Overview

Mailroom is a single page for messaging guardians directly — outside of a specific report or transcript send. Open it from the hamburger menu (it only appears for accounts with Mailroom access) or go straight to Mailroom under the main navigation. It shows every guardian contact you're allowed to see on the left, and a compose panel with delivery history on the right.

Turning on Mailroom access

Mailroom is off by default for everyone except the organisation owner. To let a staff member use it:

  1. Go to Management → Manage Employees.
  2. Open the employee's record (Add Employee for a new hire, or the pencil/modify action for an existing one).
  3. In the permissions list, check Mailroom (Send SMS/WhatsApp/Email).
  4. A Mailroom contact access panel appears — choose a scope (see below), then save.

Only accounts with this permission see the Mailroom link in the hamburger menu at all. Everyone else — including staff who can see other Management Tools — won't know it exists.

Choosing who an employee can message (contact scope)

When Mailroom is checked, you must choose one of two access levels:

  • All contacts (every class) — the employee can see and message every guardian in the school, exactly like the organisation owner.
  • Only guardians of students in selected classes — pick the specific classes. The employee's Mailroom contact list, and anything they send, is limited to guardians of students in those classes only.
Tip: Use the restricted scope for homeroom teachers or class-level staff who should only reach their own students' guardians. Reserve "All contacts" for front-office/admin staff who need school-wide reach.
This is enforced, not just hidden: the restriction is checked again on the server every time a message is sent — a restricted employee cannot message a guardian outside their assigned classes even by any indirect means. If a class assignment changes later, edit the employee's record again to update Mailroom's class list; it does not automatically follow their teaching assignment.

If no classes are selected for a "restricted" employee, they will see an empty contact list until at least one class is chosen.

Sending a message

  1. Open Mailroom.
  2. On the left, search and select one or more guardian contacts (use Select all to select everyone currently visible in the list — click again to deselect all).
  3. Type the message in the compose box on the right.
  4. Check one or more channels — Text (SMS), WhatsApp, and/or Email — the checkboxes only appear once a message is started or a recipient is selected.
  5. Click Send, confirm the recipient/channel summary, then enter your password to confirm. Nothing is sent until the password is confirmed.

Sending to multiple channels at once sends the same message through each — a guardian with both a phone number and email selected under "Text" and "Email" receives it both ways.

When a channel can't reach a recipient

A channel checkbox is greyed out and disabled if none of your currently selected recipients have the contact info it needs (e.g. SMS/WhatsApp need a phone number, Email needs an email address). A note explains why, and if none of the selected recipients can be reached on any active channel, a banner explains that too — add the missing contact info to the guardian's record first (via the report/transcript "Edit contacts" drawers, or the guardian's profile) and try again.

Activating SMS and WhatsApp

Email always works — Managira sends it directly. SMS and WhatsApp both require the school to activate a provider first. If either isn't set up yet, Mailroom shows a banner at the top of the page explaining which one is missing, with a direct link to Integrations.

  1. Click the banner's Activate in Integrations link, or go to Account Settings → Integrations directly.
  2. Follow the setup steps for your SMS provider (e.g. Arkesel, Africa's Talking) and/or WhatsApp Business.
  3. Return to Mailroom — the banner disappears once a channel is active, and its checkbox becomes available.

Delivery history

Every message sent through Mailroom appears as its own card below the compose panel, showing the channel, recipient, delivery status, who sent it, and when. An employee with restricted (class-scoped) access only sees the history of messages they personally sent — not messages sent by other staff — since those could involve contacts outside their assigned classes. Accounts with "All contacts" access see the school's full Mailroom history.