Update 10/19 - New Admin Tool - Alerts Broadcasting
Hi All -
I am very excited to announce that we launched a new admin tool today! Please join me in saying goodbye to our old alert system. It did us well for many years, but it had very limited functionality.
The new broadcasting tool will allow us to send alerts out to very specific subgroups of people. We can customize them to ensure that you get the information most relevant to you!
We can customize them in the following ways:
- age groups!
- user type - listener, member, therapist
- badges - send out alerts to specific badge holders
- subcommunities leaders - send a notice out to an entire subcom leader team
- Subcom role titles - send a notice out to a specific role across all subcoms
Additionally, it allows us to present the exact date & time of events. So, we can do short 1 minute alerts or scheduled alerts that pop up at designated times.
We will be using this tool over the next few weeks and hope that it will bring more relevant content to you!
PLEASE NOTE: Leaders - the community management team will no longer be sending out emails to coordinate meetings. All meetings will be coordinated using these alerts. Please check your alerts for meeting info/ time/ agenda..etc
YAY!
Thank you!
@Laura @soulsings
Hi Laura, for the age groups is that for like 35+ or/and 50+ or just teens and adults?
@DanaMH Just teens and adults.
That's great! Will we eventually be able to have a notification history? I know that that's been a long-wanted feature!
That would be cool @Emily619
@Laura who can send out alerts?
@happybanana53 admins and ambassadors
I so love this update, one of my faves! c:
@Kate so in theory, we could send a notification out to anyone with a compassion corner support badge for a meeting?
@MrJacob yes!
@Laura This is undoubtedly an exciting update, thanks to the support of the website technicians, thank you for giving us a better platform and a more humane interactive experience, and we will work harder to help more people!
thank you, Joh7ux, for becoming a Listener, and seeing for yourself what the site does~! (and for working on improvements) 
Today I have a notification asking "Are you a Verified Listener yet?" with four lines of blurb. Well yes, I am a verified listener, so why did I get this notification? Isn't the new alert system supposed to prevent this kind of thing?
@RarelyCharlie
The new update lets them send out to teens, adults, listeners, or members. From what I understand, it is not that advanced to be able to send to everyone who is not verified.
@SouthernFlame
I think it could be added though -- It lets you send out by badge, so you can send an alert to only people with VL badge. perhaps a functionality in the future could be everyone without VL badge?
cc @rarelycharlie @john7ux
Off-topic but related. When I logged out just now there was an alert saying:
Are you the parent of a teenager?
Join our supportive network of parents here!
But it links to the Parenting Teenagers forum where you can't actually join the subcommunity (if that's what it means by network). You would have to know to click on the Parenting & Pregnancy Support Community breadcrumb at the top to join. It might be an idea to provide a more obvious way for guests who land in the forums to join a subcommunity.