures, such as birthday cards, are not sent by SMS.

Good to know#

• The school's message templates are managed in the School ERP. See Notices and communication.
• The ERP matches each automatic SMS to the template registered for that purpose. Messages you write yourself are matched by their wording, so write them to fit a registered text.
• After Send now, the ERP tells you whether the message was accepted against a registered template, or that no registered template matched the wording. A message that matches no registered template may be blocked by the networks.

Troubleshooting#