Messages and notifications

Direct messages from admins, teachers, and other families show up behind the message icon: bottom right on a computer, in the toolbar on a phone, or a Messages button in the top bar on a tablet. An unread badge shows when something’s waiting. Click the pencil icon to start a new conversation with anyone in your co-op.

Web addresses in a message are clickable and open in a new tab, so a sign-up form or supply list someone sends you is one click away.

A class your student is enrolled in can have its own ongoing conversation, holding the teachers, every enrolled family, and any student logins on the roster. Open the class from My Classes and click Message class to join it. The teacher starts it, so the button appears only once they have.

A reply goes to everyone in the conversation, so anything meant for the teacher alone belongs in a direct message.

To send a photo or a file, click the paperclip next to the message box, in a direct message or a class conversation. It’s there when you start a new message too, once you have picked who it goes to.

• JPG, PNG, GIF, and WebP photos show up in the conversation as pictures.
• PDFs, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, and ZIP files show up as a file to download.
• Each file can be up to 25 MB, and you can attach up to 10 to one message.

Only the people in that conversation can open them. Student logins can see attachments but can’t send them. If you don’t see a paperclip, your co-op has turned attachments off, and anything already sent stays in the conversation.

Reporting a photo or file

If someone sends something that shouldn’t be there, you can report it on the website. Point at it and click the small flag, or on a phone or tablet, touch and hold it until the flag appears. Your co-op’s owners and admins see only that photo or file, your name, and your reason, not the rest of the conversation. An admin can remove it, and everyone in the conversation then sees a note in its place.

To fix or remove something you sent, click the three-dot button beside your own message. Edit is there for 15 minutes after sending, and the message is then labeled Edited. Delete works any time and leaves “This message was deleted.” in its place for everyone in the conversation, along with removing any photos or files attached to it. Anyone who already got a notification or email about it may still have read it. Messages have no expiry date, so a message stays until you delete it.

You can react to a message someone else sent with Like, Love, Laugh, Wow, Sad, or Celebrate. On a computer, point at the message and the choices appear. On a phone or tablet, tap React under the message. You get one reaction per message: picking a different one replaces it, and picking the same one again removes it. Everyone in the conversation can see who chose what, and a reaction doesn’t send a notification.

Click Select above your conversation list to pick one or more conversations and mark them read or unread, archive them, or delete them. Archived conversations move to their own Archived tab, and after any of these a short Undo option appears.

Deleting only removes a conversation from your own inbox. The other person keeps their copy, and it comes back to yours if they send another message. To take back something you wrote, delete the message itself.

Open the … menu on a conversation to pin it to the top of your inbox, or to mute its notifications for 1 hour, 8 hours, 1 week, or until you turn them back on. Pinning and muting only change your own inbox. Search also finds your own direct and group messages, only in conversations you are part of.

In a conversation with two or more other people, the top shows everyone’s pictures and a count such as 5 members. Click or tap it to see who is in the conversation.

When you start a message to two or more people, you can add a subject. Anyone in the group can also name it afterward: open the members panel, type a name in Group name, and save. Everyone sees a line in the conversation saying who changed it. Class conversations keep the class name and can’t be renamed.

Open My Profile and go to the Communication preferences card. Changes save automatically as you toggle them.

Everything at once

• Email notifications: on or off.
• Summary email: once a day or once a week, with anything you haven’t read yet and your co-op’s events for the next 7 days (two weeks for the weekly one). It’s extra, so other emails still arrive as they happen.
• Push notifications: alerts to the HomeschoolGo app on iPhone or Android, if you have it installed.
• Desktop notifications: if your browser supports it, a browser notification when a new direct message arrives while a dashboard tab is open. It applies only to the browser and device where you turn it on.

One kind at a time

Below that sits a row per kind of notification, each with its own switches for email, push, and the bell in the sidebar, so you can silence one kind without going quiet everywhere. Which rows you see depends on what your co-op uses.

• Calendar events: when your co-op adds a new event. It reaches the bell and your phone, with email off, unless you change it.
• Volunteer shift reminders: the reminder sent about a week before a shift you signed up for.
• Volunteer shift changes: the email when your co-op cancels one of your shifts or changes its time or place.
• Co-op announcements: the bell entry and phone notification for an announcement. Both start on. There’s no email switch here, because the announcement email is sent separately.
• New class files: when a teacher adds a file to one of your children’s classes. Several files posted close together arrive as one notification.
• Direct messages: if your co-op has turned on unread message emails, one email when a message has waited unread for a few hours.

Texts are optional, and your co-op has to have texting set up. Each adult turns on texts for their own phone.

• Your own phone: on My Profile, click Edit on the Family Information card, check your number, and tick your box under Text messages.
• A second adult without a login: save their phone number first. Then either tick the box saying you have their permission and choose Turn on their texts, or use Email them a link so they can decide themselves.
• Anyone with their own login, like a grandparent you invited to your household: they turn texts on under Your texts at the top of their own My Profile.

The first text confirms the sign-up and explains how to reply STOP. Replying STOP stops texts to that phone only.

A student with their own cell phone can get co-op texts too. Add the number on their record under My Students and tick Send co-op texts to this phone.

In the Family Information Edit panel, each guardian can add a birthday, just a month and day. It’s optional. If you fill it in, co-op admins see it in an upcoming-birthdays panel on the Families page.

The Appearance card on My Profile switches between Light, Dark, and Auto. Auto follows your device’s setting.