Dear HarmonySite administrator,
We have an early Christmas present for you (one we've been promising for a while): Push Notifications for the App. This means that you can now manually push (send out) messages to any of your members that use the App. Those messages can be simple text messages (similar to an SMS, but free), or a notification about a song or a Bulletin Board item (document, news item, etc). Events coming soon!
You can send messages out individually or in bulk - to everyone in your group, or to a subset (a member grouping).
Send a General Notification
Sometimes you simply want to notify your members of something, urgently, like a change of venue for an event. In the past, you MAY have done that via an SMS text message. But those cost money. Sending general notifications to the APP is completely FREE. Here's how...
- Log in as an administrator
- Visit your Admin Dashboard
- Look for the new link on the "Members" line, called "Message all members via the App"...
- It's pretty simple from there...
The "Subject/title" can be changed by you, of course, but it's good to leave the group name there, so your members understand that this is a message from your group.
All the members in the member grouping selected at the top of the page are "pre-ticked". Naturally you can tick/untick any listed member. - Press the "Send" button.
Send a Notification about a Song/Document/etc
More often, you're going to want to notify your members about a new (or updated) song on your website, or perhaps a Bulletin Board item (a document, news item, etc). The notification itself will be quite simple - just a few words to say what's new or what's changed, no need to include any DETAILS about the song/document/etc. When the member taps on the notification, the App is opened and they are taken directly to that song/document/etc where they can see ALL the details.
To send such a notification is even simpler...
- Ensure you're logged in as an admin
- Visit the song's page, or the document's page
- Click on the new link at the top of the page called "Notify members via App"...
- A box will pop up. You need to enter the subject and message (you can change the pre-suggested text), and then nominate which set of members (member grouping) you want the message to go to.
- Press "Send". That's it!
This works currently for songs, and for Bulletin Board items (documents, news items, teaching resources, etc).
Naturally you can still send out the song/document/etc details via EMAIL. You may wish to do both.
What's Next?
Our NEXT job is to get this working with EVENTS. As part of that, we will be including a means for members to register their availability for events through the App. So you can send out a notification about an event, and people can advise their availability for that event with just a couple of taps on their phone. No need to email everyone, then get them to check their spam folders, etc!
Caveat
This is a very new feature for the App. We've tested it (of course), but it's difficult for us to test it with large groups of people. Please let us know if you see any unexpected behaviour.
Also, if you send out multiple notifications in quick succession, and a member has the App open at the time, it may be hard for them to view ALL the notifications. We're working on a fix for that.
So have a fine Christmas period everyone. Fill it with Harmony!
In harmony,
Mark Virtue
HarmonySite
Australia
+61 2 8005 4277 (Australian number)
In North America, call: 1-415-651-7009 (San Francisco number)
Skype name: mvirtue
