Send a text to many students

If your program has texting turned on and your admin has given you the Bulk Texting permission, you can send one message to a whole group at once. It is the fastest way to remind everyone about a deadline or an event.

If you do not see Bulk Texts in the left menu, either texting is off for your program or your role does not include bulk texting. Your admin can change both in Settings.

Two ways to start

• Bulk Texts in the left menu opens the picker with nobody chosen yet.
• Program Year at the top right of the recipient list chooses which year you are texting. It opens on the current program year, so soon after a new year starts you will see only the students already enrolled in it. Switch the year to reach an earlier group. Anyone you have already ticked stays ticked when you change the year, so you can build one send that spans two years.
• On the Students page, tick the students you want, then choose Send Text in the bar that appears. Your selection travels with you.

Either way you land on the same screen, so the rules about consent, limits and timing are the same.

Choose who gets it

Search, filter and sort exactly as you do on the Students page, then tick the people you want. The header shows how many you have chosen and how many texts your program has left this month.

When you choose Write Message, TRIOPilot checks who can actually receive a text right now. Selecting 400 students does not always mean 400 messages.

Write the message

The box under Your Message counts your characters and tells you how many message parts each text will use. This matters: a carrier bills every part, so a long message costs more, and a single emoji shortens every part sharply. The counter also shows the total this send will draw from your monthly allowance.

The Add a Name buttons drop in a placeholder that fills itself per person:

• First Name becomes each student's first name. A student with no first name on file gets a friendly greeting instead of a blank.
• Advisor Name becomes your name.
• Program Name becomes your program's name.

One caution about signing a message with your name: replies come back to your program's shared number, not to you personally. A message that reads like a private note can leave a student expecting a private answer, so say who to contact if that matters.

The Preview shows the message as a real person in your selection will receive it, with their actual name in place of the placeholder.

Send yourself a test first

Under Send Yourself a Test, choose Send Test. The test goes to the one test number your program has saved, shown right there on the screen, usually an administrator's own cell. You cannot type in another number: the test is for checking a broken name or a bad link before several hundred people see it, not for texting an individual. It counts as one message against your monthly allowance, and there is a small hourly limit on tests.

If no test number is saved yet, test sends are turned off. An administrator sets one on Settings > Features > Text Messaging.

Check before you send

The last screen names your program next to the recipient count. Read that line. If you work across more than one program, or you are viewing a program as a super admin, this is where you catch it.

It also shows:

• Who will not get this, by name and reason. Most often that is a missing mobile number or no opt-in on record. It is a warning, not a stop sign: you can send anyway and chase the missing numbers afterwards.
• How much of your monthly allowance the send will use, and how much is left.
• Where replies go, which is each student's own message thread, with a notification to their assigned advisor.

Then choose Send Now, or Send at a Time and pick one. Times are in your program's time zone. A scheduled text goes out at, or shortly after, the time you choose, and TRIOPilot warns you if you pick a time outside normal hours.

Who does not receive a bulk text

A student is left out when any of these is true:

• They have no mobile number on file.
• They have not opted in to texts. A group text is stricter here than a single text from a profile: TRIOPilot will not include someone whose consent is unknown.
• They replied STOP. Consent belongs to the phone number, so if anyone in your program sharing that number has opted out, the number is blocked for everyone on it.

One more line can appear on the check screen, and it is counted rather than named: students whose record is no longer in this program, usually because it was deleted or moved after you made your selection. There is no record left to take a name from, so TRIOPilot tells you how many there were. The totals on that screen always add up to the number you picked, so a selection that shrank on its way there is something you see rather than something you discover later.

Changing your mind

Scheduled Texts lists every text waiting to go out for your program, whoever wrote it, with its message, recipient count, author and time. Choose Cancel to stop one. Anyone with bulk texting in your program can cancel any scheduled text in it, on purpose: a message that should not go out is urgent, and the person who wrote it may be away. Every cancellation is recorded with the name of whoever did it.

Once a text has started going out it finishes. The list says so rather than offering a button that would not work.

Seeing what you sent

Text History shows every group text your program has sent, newest first, with how many were delivered, how many failed, and who wrote it. It is the quickest way to answer "did we already tell them about FAFSA night".

What a group text does not do

• It does not log a contact. A group text is not recorded as a contact on anyone's record.
• It does not repeat. Each send goes once, now or at the one time you pick.

If the send is refused

If the group is larger than the texts you have left this month, TRIOPilot refuses the whole send and nothing goes out. That is deliberate: half an announcement is worse than none, because you cannot tell who got it, and the half who missed it are usually the ones who needed it. Ask your admin about your monthly limit, or send to a smaller group.