OS1+-+Salon+D

NOTIFICATIONS: Using Fully and Encouraging Signup - Lisa

Participants: Lisa Taylor: Berkeley Hall School, Los Angeles Jessica Cady, WhippleHill

SourceURL:file://localhost/Users/CommMgr/Documents/NOTIFICATIONS.doc// One of the problems is that the URL to go to the full announcement is not in the notifications – that is frustrating parents

Design a naming convention to be followed by teachers and staff that indicates who/where the notification is coming from so that parents know where to go to get the full info If possible - put all the information you'd like to communicate in the title MUST fill in the author The group it came from important to put in the subject
 * Best Practices:**

The most well received notifications are the ones that include the information and don’t ask the parents to go find the information The parents can always go to the announcement category to see the history if they missed it

Make it private from the beginning – you can’t change it once you’ve sent one

Decide: What is an announcement?? Get all the teachers on the same page. Have a guide for teachers and staff to follow

Some ideas of notifications that work well: Weather alerts School closings Sports changes or scores Announcements that are quick and time sensitive

It would be nice to be able to group subscription lists Naming subscription lists – naming options is the weakest point
 * Wish List:**

One place to go to manage which lists they’ve been put on Go to //my notifications// to de-select which lists you want to subscribe to

Is there a way to unsubscribe the grad parents based on grad year?

Define a query to get a list of people

There was a suggestion to have WH make subscribe be the default and unsubscribe be the parents’ choice

Have WH gather all the Jing videos that really work well and make them available to all the schools as models or to use

Having the pushpage subscription lists present on my notifications page is confusing to end users so it’s important to create “private” subscription lists from the very beginning or to name subscription lists appropriately to reduce the confusion.

Actual content in notifications works best with notification that directs constituents directly to the message (WH needs to re-instate links in notifications)

Notifications for athletic changes is the best place to start. Game changes, rain outs, etc. get parents need to know information immediately and gets them used to the idea of notifications.

Short jing videos seem to work better for parents than written instructions
 * Creating instructions for parents**

Link to resource (sample video)

@http://uc11.wikispaces.com/message/view/Open+Space+Sessions/41065603