What are Classrooms?
Classrooms let you build a ready-made audience for sending push notifications, news updates, and two-way conversations to a specific class, team, or activity group — so the right recipient list is prepared in advance.
Each classroom can be created manually or kept in sync automatically from your student information system (SIS). When a classroom is created, the app automatically generates one or more Connected Groups with the same name, which you select as the target audience across messaging channels.
🔒 Administrative Permission Note: Only Dashboard Administrators can create and import classrooms. Teachers cannot create root classrooms themselves, but they can create and manage their own Personal Newsfeed Categories (under News > Settings > Categories > My Categories) to communicate directly with their students and parents.
💡 Important Requirement — Classrooms Must Be Set to Create a Group: A classroom itself cannot be messaged directly; it must have a Connected Group generated to be used across app communication tools (such as starting a two-way Conversation or targeting push notifications). When creating or importing classrooms, ensure that connected group creation is enabled so your teachers and administrators have an active recipient group ready to select.
Setting up Classrooms
There are two primary ways to set up classrooms: automated SIS sync or manual setup (single creation or bulk XLSX import).
SIS sync (automatic)
Automatically synchronizes students, guardians, and teachers listed in each course directly from your SIS nightly.
Classroom rosters update dynamically as schedule or enrollment changes occur in your SIS.
Restricted to Staff Members by default: All SIS-synced classrooms are automatically set to "Restricted to Staff Members" so that only authorized administrators and assigned course teachers can view, message, or broadcast to that classroom group.
SIS-synced classrooms are provisioned as part of your data integration setup. For details on SIS mappings and automated roster schedules, refer to your Data Integrations documentation.
Manually — one classroom at a time
From the Dashboard under Features, select Classrooms.
Click + New Classroom in the top right corner.
Optionally upload or choose an icon from the Library.
Enter a Name (required) and an optional Description.
Under Members, search for and select staff members or teachers who lead the classroom.
Configure Connected Groups and click Ok to save.
The new classroom immediately appears in your Classrooms table roster with its icon, title, assigned staff, and current member count.
Manually — import multiple classrooms in bulk
To create many classrooms at once, click Import Classrooms in the top header. This launches a structured 3-step XLSX import wizard:
Download the formatted XLSX template using the in-wizard link. Columns include Name (required), Description, and Icon Url.
Under Settings, choose your Relationship Mode (defaults to Normal).
Recommended Setting: Check Restrict Group to Staff Members. This ensures that the newly created connected group can only be viewed and messaged by school staff and assigned teachers, preventing unintended student or public broadcast access.
Upload your completed spreadsheet, verify the validation summary, and click Continue to import.
Import members into classrooms
To assign students, parents, or staff into created classrooms in bulk, click Import Members in the top header. The 3-step member import wizard offers key configuration toggles:
Remove existing members: When checked, replaces the current roster with the individuals listed in your import spreadsheet.
Create group for new classrooms: Generates a connected group for any classroom that does not currently possess one.
Connected Groups & Recommended Permissions
Creating a classroom generates a corresponding Connected Group. This group represents the recipient audience when sending push notifications, news updates, or starting two-way conversations.
Understanding Relationship Modes
When creating or importing a classroom's connected group, you must select a Relationship Mode. This setting determines which family connections are automatically pulled into the group alongside enrolled students:
Normal (Students Only): Includes only the enrolled students in the group. Family members and guardians are not included. Use this mode when teachers need an audience consisting exclusively of students (e.g., assignment turn-in reminders or student-only discussions).
Include Family (Students + Guardians): Includes both the enrolled students and their related family contacts/guardians. This is the recommended mode for general classroom announcements, weekly digests, and family communications.
Include Children (Parents/Staff + Students): When applied to parent or staff cohorts, this mode pulls in their enrolled children as well.
Only Family (Guardians Only): Includes only the related family members/guardians of the enrolled students. The students themselves are omitted. Use this mode when teachers or administrators need a dedicated parent communication channel (e.g., parent-teacher conferences, field trip volunteer coordination, or PTA discussions).
Only Children (Students Only via Parents): Includes only the children of the selected members, omitting the parents.
💡 Best-Practice Adoption Tip — Multi-Audience Classrooms & SIS Sync Configuration: For SIS-synced classrooms, the amount and types of Connected Groups generated are controlled directly by your SIS data sync configuration. Manual roster edits on synced classrooms are overwritten nightly, and altering connected group types for SIS classes cannot be done locally:
Contact Data Integrations: If your teachers or school need different audience types generated for SIS classrooms (such as dedicated Student Only, Parent Only, or Combined Family groups), reach out to the Edlio Data Integrations team at [email protected]. They will adjust your automated sync profile to automatically build and maintain the desired connected group types for every course section.
Do Not Duplicate Classrooms or Manually Edit Rosters: Do not manually edit member lists or duplicate classrooms in the dashboard or SIS to separate audiences. Manual adjustments get overwritten on the next sync run.
Manual (Non-SIS) Classrooms: For non-synced, manually created classrooms, administrators can freely click into the classroom under Features > Classrooms and click Add Group with distinct Relationship Modes (Normal for students only, Only Family for parents only, or Include Family for both).
⚠️ Important Prerequisite for Conversations — App Accounts Required: In order for guardians or parents to receive and participate in two-way Conversations initiated with an Include Family or Only Family classroom group, they must have an active App Account provisioned with a matching email address (managed under People > Accounts). If a parent only exists as an unlinked contact or person record without an app login, they will not appear as an active participant in the conversation thread.
Restrict Group to Staff Members (Recommended): We strongly recommend keeping this enabled on all classroom groups. It ensures that only authorized staff members have permission to view, select, and message the group across app communication tools.
Separate Access Controls from Groups: Access limitations for Classrooms and Groups function completely separately. Setting Limit Access restrictions on standalone groups in People > Groups has no effect on classroom messaging, and classroom permissions are managed independently from standard group communication filters.
Classroom Settings & Auto-Subscription
Click the Settings button in the header of the Classrooms page to configure global automation rules:
Automatically subscribe/unsubscribe students and parents: Enabled by default. Adding a student to a classroom automatically subscribes that student and their parents to the teacher's personal news categories. Removing a student automatically removes those subscriptions (unless the student is enrolled in another active classroom with that same teacher).
Apply To All Sites: Available on district dashboards to enforce consistent auto-subscription settings across all schools in the district.
How to Use Classrooms
⚠️ Remember: You can only open a Conversation or push a newsfeed update to a classroom if a Connected Group was created for it. If a classroom does not appear in your group list when starting a conversation or sending push notifications, check the classroom settings or re-import members with Create group for new classrooms enabled.
Set up your news categories
Teachers create the specific Categories that notifications are published under:
Navigate to News > Settings > Categories.
Select the My Categories tab.
Click + New and enter a clear, specific name (e.g., Algebra I – Period 2 – Ms. Smith or JV Girls Soccer – Coach Davis).
Send a push notification to a classroom group
Navigate to News > Create New.
Enter your title, message body, and optional media or attachments, then click Continue.
Select the target delivery channel (App Push Notification) and click Continue.
Select your category, and under Secured Access, locate Visible only to (Groups) and select your classroom's connected group.
Preview the message and click Send.
Create a conversation with a classroom group
Open Conversations from the App Menu on your mobile device (conversations cannot be initiated from the web dashboard).
Tap the + icon and select your classroom group to start a secure thread.
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