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This page is used to send messages via email or SMS, and to generate letters. This page can also be used to record the details of phone calls and meetings. All of this information is saved on the student's contact log.

This page is accessed via:
Main menu > Contact Management > External contact

How to

Batch send messages / batch generate letters

• Click the generate batch button at the top left.

Stage 1

Deselect any student you do not wish to contact because of court orders, unusual arrangements, etc. Select the type of person you are going to contact. There are four options:

• Students - contact the students themselves. Emails will be sent to their 'work' email addresses (as set in SIMS)
• Priority 1 contact with Parental responsibility - contact people who are both priority 1 and have parental responsibility
• Priority 1 contact regardless of Parental responsibility - contact people who are priority 1
• All contacts with Parental responsibility - contact people who have responsibility
  
  

(a)There is an alternate set of options depending upon preferences

Stage 2

This tab will check that, for each student, there is a person in SIMS who can be contacted based on the options selected on the previous tab.

Students who do not have a valid contact will be highlighted in red. If there are no named contacts to the right of the student's name then there are no contacts who have a suitable priority level and/or parental responsibility in SIMS. Alternatively if a named contact does appear, then they do have suitable priority and parental responsibility, but do not have a valid method for contact e.g. they have no email address.

Stage 3

This tab is used to select the message that will be sent. Click the relevant button (Email, SMS or Letter) to manually create or edit your message. If you have message saved in the message bank, dropdowns will appear allowing you to select these messages.

If your letter includes General Attendance merge fields, a Range button will appear on the top toolbar. This button is used to select the date range from which the attendance data will be gathered.

When sending a letter there is an option to Upload a copy of the letter to the student's linked documents in SIMS. When using this option you will need to enter some fields for the document which will be recorded in SIMS.

(2) This is where stored messages "go missing" if you have accessed external contact via the wrong route
(3) Should say more about using merge fields in message composer? What about headers and footers?

Send single message

Messages can be sent to students or contacts individually. Each person will have their available contact details listed. Click on the Email or SMS buttons to send a message to that person's mobile phone or email address.

You will then see a window to compose your message. You can access the message bank by clicking Insert > Template, or access merge fields by clicking Insert > Field.

Record meetings or phone calls

You can type and save the details of any phone calls or meetings using this screen. For telephone calls, find the telephone number that was used then click the Call button next to it. For meetings click the Ad-Hoc button next to that contact.

When recording telephone calls there is an additional Contact Type option. This is used to record whether the call was successful, or whether there was no answer, a voicemail was left, etc.

When recording meetings and telephone calls most information will be recorded on the contact log. This includes the date, time, the name of the staff member recording the information, the person contacted and the student. In the case of telephone calls the telephone number is also recorded.

View contact log

There Contact History and History Report buttons are used to access a student's contact log.

Contact History shows a summary of contacts made, but to see the details of each contact you must click the view button. This report is easier to read at a glance but requires more clicks to see the details of a message. The Contact History report can also be used to edit and delete items from the contact log.

The History Report shows all information from the contact log. It is not possible to view the details of letters using this report. Items on the contact log cannot be edited or deleted using this report.

There are two other methods for accessing the contact log. Both of these methods involve using different pages in PARS:

• Pupil information
• Contact reports
  
  

Relevant settings

SMTP preferences

In order to send emails, PARS needs to be given the SMTP details of your email server. These settings are entered into PARS via:
System management > Preferences > Email

SMS account details

In order to send SMS messages you must have an account with TextAnywhere and enter those account details into PARS. If the details have not been entered into PARS you will be able to select SMS as a method of contact. The details are entered into PARS via:
Contact management > Configure > Configure SMS

Contact management preferences

The PARS preferences that affect the External Contact screen are accessed via:
System management > Preferences > External contact

Which email address is used

(4) I do not know what the Use Main Email Addresses Only option does

If a person has multiple email address, by default PARS will send emails to the email address marked as Main in SIMS. The "Use Primary flag to indicate main" preference causes PARS to use the email address marked as Primary instead.

Only send to priority 1 contacts

When sending a batch message, the Recipients list will either give options to send to the highest priority contact, or the priority 1 contact. In some cases the highest priority contact may not be priority 1.

What I am stuck on

• How to talk about arriving on this page via behaviour, detentions, etc.