What this helps you do
Sending a Blast delivers your message to the phones and computers of everyone in the audience you pick, and by email to the families who chose email. You can send now, schedule for later, or repeat weekly. The composer supports formatting, links and images, up to three attached files (a permission form, a map, a revised bell schedule), a YES / NO reply the Hub counts, and Send a test to me so you see exactly what families will receive.
When to use it
Use it for the messages that fail in a newsletter: a closure or a two-hour delay decided before dawn, a weather call, an early dismissal, a change to pickup or the dismissal door, a bus running late, a field trip returning behind schedule, a cancelled practice or a moved rehearsal, a chaperone or volunteer call, a form or fee deadline closing Friday, and an important school notice families need today.
How to do it
- Open Send, or start from one of the starter templates your Hub seeds for closures and delayed openings, dismissal changes, deadlines, volunteer calls and activity changes.
- Pick an audience: one grade, one campus, athletics, activities, volunteers, staff, or All Families.
- Type the message. Attach the revised schedule or the permission form if it helps (up to three files, 5 MB each).
- For a dismissal change or a volunteer call, ask for a YES / NO reply and the Hub counts the answers families send.
- Read the Delivery panel: one Blasts credit per person on Blasts, one email credit per email.
- Click Send a test to me, then choose Send now, Schedule for later, or Repeat weekly for a Friday reminder.
- If you are sending to All Families, confirm with your passkey or on your phone when asked.
Example
Tuesday, 5:30 a.m., the roads are ice. The principal picks All Families, says school opens two hours late, buses run on the same delay and breakfast is not served, confirms with a passkey and clicks Send now. By 5:45 the read count shows most families have opened it, and the office phone tree only has to cover the few who have not.
Good to know
- An immediate send is held for about a minute so you can cancel it from Sent & Scheduled; nothing is charged for a cancelled Blast.
- Delivered and read counts come from confirmed actions in the Blasts app, not from tracking pixels, so they tell you which families still need a call. A read is not an acknowledgement: ask for a YES / NO reply when you need an answer from a family.
- This is one more channel beside whatever your school is already required to do in an emergency. It does not replace your emergency procedures, your official notification or the call from the office.
- Recurring Blasts, such as a Friday week-ahead note, are managed under Sent & Scheduled: pause, resume or delete them there.
- If a coordinator's Blasts require approval (Settings), their send waits under Sent & Scheduled until an administrator approves it.
- The Hub suggests the hour your Blasts are read most, based on the last 60 days.