Messages and consents: user guide

Sending a message to families, asking them for consent, and reading what each family answered, including the consents a change of parental responsibility has closed.

Written forRegistrarFront officeTeacherHead of house or yearBusiness managerPrincipal and executive

What it is for

Messages and consents is how the school talks to families and how it learns what they agree to. A message is written once, sent to the parents of the children you choose, and kept with a row for each person it was meant for. A consent is a family's yes or no to a question the school asked, and Kestrel keeps who answered, by which door and on what day.

Kestrel decides who may be told. You choose the children and the purpose, and Kestrel sends only to the parents who hold standing for that purpose. A person it did not send to still has a row that says so.

Who uses it

Role	What they can do
Registrar	Read and send messages, publish message templates, and read and record consents.
Front office	Read and send messages, and read and record consents.
Business manager	Read and record consents.
Principal	Read sent messages and read consents.
Teacher, head of house, nurse	Read the consents on a child's record.

In plain words, the capabilities are: reading sent messages (comms.message.read), sending a message (comms.message.send), reading consents (comms.consent.read) and asking families and recording answers (comms.consent.write).

Key ideas

Audience: The groups a message goes to, such as year-level:7. It goes to the parents of each child in the group.
Purpose: Why the school is writing: Emergency, Collection, Reports, Communications or Parental responsibility. A message goes only to parents who are set up to receive that purpose.
Channel: How it goes: Email, SMS, App notification or News feed.
Kind: Notice, Alert, Reminder, Release or Follow-up.
Template: A form of words with placeholders, kept in versions. Editing a template publishes a new version, and each message already sent stays as it was.
Delivery state: Where one person's copy got to: Waiting to send, Not sent, Sent, Failed or Read.
Consent ask: The record that the school asked a group of families for a consent, with a deadline. Each child is Yes, No, Not yet or Not asked. A silence is never a no.
Door: How a consent was given: on the portal, signed on paper, at the counter, over the telephone, or brought in from a previous system.

Screens

The Messages area has five tabs: Sent, New message, Consents, Ask families and Revoked. You see a tab only when you hold its capability.

Sent
/app/messages
What the school sent, newest first, with who it was for and where it got to. A message sent to named children lists the first few by name, and counts the rest and any child whose name your access level does not show. Above the list are the replies no-one has dealt with, such as an SMS from a number the school has not recorded.
Needs comms.message.read
A message
/app/messages/[id]
One message: what it said, who it was for, and the delivery state of each person's copy. A person who was not sent it shows as Not sent, with a note.
Needs comms.message.read
New message
/app/messages/new
Write and send a message: who it is for, how it goes, what kind it is and what it says, with an optional photograph of a child.
Needs comms.message.send
Consents
/app/consents
The asks the school has made, with the figures for Yes, No and Not yet. The Open view is the default, and Everything keeps the asks the office has closed.
Needs comms.consent.read
Ask families
/app/consents/new
Ask a group of families for a consent, with the date answers are wanted and the reminders.
Needs comms.consent.write
A consent request
/app/consents/[requestId]
One ask: where it stands, each child's answer, what was sent and who the office still has to chase.
Needs comms.consent.read
Revoked
/app/consents/revoked
Consents a change of parental responsibility closed, with who holds responsibility now and the number to ring.
Needs comms.consent.write

Send a message

Open Messages and choose "New message".
Under "Who it is for", write one group on each line, such as year-level:7. Kestrel lists the kinds of group your school offers beside the field. Choose a Purpose. The message goes only to parents who are set up to receive it.
Under "How it goes", tick Email, SMS, App notification or News feed.
Under "What kind of message", choose a Kind and a Tier.
Under "What it says", pick a Template, or choose "No template" and write a Title and a Message. Placeholders such as {{recipient.name}} and {{student.name}} are filled in for each person.
If you want a photograph of a child to go with the message, find the student under Photographs. Kestrel sends it only where a guardian has consented to the school publishing a photograph of that child, and it refuses the whole message and names the child when one is missing.
Choose "Send". Kestrel opens the message's own page, where you read who was reached and who was not.

A message sent by a scheduled job has no author and reads as no member of staff. That is why a person whose record is protected is never sent one.

Ask families for a consent

Open Messages and choose "Ask families".
Under "What the families are asked for", choose the Consent. Only a purpose about a general matter is offered here. A consent about one activity or one photograph is asked for from that thing's own screen, such as a trip.
Under "Which families are asked", write one group on each line. Kestrel asks the parents who can give consent for each child in the group, and leaves out a child whose family has already said yes.
Under "When the answers are wanted", set "Answers wanted by", then optionally "Consent lasts until", "Shows from" and "Reminders". Reminders are whole days before the deadline, filled in from the school's own days, and you can clear the field to send none.
Optionally attach a document, such as an itinerary or a medical form. The family opens it from the ask before answering.
Choose "Ask the families". The request goes out in a moment.

Read the answers and chase the rest

Open an ask on the Consents tab. It shows its standing as a chip: Open, Overdue, Lapsed or Closed. The table "Each child's answer" shows Yes, No, Not yet or Not asked beside each child. Where two guardians disagree, a yes beside another person's no is still a yes, and the page says the answers disagree so a person settles it.

A reader who may record consents also sees the list "Still to answer". It lists each child the ask is waiting on, who to ring for each, and a place to record what the family said. Choose "Send reminder now" to remind the families still to answer, and "Print" to print the list for the office.

Open the ask and read "Still to answer".
Ring the person named under "Who to ring".
Choose "Record an answer" on the child's row. Choose the Answer (Yes or No), "Who gave it" and "How it was given" (at the counter, over the telephone or on paper), and write what they said.
Choose "Record answer". The child moves to Yes or No.

A consent can also be recorded from a child's own record. The Consents section there lists what is in force, what the family answered no to, and who gave each answer. Choose "Withdraw" beside a consent in force to end it.

Revoked consents

When someone stops holding parental responsibility for a child, a nightly rule closes the consents they gave. The Revoked tab lists them, most recent first, with the day each closed. Beside each child it shows the family members who hold responsibility now and a number to ring, so the office can ask again without opening each record.

A person a protection withholds is not on the list and their number never reaches the page. A child whose only remaining guardian is protected lists no-one to ring, and the row says so.

Tasks

Send a message to the families of a year level. Send a message to families
Send a message from the front office. Send a message to families
Publish a message template. Publish a message template
Ask families for a consent and set the deadline.
Record a consent a family gave at the counter or by telephone.
Work down the children still to answer and print the list.
Read the revoked consents and ask again.

Journeys

Messages and consents take part in an excursion, where the families are asked for consent and the office works down the missing answers.

Settings

Area	What it does
Message templates	The forms of words the office sends from, with each version kept. Publishing over a template starts its next version. Each template has a name, the channels it is sent by, a subject line, a body, a tier and how long a message from it is kept.
Consents	The purposes the school asks about, each with a code, the note's tier and what a family is agreeing to. You can stop asking for a purpose and ask again later. The reminder days the school uses for a new ask are set here.

Training notes

Who needs it: the registrar, the front office and the business manager. Each teacher needs only the Consents section on a child's record.
Suggested length: forty minutes.
Practise on the test school: send a message to a year level, ask for a consent, record an answer by telephone, then open the message and read who was not sent it and why.