Professionals | Creating groups and sending messages

Creating and managing groups of individuals 

Groups are a great way to manage individuals. You may wish to group individuals by services needed, barriers, demographics, or other features unique to your Organization. Groups are unique to you, and will not be seen by any other professionals at your organization.

Check out our quick how-to video on how to create groups and send messages. 

This article will cover how to: 

• Create groups using the Message Center
• Create groups using Ad-Hoc Reporting 
• Bulk message a group that has been created

Creating groups using the Message Center

On the left sidebar navigation, click the button labeled "Messages" to navigate to your Message Center.

From here, you will see all message activity. Navigate to "Message Groups." 

You can create a Group directly in the Message Center by clicking the “+ New Message Group” from the Message Center, in the bottom right-hand corner.

Give the group a name and description that is helpful to you, and select General Communication under Message Group Category.

Next, to add the appropriate participants to the group, click "Add Contact" in the bottom right-hand corner. 

Type the names and select the participants who should be added to the group. You are able to add multiple participants at one time if you wish. Click "Add Contact to Group" once the appropriate participants have been selected. 

Click the name of the Group to view the contacts included in the group. From here, you can edit the participants included in a group and/or view a participant’s record. This table view can be a helpful resource to quickly access email and phone numbers for a group of participants.

Creating Groups using Ad-Hoc Reporting

First, locate the Ad-Hoc Reports tab on your sidebar navigation menu.

Go to “Start with” to select all Participants at your location(s) or Participants you have been tracking (that you have pinned). This is also where you will go to find previously saved reports. You can use filters to narrow any criteria further. Once you have the appropriate filters in place and have the group of participants that you want, click "Copy."

Then, in the pop-up menu, create a report name, include an optional description, and click "Save." 

After your query is saved, the report will be listed under “My Reports” under the “Start with” field. Select the report that you just created. 

There are different options on the bottom of the screen – Create Message Group or Export to CSV/Excel. Select “Create Message Group” and click Go.

Once the group has been created, there will be a message and link at the top right to access the group.

If you don’t click the link that says "Click here", you'll need to navigate to the Messages on your side bar navigation and follow the steps listed above on how to send a message to your group.

Bulk messaging an existing group

Click “Compose Message” from within the Message Center to send a group an email message. Fill it out like an email. Then select which group(s) you want it to go out to – the selected group(s) will be checked at the right and listed at the top. Your Professional user’s name will appear as the sender.

The Message Body includes rich text formatting and options to include links or attachments.