Emailing Parents

How to send bulk emails to parents from the children’s list, compose messages with the email editor, manage attachments, and use email templates.

Emailing Parents

Pigeonhole allows you to quickly send emails to the parents of selected children directly from the children’s list. You can compose rich-text emails, attach files, choose which types of contacts receive the email, and save your messages as reusable templates.

Sending an Email

Selecting Children

1. Go to the Children page.
2. Use the checkboxes to select one or more children.
3. Open the Bulk Actions menu and choose Email Parents.

A full-screen panel will open where you can compose your email.

Choosing Recipients

At the top of the email panel, you will see two toggle switches under Recipients:

• Parental Responsibility - sends to contacts marked as having parental responsibility for the selected children.
• Bill Payers - sends to contacts marked as bill payers for the selected children.

You can enable one or both. At least one must be selected. If a parent is both a bill payer and has parental responsibility, they will only receive one copy of the email.

Composing Your Message

Fill in the Subject line for the email. The Reply To field is pre-filled with your nursery’s email address from your site settings, but you can change it. When a parent replies to your email, their reply will go to this address.

Use the message editor to write your email content. The editor supports:

• Bold, italic, strikethrough, and underline text
• Headings (H1, H2, H3)
• Bulleted and numbered lists
• Links - select text, then click the link icon in the toolbar to add a URL
• Block quotes
• Horizontal dividers

To format text, select the text you want to change. A floating toolbar will appear with formatting options including bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, headings, alignment, and links.

Adding Attachments

1. Click the Attach Files button.
2. Select one or more files from your computer.
3. Attached files will appear in a list below the button. Click the X next to a file to remove it.

Attachments are uploaded to temporary storage and included with each email sent. There is no strict file size limit, but keep attachments reasonable for email delivery.

Sending

Once your email is ready, click Send Email. You will be asked to confirm before the email is sent. After confirmation, the email is queued for delivery to all matching parent email addresses. You will see a message confirming how many recipients the email was sent to.

Email Templates

Templates let you save email content for reuse. This is useful for recurring communications like newsletters, reminders, or term updates.

Loading a Template

If you have saved templates, a Template dropdown will appear at the top of the email panel. Select a template to load its subject, reply-to address, content, and any saved attachments into the editor.

Saving a Template While Sending

When composing an email, if you have made changes (or are not using a template), a Send & Save Template button will appear alongside the Send button. Clicking this will:

1. Send the email to the selected parents.
2. Save the email content as a new template (using the subject as the template name), or update the existing template if you loaded one.

Managing Templates

You can create, edit, and delete templates from Settings > Email Templates > Parent Email Templates tab.

Creating a Template

1. Click New Template.
2. Enter a Name for the template - this is how it will appear in the template dropdown.
3. Enter the Subject line that will be pre-filled when the template is loaded.
4. Optionally set a Reply To address.
5. Compose the template content in the editor.
6. Attach any files that should be included by default when this template is used.
7. Click Save Template.

Editing a Template

1. Find the template in the list and click the pencil icon.
2. Make your changes to the name, subject, reply-to, content, or attachments.
3. Click Save Template.

Deleting a Template

1. Find the template in the list and click the bin icon.
2. Confirm the deletion.

Deleting a template also removes any attachments stored with it. This cannot be undone.

How Emails Are Delivered

All emails sent through Pigeonhole include your nursery’s name and logo in the header, and a standard footer. If a reply-to address is set, the footer will include a message directing parents to reply to that address. If no reply-to is set, the footer will advise parents not to reply to the email.

Emails are delivered individually to each parent. If the same email address appears for multiple selected children (for example, siblings), only one email will be sent to that address.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I send an email without selecting a template?

Yes. Templates are optional. You can compose a new email from scratch every time.

Can I send to all children at once?

Yes. Use the select all checkbox on the children’s list to select all children, then choose Email Parents from the bulk actions menu.

What file types can I attach?

You can attach any file type. Common types include PDF, Word documents, and images. Keep file sizes reasonable for email delivery.

Can I see who received the email?

The confirmation message shows the total number of recipients. Individual delivery tracking is not currently available.

What if a parent doesn't have an email address?

Parents without an email address on file will not receive the email. Only contacts with a valid email address are included.