Name: SchoolMessenger
Rating: 2.1 (7 reviews)
Author: PowerSchool Group LLC

Help Desk

Web and Video Conferencing

Customer Support

Learning Management

Education

AI Document Creation

Business Intelligence (BI)

Calendar

Collaboration

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)

Enterprise

Accounting

Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A)

Merger and Acquisition

Finance and Accounting

Applicant Tracking

Corporate Learning Management

HR Management

HR Service Delivery

Job Board

Payroll

Talent Intelligence

Talent Management

Workforce Analytics

Workforce Management

Human Resources

Application Server

Blockchain Analysis

Cloud Management

Cloud Storage

Composable Infrastructure

Container Security

Data Center Backup

Data Integration

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

Enterprise Printing

Event Monitoring

Fraud Detection

Function as a Service (FaaS)

Industrial IoT

Infrastructure-as-a-Service

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

Managed Security Service

Mobile Device Management (MDM)

Monolithic Frame-based Disk Arrays

Network Performance Monitoring

SQL Server Performance Monitoring

Secure Web Gateway

Information Technology

A/B Testing

Ad Serving & Retargeting

All-in-One Marketing

Community

Content Management

Creative Management

Customer Advocacy

Email Marketing

Influencer Marketing

Market Research

Marketing Automation

Marketing Resource Management

Mobile Marketing

Social Media Management

Survey & Forms Building

Tag Management

Web Analytics

Marketing

Interactive Whiteboard

Project Management

Professional Services

Call Recording

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Sales Dialer

Sales

Application Security

Cloud Security Posture Management

Security

Card Management

Clinical Data Management

Donor Management

Text Analysis

Warranty Management

Vertical-Specific

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SchoolMessenger is a school community software featuring secure email, social media monitoring, school website, and mobile app. In late 2023 it was acquired by PowerSchool, and is now a PowerSchool product.

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Discord is an app designed to connect users with communities over voice, video, and text chat, via Discord servers, a gaming and game industry oriented app for growing communities around video games and allowing developers to communicate with their customer base; the app may yet also be used for business communications of other kinds.

Discord Nitro

Discord Nitro Classic

Discord

SchoolMessenger

Online community platforms are enterprise platforms designed to foster collaboration between employees and with customers. Typical functionality includes social networking, blogs, wikis, discussion boards, polls, ratings and reviews, support, private messaging, etc. Community platforms differ from social networks in that they are usually  much more specific, i.e. users of a specific product.

Likelihood to Recommend

Performance

Usability

Support Rating

Ease of integration

PowerSchool Group LLC provides a suite of software for K-12 school management, including a Student Information System for managing school operations, as well as an LMS and tools for managing registration data, assessment data, special education requirements and plans, etc.

PowerSchool Group LLC

Alchemer

Renaissance DnA

Google Surveys

Chief Business Officer

SchoolMessenger 2021-04-12 22:23:16

Data Services Coordinator

SchoolMessenger 2020-03-04 14:56:37

Director of Technology

West Unified Communications as a Service 2017-09-24 18:09:12

WordPress

Schoology Learning

Square Online

Flipgrid

Frontline Professional Growth

SchoolMessenger 2019-01-24 08:21:09

Frontline HCM (Aesop Online)

SchoolMessenger 2019-01-24 15:53:13

TrustRadius is a technology and business research firm based in Austin, Texas. The company is known as a review platform for verified B2B technology and software reviews through a proprietary algorithm and human verification.

TrustRadius

Makes it difficult

Time consuming

Change colors

Editing tools

Difficult to navigate

Lower price

Data integration

Cleaned up

Slow to respond

Integration process

User friendly

Basic users

Top notch

Detailed and easy

Helpful customer service

Easy to use

Mobile app

Phone numbers

Send a message

No training

Home

Community Platforms and Solutions

SchoolMessenger was used by our 30,000 student school district in over 53 schools in the Silicon Valley. We started using them in 2009. In the late summer of last year we identified the process to notify parents of how to opt into text messaging so we could better communicate with parents during the pandemic, especially since we were rooted in distance learning to start the year. I found it challenging to communicate with their staff because I could not directly call a person - we were required to call into a central number and each time I'd talk to a different person. As a result, I took copious notes and documented who I talked to every time. 

