- For organizations
- Anyone with Messages access; owners and co-leaders manage quick replies
Your team inbox and quick replies
Messages in your console is one shared inbox for your whole team. Every question a family sends your organization lands here, with the class it's about beside it, and anyone on your staff with Messages access can answer. Families see every reply as coming from your organization.
Messaging is included on every Famlo plan. Messages from your own website's contact form need the Website plan.
Answer a family
- Open Messages (1) in your console. The number beside it counts the families waiting on an answer.
- Under Waiting on you, select the conversation (2).
- To start from saved text, select a quick reply (3), then edit it. A quick reply fills the box but never sends on its own.
- Or type your answer in the box.
- Select Send (4). Pressing Enter also sends.
You can also start from Today: when families are waiting, Needs you shows a row like "2 families are waiting for a reply" with a Reply button.
The line above the box reminds you who you're writing as, for example "Sent as Sunnyside Learning Co. — only Layla Haddad sees it." Families never see which person on your team answered. Your colleagues do.
How the inbox is laid out
On a wide screen the inbox has three columns: the list, the conversation, and a panel about the family. On a laptop the family panel folds into an About [name] section above the messages. On a phone, Messages is under More: you see the list first, open a conversation, and use the back arrow to return.
The list. Three filters sit at the top:
| Filter | What it shows |
|---|---|
| All | Waiting on you, then Answered, then Announcements your organization has sent |
| Waiting | Only the conversations waiting on you |
| By class | Conversations grouped under each class, A to Z, with questions that aren't about a class under General questions |
Each row shows the family's name, the time, the class it's about (or "General question", or "From your website"), and the last message. A dot marks it unread, and Closed marks a conversation nobody can reply to.
What "waiting" means. A conversation is waiting when the newest message in it is from the family. As soon as anyone on your team replies, it moves to Answered. A closed conversation is never waiting.
Read for everyone. Opening a conversation marks it read for your whole team, not just for you, and clears your own notifications about it. Hovering over a row doesn't. If a dot disappears before you got to it, a colleague probably opened it.
The conversation. The heading names the family and the class ("About Homeschool PE"), or says "A question for [your organization]". Open the class takes you to that class if you can open its roster. Announcements that reached this family show in the timeline between the messages, so you can see what they've already been told.
The family panel. This shows:
- The parent's name, and their email address if you run all classes (owners, co-leaders and class organizers).
- Children: the family's children at your organization, with their ages. Select a child to open their record.
- Money: their Dues status (if you charge dues) and what's Unpaid for classes. Only people whose Money access is Take payments & refund see this.
- Also waiting: the family's other questions still waiting on you.
Ask for a payment. The Invoice button beside the reply box opens a payment request for this family. It shows only for people whose Money access is Take payments & refund, and never for a website visitor without a Famlo account. See Ask a family to pay.
Announcements. The Announce button at the top right sends an update to many families at once. It's covered in Announcements.
Messages from your website
If your organization has its own website on the Website plan, a visitor can write to you through its contact form without a Famlo account. Their message arrives in Messages with a Website label and "From your website" on the row.
You answer it like any other conversation. Your reply is emailed to them from your organization's name, with a link to write back. You can't send photos to someone without a Famlo account. If they later make a Famlo account with the same email address, the conversation moves into it.
Who sees which conversations
What each person sees depends on the Messages line in their access ("Conversations with families"). Set it in People › Staff & teachers; see What staff can do.
| Messages setting | Default for | What they see |
|---|---|---|
| All conversations | Owner, Co-leader | Every conversation: questions about any class, general questions, and messages from your website |
| Their classes | Class organizer, Teacher | Only questions about the classes they're assigned to. No general questions, no website messages |
| No access | Front desk, Bookkeeper, Profile only | No inbox |
The number beside Messages counts only the conversations that person can see, so a teacher's number is their own classes' questions.
