Groupcall Messenger FAQs

How long do I have to subscribe for?

Groupcall is a subscription service and schools are not committed long-term. You are billed quarterly in advance. If you were to change your mind and decide that Groupcall was not for you, you just need to give one month's notice before the end of the current billing period. Many schools have decided to try Groupcall and the only costs are three months at their subscription level (e.g. Primary school £35 per month x 3 Months = £105 ex. VAT, plus an installation fee where required). If you decided not to continue after the three months, you would just give us notice. Other subscription levels are available, see Subscription Levels.

How many parents have mobile phones anyway?

The proliferation in mobile phone ownership means that every day this becomes less of an issue. In almost every family, there is at least one mobile phone and in many cases more. Actually, being able to be contacted by the school sometimes becomes a reason why some parents get phones in the first place.

Where does Groupcall gets its information from?

All information including pupil and parents records as well as the mobile number is read directly from your School Management System. No separate databases or data entry is required, so there is no duplication of effort.

Do I need additional hardware?

Groupcall will work on the same computer as your existing administration system. No dedicated hardware is required with the exception of a connection to the Internet.

The connection could be a dial-up connection on a modem, an ISDN modem (or router) or a broadband connection. It can be installed for a single user or on a fileserver and shared between a number of users.

Does it send the same message more than once to a parent if they have more than one child in the school?

No. If the same message is sent more than once to the same number, Groupcall will only send the message once. However, if a message is personalised in the case of sending Unauthorised Absence information to parents about their child's absence dates, then individual messages will be sent.

What if I can't send a text message?

You have the ability to control who receives a text message and who receives a voice message, and in fact, who not to send a message to at all. You can specify the type of message that you want to send as a preference, lets say SMS (text message), and if the contact details aren't available, then we'll identify this to you and send an alternate voice message.

Am I limited to sending messages from within school?

No, by ensuring that you have created and published your contact groups to our secure website, you have the ability to send messages from any PC with a connection to the Internet (even from home). This then gives you the benefit of being able to communicate with parents without the need to visit school, very useful for emergency closures and 'snow days'.

Tell me more about Voice messages

Voice messages that are sent to parents are 'natural voice recordings' that consist of individual components, we have identified the core components of the configurable voice message for you, to allow you to send a voice message with as little effort as possible.

We have 3 individual message types for you, which are detailed as follows:

Attendance (Response Required)
A message is read to the parents and then offers 3 options; to leave a voice message, to talk directly to the school, or to repeat the message. This would typically be used to inform parents of their child's absence from school, to which you would either like to speak directly to them, or offer them to leave a voice message in response.

Attendance (Record Response Only)
A message is read to the parents and then offers 2 options; to leave a voice message, or to repeat the message. This would typically be used to inform parents of their child's absence from school, to which you would like to reduce the amount of calls that come into the office, but would like to offer them to leave a voice message in response.

Broadcast
A message is read to the recipient and then offers the option to leave a voice message, or to repeat the message. This would typically be used to send information to pupils, parents, staff or any other contact that may be in your database.

How do I know if a message has been received by a parent?

Each individual message will be provided with its own unique delivery receipt, in the case of voice calls, parents have the ability to speak to someone directly at the school, or alternatively can leave a message via our service.

How do I listen to a message left by a parent?

Messages left by parents are accessible from within the Messenger application, in the same way that you would check to confirm that messages have been successfully delivered to their recipients. Audio recordings are available to be played as many times as you desire, and are played directly via your PC.

The school office is being inundated with calls from parents, after receiving a GC message, what can I do?

If you wish Groupcall to reduce the burden of answering multiple calls from Parents, simply choose to send an 'Attendance (Record Response Only)' message, this way at the end of the call Parents will be given the option to leave a message, rather than speak to someone directly at the school.

Where does Groupcall get its information from my MIS?

Facility CMIS

Capita SIMS

Pearson Phoenix

SEEMIS (Click & Go)

RM INTEGRIS

RM G2

Can I send a message to every Parent in the school?

Of course, simply select 'All Pupils' from within the client application installed on your PC in school, or alternatively create and publish a 'Whole School' or 'All Staff' group and publish this to our website to allow you to pass information to the parents of every pupil in the school.

What types of message can I send?

If you can think of a piece of information that you want to deliver to parents, then you can use Groupcall Messenger to send it

Who is using Groupcall Messenger?

Groupcall Messenger has been provided to schools in the UK, the entire length and breadth of the country, would you like to join the UK's leading provider of Parental Contact and Truancy Management?

What are the additional costs?

There are no hidden costs. You should see a reduction in your existing phone bills. If you choose to send your termly newsletter or parental contact forms via email, you should also find that printing costs will also be offset against sending messages via Groupcall.