1/22/2018 Release Preview - Owners and Admins

*Note: Historical release notes may not completely match the settings or interface of the current platform.

Overview

WHAT:

All students, segments, and campaigns will be accessible to all users in a department
New “Messages” area will store your Inbox and All Messages
“Send to my students only” feature will be added to send specifically to students assigned to the user sending the text message
Segments that have not been used since 10/1/17 will be archived (can still be used)

WHY:

Based on client feedback we collected, we wanted to re-examine existing features with a focus on improving team workflow and streamlining the way that all users interact with Cadence. The end goals were to remove artificial boundaries and simplify tools to allow for better organization in departments, give Admins/Owners improved flexibility in structuring their teams, and empower all users to have greater success using Cadence.

WHEN:

The release will take place on Monday, January 22nd.

NEXT STEPS:

On January 11th, Non-Admin Users will receive a similar email detailing how this release will impact them.
Full release notes will be sent to everyone on January 22nd.
A webinar will be held on Tuesday, January 23rd to showcase the enhancements added as part of this release. All users are welcome to attend, and you can sign up here. The webinar will also be recorded and posted in our knowledge base.
Your Client Success Lead as well as the Mongoose Support team will be available to answer school/department-specific questions.

Updates

Messages

Your Inbox and All Messages will be merged into a new “Messages” section in your navigation. These areas will function exactly as they do now and will remain unchanged.

Send to My Students Only

This function will provide you with the ability to send messages to only students who are assigned to you. Currently, Admins/Owners do not have the ability to send to only their students specifically (assigned via StaffID).
Students, Segments, and Campaigns will be visible to all users within a department.

Students and Visibility

All users will now be able find/text any student within the department. Students will be visible to all staff members (make sure StaffID is assigned if you want to provide them the option of only sending to those who are assigned to them).
When viewing records under Students, records can be filtered by staff assignments along with custom fields.

Segments

All segments will be available for all users, effectively making them all “shared.” With this change, we will be removing the “Share” function. Staff assignments will still be visible, but will no longer impact whether or not a user can see the students in the segment. Staff name will be shown so that you can see who the students are assigned to.
Segments will be filtered by creator and whether they are active or archived.
Any Segments that have not been used since 10/1 will default to “archived” status. You will be able to make them active again if needed.

Campaigns

All campaigns will be shared. Any user will be able to track their messages through an already created campaign, and the campaign list will have filters for who created them--the individual user or all users.
Since users will be able to associate their messages with a campaign created by someone else, they will also have the ability to view all campaign reports and associated data.
Campaigns will be filtered as Active or Archived.

Items to Consider

How does this impact staff assignments (StaffID)?

All users will be able to find and potentially text any student in a department, regardless of the student’s StaffId. The StaffId will still have a functional purpose, as it will allow users to send a text to just their assigned students (the new “Send to my students only” function).

My department isn’t importing staff assignments (StaffID). How does this impact me?

With this release, all imported students will be visible to users in the department by default, but users will now have the ability to send to just their assigned students as well. You are not required to start importing StaffID, but if you do not import it, your users will not be able to utilize the “Send to my students only” function.

We set up all of our users as Admins so they can find/text any student. Should I change their permissions after this release?

If you set up users as Admins for the sole purpose of being able to text everyone, you may want to revisit permissions and remove Admin access. Now that all students will be available by default, it may make sense to remove Admin access to ensure that these users no longer have unnecessary access to the Admin tools.

I’m an Admin. How does the “Send to my students only” function impact me?

Admins will now be able to send to just their assigned students (previously, this was not possible).

We built and shared some of our existing segments with the assumption that users would only see their students. Now that all students are visible, how can we use these segments correctly?

The new “Send to my students only” function will allow these users to still only text their assigned students when using one of these segments. We moved the sending behavior from the segment itself to the “Compose” process, and that is where they can make that decision/distinction.