Working from your own Messages
Staff also see your organization's conversations in their own inbox on famlo.co (the Messages page everyone has). There:
- Families waiting on an answer float to the top under Needs a reply, and the classes you run are listed under You run these.
- Opening a class you run shows what's happened (bookings and announcements) and a People list of the families booked, where you can message anyone directly.
- In a family's conversation the header says Replying as [your organization], and the box reads "Reply as [your organization]…". Your reply goes out in your organization's name, the same as from the console.
- Your quick replies are behind the Quick replies button beside the box.
The console inbox is the team view. Your own Messages page is your personal view, which also holds your family's conversations if you book classes yourself.
Rules for every message
- No health records in messages. A message with a line like "Allergies: peanuts" or "Medication: …" is refused with "Your message can't include health, medical, allergy, or emergency information — please add it to your family profile instead, where it stays private." Ordinary sentences, such as "Is Friday's snack nut-free?", are fine. Families keep allergies and emergency contacts on their profile, and you see them on your rosters.
- Photos: up to 4 per message, 10 MB each.
- Sending limit: 30 messages in 3 minutes per person. After that you'll see "You're sending messages too quickly. Try again in a minute."
- Closed conversations show "This conversation has been closed." and can't be answered.
- The list holds your 200 most recent conversations.
The emails your team receives
When a family writes, everyone who can see that conversation gets a notification, except the person who sent it. The email subject is "New question about [class]", "New question from a family", or "New message from your website".
These emails never include the family's message, only an Open thread button. That keeps children's details out of shared and forwarded mailboxes. Replying to the email doesn't reach the family, so open the thread to answer.
When your team replies, only the family is notified, not your colleagues. To change how you're told about new questions, go to Account settings › Notifications › For organizations you run and set Team inbox. See Notifications.
Quick replies
Quick replies are saved messages your whole team shares. They live in Messages › Quick replies. Owners and co-leaders (anyone who can edit School settings) can add, edit and delete them. Anyone who can reply to a family can use them.
To add one:
- Open Messages, then Quick replies (1).
- Under Add a quick reply, type a Name (2), such as "Welcome message". Your team sees this name on the button.
- Type the Message (3). Add any of the tokens below to personalize it.
- Select Save quick reply (4). You'll see "Quick reply saved."
To change one, select Edit beside it, then Save changes. To remove one, select Delete and confirm.
Tokens fill in with the family and class of whichever conversation you use them in:
| Token | Fills in | If there's nothing to fill in |
|---|---|---|
{{parent_first_name}} | The parent's first name | [parent] |
{{parent_name}} | The parent's full name | [parent] |
{{activity_title}} | The class name | [activity] |
{{activity_date}} | The class's start date, like "Monday, October 6" | [date] |
{{activity_time}} | The class's start time, like "3:30 PM", in the class's time zone | [time] |
{{org_name}} | Your organization's name | [organization] |
For example, {{activity_title}} in a general question has no class to name, so it shows "[activity]". Read the text before you send and fix any brackets.
Limits: up to 30 quick replies per organization, names up to 80 characters, and messages up to 2,000 characters. At 30 you'll see "You can keep at most 30 quick replies." Delete one to add another.
Troubleshooting
A teacher says they can't see a family's question. Staff set to Their classes see only questions about classes they're assigned to. General questions and website messages go only to people with All conversations. Check their access in People › Staff & teachers.
I don't see the Quick replies tab, or I can't add one. Managing quick replies needs School settings access (owners and co-leaders). Everyone else can still use the saved ones from the reply box.
There's no Invoice button. It shows only for people whose Money access is Take payments & refund, and not in conversations with website visitors who have no Famlo account.
My message was refused. If it mentions health information, rewrite the line as a sentence or ask the family to add it to their profile. If you see "You're sending messages too quickly", wait a minute and send again.
A conversation I hadn't read shows as read. Read status is shared by the whole team. Someone else opened it. Check Answered to see whether they replied.