Emergency Bulletin

Platform managers can publish emergency bulletin messages, determine which roles and personas should see the alert, and determine when the message should appear and expire. Include a URL in your message to link users to additional information.

If your school also uses Blackbaud's School Website System , you can also publish the emergency bulletin to your public-facing website.

From Core, select Communication and Emergency bulletins. Existing bulletins appear in a list.

Users see emergency bulletins appear as a banner message when they log in.

We recommend you document potential scenarios and sample messages in your school's policies and procedures. To reduce message fatigue (in which users begin to ignore and dismiss banner messages without reading them), avoid excessive use of emergency bulletins for general messages.

Breaking news

Closures

Dangerous wildlife

Delayed start time

Early closing time

Inclement weather

Lockdown or active shooter

Lookout for person of interest

The Status of each bulletin is based on its publication and expiration dates and times.

  • Active: The bulletin is currently visible to at least some users.

  • Scheduled: The bulletin will be visible to at least some users on a future date.

  • Inactive: The bulletin was previously visible to at least some users.

When you create a bulletin for emergency communications, keep the message concise and informative, and remind readers about your school's existing action plans and how readers should expect to receive any follow-up information.

  1. From Core, select Communication and Emergency bulletins.

  2. Select Add Bulletin.

  3. Enter a concise, informative, and attention-grabbing title.

  4. Enter a message explaining the nature of the emergency and the actions your school has taken or will take to mitigate disruptions and harm. Use the formatting tools (including HTML) provided to add images, links, or emphasis to the message.

  5. Enter an optional URL to link readers to additional details about the situation, your school's response, and additional instructions for members of your community. When the banner appears, users select Additional information to access the linked content, which opens in a new browser window or tab.

  6. Enter a date and time for when the bulletin should Begin to appear and when it should End. To show it immediately, enter the current time or a very recent time as the beginning.

    The bulletin Status is based on the dates when the message is published and expires.

  7. Select whether to show the bulletin

    • as a Banner to users who log in to your online solution,

    • as a Lightbox message on your school's Blackbaud's School Website System website for a message to the general public outside of your school,

    • or both.

  8. If your school has multiple sites managed with Blackbaud's School Website System, select which ones should show the emergency bulletin as a lightbox.

  9. Select which users (who log in to your online solution) should see the emergency bulletin as a banner message.

  10. Save the bulletin.

Find the bulletin in the list. From its row, select the pencil icon to edit the bulletin. Enter your changes and Save the bulletin.

If the message was used in the past and expired, the bulletin will be inactive until you select new dates to publish the bulletin for the present or future. When the new publish dates occur, the bulletin will become active and the banner will appear for the target audience to read.

Consider editing past messages for issues that your school faces regularly so your messaging is consistent over time. For example, you might edit last year's weather notice for use when similar weather occurs this year.

You might also write bulletins prior to actual emergencies as you create your action plans, so your messaging is ready to publish as quickly as possible when a true emergency occurs. For example, you might draft a bulletin to prepare for a possible major earthquake, even though your area historically only faces smaller tremors.

Find the bulletin in the list. From its row, select the trash icon to Delete the bulletin and then Confirm you want to permanently remove the message.

If the message had not yet expired, the message could be removed before all users have had a opportunity to view it. This may occur if the message had been published but some users in the target audience haven't logged in to view the message yet.

If the message had not yet been published, the target audience will never have an opportunity to view the message.

In addition to emergency bulletins within the online solution, some schools may also use a third party integration to push voice or text messages to emergency contacts. Your school might publish emergency information to your school's public facing website or social media accounts for public media to consume. Consider using Pushpage (Newsletter) issues to send emails in preparation for emergencies, for updates during some emergencies, and to share retrospective information after an incident has passed. We recommend you post relevant plans to prepare for emergencies to internal resource boards or other shared community information hubs. You can also explore white papers, podcasts, blog posts and more about emergency preparations in the resources on the K-12 hub and discuss best practices with other schools in the K-12 user community .

You can also create pop-up messages that appear after a user signs in. Typically you'll want to use these to announce important information or remind users to complete an action. You'll control how long the message will appear and when it will expire. For example, you may want to remind users about an upcoming major event, a weather alert, or remind them to review their emergency contact information. You'll manage these sign in messages from a different task screen. See sign in messages for details.

A manager can print emergency contacts in bulk, such as to take on a field trip. From Core, select Analysis, Reports, and then search for "emergency" reports. See Reports for information about how to run a report.