We walked through the steps that SchoolMessenger explained to have parents opt in. We messaged our community like crazy for two straight weeks so we were ready to go with parent opt-ins for our major upload of all parent contact information. SchoolMessenger had previously coordinated with our SIS, as it is a big name company.

About two weeks after the upload, parents notified me that they were able to view information about other students, their contact information, their parents information, etc. We had a major data breach that took place. Their customer service team wasn't helpful and tried to blame it on our database administrators, but research by their staff and our database administrators showed they didn't properly write the code to match the parent contact info during the upload. Our school board was upset. Our parents were very angry. When we asked for a refund and tried to switch to another company, they stopped communicating with us. I do NOT recommend SchoolMessenger at all. Their customer service is awful, the didn't properly protect student and family information, and they played the blame game throughout.

Customer service.
Knowing how to manage the data integration process.
Ethical behavior.

Home to school communication.
Centralized messaging.

Lost the confidence of families that we were protecting their data.
Refused to refund our funds after they released confidential information.
Required extensive resources to find another product.

Google Surveys, Alchemer, formerly SurveyGizmo, Illuminate Data & Assessment (DnA)

We use SchoolMessenger to notify parents and staff for general and emergency information. From weather closings to athletic updates to teacher conferences, all calls go out quickly with excellent reporting feedback. The reporting is excellent. You can find out how many people never answered, hung up, listened to part of the message, or listened to the entire message. It has solved many issues for us, including what phone numbers are now disconnected. The fact that it syncs with our SIS keeps our staff from having to do extra work. We do not have to leave our SIS system to send a notification. It has dramatically saved on postage and cutting down on mail going to the wrong address.

The reports are very detailed and easy to use. I can quickly show each school what student is missing or has inaccurate phone numbers.
The system itself is user-friendly. We don't have to leave our SIS system to send a message.
Their customer service is top-notch and very knowledgeable about their product.

There's nothing I dislike. This program is very straight forward to use.
It just works well.

SchoolMessenger is an excellent tool that links the school admin with the parents directly, which avoids the risks of students not delivering the message.
Saves money and time not being held hostage by the US postal service.

We use West (school messenger) for our websites, and parent/emergency notification system. It is used by our entire school district.

Does a great job of posting messages to multiple locations at once. We can send out a message that goes to email, SMS, phone call, Facebook, mobile app and website.
Very detailed and clear reports after the message is sent, showing who it was delivered to and who didn't receive it.
Interface is very user friendly. Little to no training is needed for basic users.

Cost is significant. Not unreasonable, to lower price would be great.
Support is very, very slow to respond. Unless you call in it takes several days to receive a response. I've had tickets open for over a week to resolve the issue.

Kept all communications uniform across multiple mediums (Facebook, mobile app, email, phone) -- All messages are the same.
Cost was the same as our previous solution
Easier to use than previous solution

We transitioned our district and school websites over to SchoolMessenger. We were looking for something that offered a more modern look and feel, as well as responsive technology so it could be viewed on different devices. We also wanted something that had an app feature, included broadcasts, and didn't break us financially. This included everything we need in one package.

The responsive technology is really good. Moving banners are smooth and viewing on a phone has a cleaner scrolling view.
Modern, sleek design, with more visual options.
The included broadcast feature helps us a lot with notifications.

Limited functionality. A lot is set through templates. This makes it difficult to really hone in and customize to your liking. You can change colors, etc. But really getting creative with website/webpage design isn't as advanced as some other programs.
The page editing (for example faculty member and department pages) is difficult to navigate. This would be a lot better if it was cleaned up and easier to navigate.
Setting up the website is difficult and time-consuming as well as the app part.

Allowed visitors to navigate our website on mobile devices much easier, with less time.
Afforded us options to integrate broadcasts and notifications limited other tools used.
Updated our look to match a more modern, tech savvy atmosphere.

Schoology, Flipgrid, Frontline Professional Growth

School messenger is being utilized in schools to send information to parents. This allows the parents to receive quick emails from the school regarding school events or other important events. It addresses the possible issue of students misplacing papers that go home and also eliminates the needs for paper copies going home.

Email access.
Attachments.
Notifications to parents regarding important information.

Page editing tools could be streamlined better.
Navigation could be more straightforward.
A short process to get up and running.

Ease of access.
Quick access for families.
PowerSchool Integration.

Flipgrid, Frontline Absence Management (formerly Aesop), Schoology

SchoolMessenger

Overview

What is SchoolMessenger?