⚠️ Important Security Rule — Groups Are Open by Default: In Edlio Mass Communication and the Edlio Mobile App, anyone in your school with messaging privileges can broadcast to any group by default (including building-wide and district-wide lists). Groups do not automatically restrict senders. Administrators must proactively configure the "Limit Access" setting on sensitive groups to restrict messaging permissions.
Managing Group Access: Restricting Senders with Limit Access
Groups allow you to organize students, parents, staff, and community members into targeted audiences. However, without access restrictions, a whole-school emergency list or all-district announcement group is visible to every teacher and staff member drafting a message. This guide walks you through configuring Limit Access—both for individual groups and in bulk across multiple groups—to ensure messages are dispatched only by authorized personnel.
How "Limit Access" Works
Every regular group includes two primary configuration areas:
Targets (Membership): Defines who receives the message (e.g., 5th grade students, high school parents, staff members).
Restrictions / Limit Access (Senders): Defines who is allowed to send to this group when composing a message in Mass Communication or the Mobile App.
ℹ️ Who Cannot Be Restricted? Users with permissions to create and edit groups (Super Administrators and primary school administrators) are never blocked by communication filters and retain full access to message any group.
How to Restrict Senders on a Single Group
Follow these steps when creating a new group or updating an existing group:
Navigate to People > Groups in your dashboard.
Click + New to create a group, or click the action menu (three dots ···) next to an existing group and select Edit.
Configure your group's name, pinning preference, and membership criteria under the Targets tab as usual.
Click on the Restrictions (or Permissions) tab at the top of the form.
Under Communication Filters / Limit Access, click + Add Filter Group.
Specify the criteria for authorized senders (for example, restricting access to specific administrative user roles, departments, or designated staff members).
Click Save & Edit or Ok to finalize. Once saved, only users meeting your filter criteria will see this group when choosing message recipients.
How to Limit Access on Multiple Groups at Once (Bulk Edit)
If you need to lock down multiple building-wide, grade-level, or district-wide groups, you can apply identical sender restrictions across all of them in a single action:
Navigate to People > Groups.
Check the boxes next to each regular group you wish to restrict. A dark floating action bar will appear at the top of the table showing the number of selected groups.
Click Edit Restrictions (pencil icon) in the floating action bar. The Bulk Edit Restrictions modal will open.
Review the notice: "This will overwrite any existing restrictions on these selected target lists."
Under Communication Filters, click + Add Filter Group and define the authorized sender criteria.
Click Apply to lock down all selected groups simultaneously.
Nuance: Classroom-Synced Groups
Classroom-synced (Connected) groups operate under simplified access rules:
Teacher Ownership: Teachers assigned to a classroom automatically have sending permissions for that classroom's connected group.
Staff Toggle: When configuring classroom settings, administrators can toggle whether other building staff members are permitted to message the classroom group.
Bulk Operations: Classroom-synced groups are automatically protected and excluded from mixed bulk group permission edits.
Administrative Best Practices
Lock Down All-District & All-School Groups First: As soon as your roster sync completes, review every high-level broadcast group (such as All Students, All Families, All Staff) and configure Limit Access so only principals and central administrators can dispatch messages to them.
Leave Grade & Activity Groups Open Where Appropriate: If grade-level coordinators or team coaches need to send updates to "Freshman Class" or "Varsity Track", you can leave those specific groups open to staff or add role-specific sender filters.
Audit Periodically: Check the Groups list at the start of each semester to ensure new groups created by staff follow district messaging guidelines.
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