Rapport - Message Sending - Send by Area

Within the Rapport message sending process, if you have selected 'no' to the question 'Is your message related to an engagement/event' and 'Is your message addressing a local concern', you will be taken to the standard 'send message by area' process.

Please note: for Alert sites that don't have the Engagement Tracker or Local Priority groups, you will be taken straight to this process from 'send message'. 

Saved Lists

On this first page, you can load any saved recipient lists that you may have saved previously, or that may have been saved for you as global lists, for all admins for your site.

Defining an area

Using the 'send other type of message' option, you can then select the area you would like to send your message to. Here, you can select from 'pre-defined areas' which are the areas on the system, or 'custom areas' which you can create, you'll also see any areas that you've recently sent to.

Using the arrow next to an area, you can see the constituent areas below:

Clicking on the number of members next to an area, will add them to your recipient list. They will then show with a green highlight. You can do this for multiple areas at once.

Alternatively, you can draw a 'custom area' to send to, by clicking on the draw button pictured below.

From there, you can draw an area like below, which will then calculate the number of members in the area. You can also switch between a circular area, and a customisable boundary that you can draw.

Sending to specific groups (optional)

No matter how you define your area, when you proceed, you will see the options pictured below for groups. The list here will show groups that members within your selected area have joined.

On this page, you can filter down your recipient list to only send to members in a specific group. A group is a list of users on the system that fit into one particular category (this might be KIN groups, Watch Schemes e.g. Pub Watch, or any other collection of members). Groups are defined by Super Users on your site and members can add themselves to these, or they can be added by an admin.

If you only wish to send an area, simply click on the skip option on this page:

To filter to these groups, you can expand a groups category, using the arrow, then you can add the members of each group by clicking on the number of members, next to the group. You can add members of multiple groups to a recipient list. Once you have selected your groups, click on next.

On the next page, your recipient list will be shown, including the number of people in that list. Optionally, you can save the recipient list to create a 'shortcut' to re-use this same recipient list later.

Clicking on next will take you to the message editor.

Use a template, or start from scratch

A template may be useful if you are sending an Alert that contains standardised content where a template can hold the basic details (text/links/images can all be included within a template) and then be customised as needed.

The templates here will also show icons for the message types that are available within each template.

Create your message

When creating an Alert message from here, your screen will appear as below (if no template is selected):

You can select a message template if you wish to, and start composing your message. To access the templates, click on the dropdown list at the top of the screen with a number of templates to choose from (depending on what templates have been added to your site):

Below the Message template selection, you can also select the message type and urgency level for a message. The list of types available here is defined by the template you choose.

Message Types are the different types of messages that exist within the system and there is one for every possible topic that the message could be regarding, ranging from crime types to neighbourhood watch activities.

The message type selected directly affects how many people receive your alert as some members may have opted to not receive information about the chosen message type, which will result in the number of recipients in the calculated section at the end usually being less than your original recipient list, this is the expected outcome for the majority of Alerts.

The Urgency level indicates how urgent the message is and will have different coloured accents on the Alert email in correlation to the selected urgency level. This may simply tell the recipient if a particular Alert should be read in a more timely manner, or may need a specific response, for example.

Message editor

Below these options is the message editor itself:

There are three tabs, you can use to compose a message: Alert, SMS and Voice call. The Alert message is the content which will be sent to users as an email. This is the message that will appear online on your Alert sites latest Alert page, if you select for the Alert to be shared here. Optionally, there are SMS and Voice call messages which can be added to your Alert for users that don't have an email address on the system.

Below the Message editor is also a tick box which can be used to share your Alert message to users by WhatsApp, if they have opted into receiving messages this way.

When composing the Alert message, images and attachments can also be added to the message using the buttons shown below.

For images that are added to the message, their position can be changed using the dropdown list pictured below.

At the bottom of the page, there may also be an option to send your message as a team, which uses a Team sign-off. Selecting to 'Send as myself' will show your account's name as the sender of the message. If you select a team you are a part of, this will show the sign-off for that team instead.

Another selectable option is to 'Mark the Alert as suitable for sharing'. If an Alert is suitable for sharing, this will display publicly on the latest Alerts page of your Force's Alert site. The message will also have the option to be shared on social media my members of the public. Unselecting this option, will mean the message won't be displayed on the latest alerts page and the Alert will only have the option to be shared by email, for members of the public.

Once the message has been composed, you can then proceed to the next page, using 'next'.

Message preview

On the following page, you can preview how the message will appear to members (including checking any added SMS / voice content).

 

If you then proceed to the final page, there are a few options you can change. You can also review the number of recipients the message will be sent to.

From here, you can assign which Team the replies to the message, sent in from members of the public, will be assigned to. You can also select a specific admin the replies should be assigned to within a Team.

The final option allows you to either send the message immediately, or schedule it for a later date.

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Video Demonstration: Send By Area (filter by group)

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