Knowledge Base Article

Aurora: Send a broadcast message

If you have the Send broadcast private messages permission (see Permission descriptions), you can send a broadcast message. These messages are delivered as announcements, and those who receive one cannot see the rest of the recipient list (this is in contrast to multi-user private messages, in which the recipient list can be seen by all those who received it). Broadcast messages have a limit of 10,000 recipients.

Refer to About the Inbox for more information about the Inbox.

To send a broadcast message:

  1. Sign in to the community and click Inbox (envelope icon).
  2. In the left panel, click Create (pencil icon).
  3. On the Create New Message window, turn on the Send as a Broadcast Message option.
  4. In the To field, enter the username of the people to whom you want to send a message. When you start typing a name, search results related to that name display so that you can select the correct person from the list.
  5. In the Subject field, enter a subject for your message.
    Note: “Announcement” is appended to the beginning of all broadcast message subjects.
  6. In the content editor, enter your message. See About the Content Editor for more information.
  7. Click Send Message.

You can view the sent messages in your Sent folder by clicking Inbox in the left panel and selecting Sent. To send a follow-up message from here, enter another response in the Reply… field.

When someone receives a broadcast message, “Announcement” always precedes the subject given to the message. Additionally, a microphone icon displays at the bottom right of the sender’s avatar.

Updated 6 months ago
Version 10.0
communities aurora
moderation
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12 Comments

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  • alodiac's avatar
    alodiac
    Mentor
    2 years ago

    If a user has turned off private messages, do they still receive the broadcast message?

  • LauraV's avatar
    LauraV
    Khoros Staff
    2 years ago

    alodiac In Aurora, members of a community cannot turn off their private messages (and there are no plans to allow this in the future), so they will always receive broadcast messages!

  • CarolineS's avatar
    CarolineS
    Boss
    2 years ago

    Hi LauraV -

    Pretty sure members of a community CAN turn off private messages - I can certainly do so here in Atlas. See screenshot.

    EDIT: OOOOOH, you're talking about Aurora! Never mind, sorry for my confusion! Confirmed that the currently-available Aurora settings don't seem to allow members to turn off private messages.

     

  • LauraV's avatar
    LauraV
    Khoros Staff
    2 years ago

    CarolineS Yes, we thought there might be some confusion between existing Community articles and the new Aurora articles! All of our articles in this "Aurora Learning" area have an "Aurora" label added to them to help differentiate. Hopefully this helps!

  • achavez03's avatar
    achavez03
    Mentor
    2 years ago

    Will we still be able to use the "Find User" feature for broadcast messages? 

  • LarryI's avatar
    LarryI
    Khoros Expert
    2 years ago

    achavez03 We have not yet added a functionality similar to "Find User" or sending a private message to a large amount of users in a role / group.  That is planned for Aurora as a post-MVP enhancement to the Inbox.

  • Jade_Small's avatar
    Jade_Small
    Contributor
    2 years ago

    LauraV  If we want to send a broadcast message to our entire Community base what's the best way to add these users?

  • LarryI's avatar
    LarryI
    Khoros Expert
    2 years ago

    Jade_Small Hi there, we are looking at improvements to the Broadcast feature and email templates holistically to allow you to reach your community in different ways.  An additional suggestion I have is to use your content types (forums, blogs, etc.) and encouraging users to subscribe to get notifications of new community activity.  That is the most common form of wide range communication in community, but we are looking into the times when you need to rely on email marketing or sending a PM to a wider group of users.

  • StanGromer's avatar
    StanGromer
    Boss
    2 years ago

    @alodiac In Aurora, members of a community cannot turn off their private messages (and there are no plans to allow this in the future), so they will always receive broadcast messages!

    ...... Why?  I have employees who can not deal with the spam they receive, and similarly users who absolutely do not want to get notified. Why in the world would this be smart to remove the only protection they have?  This is a horrible idea.
  • LarryI's avatar
    LarryI
    Khoros Expert
    2 years ago

    StanGromer For the full picture, we are not going to expose a setting to turn off Inbox.  Users will always be able to receive messages.  We are working on adding options (currently in dev) to add privacy settings for users.  It may change slightly but the options I'm planning for are:

    • Block everyone from sending private messages (with the exception of Admins and Moderators)
    • Only people I follow can send me messages (once we release the "Member Following" feature)
    • Anyone can send me a message (except any users I've blocked)

    Additionally, we are looking at the "Ignore / Block" user feature in Inbox as a part of this work.  There will be plenty of options to ensure users have control of their Inbox.

    The goal with an "always on" Inbox is to allow Admins and Moderators the ability to message users regardless of their privacy settings.  Currently today, users can turn off their Inbox entirely removing the ability for admins and moderators to send them messages without switching user to turn their Inbox back on.

    With this full picture, what is your feedback? StanGromer