Send a (targeted) news message

This article describes how you can send (targeted) news messages with or without a push notification.

There are two levels on which you can send a news message: app level and event level. The steps to send the message and the available options are the same on both levels.

                                

• App news messages (on the left) will appear in the overview below the News tile, on the home screen, and will be received by everyone who has installed the Society App. You can send these messages year-round and they do not have to be event-related. For example, you can send news updates about your society, announce upcoming events, or promote memberships.

• Event messages (on the right) will appear in the event news feed and will only be received by those who have installed the (single) event app. 

Send a new message

To send a new message, go to the message overview by clicking the menu item. Select the tab News and click Add news.

This will open a wizard with two steps.

Step 1: Content

• Subject: this is used in two places: the title in the news overview and, if you send a push notification, as the push notification text. Keep this below 75 characters, as it might be truncated if it's longer.

• Push notification: tick this box if you, besides including the news messages in the overview, also want to send a push notification. Be careful with sending push notifications: if you send too many, users will be annoyed and switch off notifications completely.

• Pin message to top of news feed: tick this box if you want the news message to be pinned to the top of the news feed, and therefore visible before any other news messages, even the more recently sent ones.

• Message: add the text of your message here. You can use basic styling (bold, italic, underlined), bullet lists and links. Please note that links will open in the in-app browser so that users do not leave your app. In case you want a link to open in an external browser, add: ?openlinkType=external. If the link already contains a ?-query, use &openlinkType=external instead. By clicking Preview you can see how the message will be displayed.

• Media: media will appear above the news message in the feed and on the detail page. To include videos, you need to add a YouTube or Vimeo URL. For images, you can either link to a URL, when your image is already online, or you can upload the image directly. To remove an added image or video, click Clear.

Step 2: Date and time

• Send date and time: here you can choose to send the message Now or Select a date to schedule it for later. If you choose the latter, select the date and time when to send it. Make sure to also set if this is the date and time in your current timezone or in the event timezone.

• Expiration date and time: if you want your message to expire after a certain period, set an expiration date and time for it by choosing Select a date. After this date, the message is no longer visible in the app. This could be useful for example for late room changes or activity announcements, that are not relevant anymore after the session or activity has ended. If you set an expiration date, you also need to select the timezone of this date.

Click Send/Schedule after adding all details. If you have chosen to send it now, it will be sent immediately. You can then see a checkmark next to the message. If you have scheduled it for later, you will see a clock icon, and the date it will be sent.

Edit a message

Scheduled or sent news messages can be edited by clicking Edit in the overview. This can be useful if you have for example made a typo. The same data as above can be edited. Please note that when your message has already been sent with a push notification, the box is unchecked, as you cannot send messages in the past. Expired messages cannot be edited.

Delete a message

To delete a message from the news in the app, click Delete in the overview. If you had a push notification scheduled, it will no longer be sent.

Targeted news messages

Besides messages you send to all your app users, you can also send a targeted message to a certain group within your community or event. To learn how to add users to groups, read this article.

To send a new targeted message, go to the message overview by clicking the menu item. Select the tab Targeted messages and click Add targeted message.

This will open the same wizard as for regular news messages, except a new step is added in the beginning. In this step, you select up to 3 groups of users to whom you want to send your message. You can choose to send it to all users that are part of all selected groups, or any of these groups. Besides that, you can also filter on the country.

After setting the receivers, you can continue with the other steps as described above.

View receivers

Please note that this section only applies to targeted messages.
Once the news message is sent or scheduled, you can find a button View receivers in the table overview. This opens a table in which you can see all users that are part of the groups you selected when creating the message. These users will see the messages in their news feed.

If you want to check if a specific user has seen your message, enter (part of) the user's name in the box at the bottom left. The table will be filtered accordingly.