Message templates: write the recurring texts once
The texts your school sends every single year, kept ready instead of retyped in August.
Message templates is a small screen with one purpose: holding the texts your school sends over and over. The fee reminder that goes out three times a year. The message announcing that results are ready. The notice that school reopens on a given Monday. Every year you currently rewrite all of these from scratch, and every year they come out slightly different — which is how a family ends up reading three different deadlines.
Be clear about what this is: a template is saved text, not a button. You write it once here, and when the moment comes you open the template, copy the wording into the broadcast you are composing, and adjust the date or the amount. It does not send anything by itself and it cannot be scheduled; what it removes is the typing, and — more usefully — the drift.
Nothing is preloaded. Ekati ships this screen empty on purpose: a fee reminder that begins “Dear Parent” in English and “Cher Parent” in French is a template Ekati could have provided, and it is not the one your school sends. Write your own, once, in your own words — that is the whole investment.
Write your first template in four steps
Twenty minutes in July, repaid at every term.
-
Step 1
Open Messaging > Message Templates
The table lists your templates with their name, type, title, body, image, link and whether they are active. On a new installation the list is empty, and that is expected.
-
Step 2
Name it and give it a type
Click New Template. The Name is your own label — “Fee reminder — first term”. The Type says how it will be sent: Email, WhatsApp, Push Notification or In-App.
-
Step 3
Write the English and the French
Fill the Title and the Body for each language. An Image URL and a Link To are optional — the link is how a parent lands on the page the message is about rather than having to search for it.
-
Step 4
Activate it and close the screen
Tick Active so the template is one you mean to use, then save. When the day comes, open the row, copy the text into your broadcast, adjust the date or the amount, and send.
Which texts are worth a template
Four messages cover almost the whole school year. Write those and stop there.
The fee reminder
Sent three times a year to the parents of every class, always with the same shape: what is owed, by when, and where to pay. Write it once as a template and each term you only change the amount, the date and the instalment. This is the highest-value template in the menu, because a reminder that is worded identically three times reads as policy rather than as a nuisance.
Results are ready
Sent after each publication of report cards. Its job is to tell a parent where to look and how to ask a question — not to contain the marks. Keep it short, bilingual, and link it to the page where results appear.
Reopening and closing
The Monday notice that school reopens, with the date, the start time and anything families must bring. And, when weather or health requires it, the notice that school is closed, with the days affected. Both are the same template with a different first sentence.
Meetings and urgent changes
The parent–teacher meeting, and the change of a collection time or a room. These are less frequent but more stressful to write well at short notice, which is precisely what a template is for.
Templates in two languages, and one at a time
The two things people get wrong when they build a library of messages.
Write both languages, or write neither carefully
The Title and the Body are each written twice, once per language, because the broadcast carries both versions and each reader sees only their own. A template filled in English only is worse than no template at all, because it invites a French-speaking secretary to send English text to families and then to apologise by telephone.
One template, one message
Do not build a single “general school communication” template and try to bend it to every occasion. A message that could be about a closure or a fee deadline is vague in both languages and produces more work than starting again. Six templates, each written for exactly one situation, will serve a school year better than one template that serves none.
Image and Link are worth using
A message with a Link To is worth several without one, because a parent who taps through to the page you meant does not have to telephone the school to find out what you were asking. An Image URL is worth it for a date change or a term timetable, and worth skipping for anything textual.
Active is how you retire one
Untick Active on a template you no longer send — the one that referenced a head of school who has left, or a fee that has since changed. The row stays readable, so you can revive it if the situation returns, but nobody mistakes it for a message still in use.
Where the saved text is used
A template lives beside the messages it exists for.
-
Send
Broadcasts
Copy the saved text into the broadcast, adjust the date or the amount, and send it to the audience you choose.
-
Fees
Payments and receipts
The figures your fee reminder quotes: what each class owes, by when, and the receipts already issued.
-
Results
Report cards and slips design
Where results are published, and the page your “results are ready” message should link to.
Message template questions
Asked by anyone opening the screen and finding nothing in it.
-
The list is empty. Where are the ready-made messages?
There are none, and that is deliberate. Ekati does not ship templates because a fee reminder is school policy, not product copy — the amount, the dates, the payment point and the tone all belong to you. Write the four messages your school actually sends each year and you will be better served than by generic text you have to rewrite anyway.
-
Does a template send itself, or do I still have to send the message?
You still send it. A template is saved text and nothing more: open it, copy the title and body into a broadcast, adjust whatever has changed since you wrote it — the date, the amount, the instalment — and then choose the audience and send. What it removes is the typing, and the slow drift of wording from one term to the next.
-
How many templates should I create?
Four is enough for most schools: the fee reminder, results are ready, the reopening or closure notice, and the meeting or urgent-change message. Write each one for exactly one situation rather than trying to make one flexible template, because a message that covers every case is vague in both languages and takes longer to adapt than a fresh sentence does.
-
Can I write one template in English and one in French?
No — write both languages inside the same template. The Title and the Body each have an English half and a French half, and a broadcast carries both, so a parent reads their own language and nobody has to keep two separate rows in step. A template with only the English half filled in invites someone to send English to French-speaking families.