What are Classrooms?
Classrooms let you build a ready-made audience for sending push notifications, news updates, and conversations to a specific class or group — so the right 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 generates one or more Connected Groups (formerly called target lists) with the same name, which you use as the send audience.
Only dashboard admins can create classrooms. Teachers cannot create a classroom, but they can set up their own Personal Newsfeed Category for their class or group.
Setting up Classrooms
There are two ways to set up classrooms: an automatic SIS sync, or manually (one at a time or by importing a file).
SIS sync (automatic)
Automatically keeps the students and staff listed in each classroom up to date.
Classroom participants are added to their respective classrooms from the designation in your sync data.
By default, all SIS synced classrooms will be "Restricted to Staff Members" so that only admin and the teacher(s) in the classroom will be able to view, edit, and send messages to that classroom.
SIS-synced classrooms are configured by Edlio as part of your data integration. The sync configuration panel only appears on sites with an active SIS connection. For how SIS classroom sync is set up and mapped, see your Data Integrations documentation.
Manually — one classroom at a time
From the Dashboard under Features, select Classrooms.
Select New Classroom.
Choose or upload an image from the Library, or add an external image URL.
Enter a Name and an optional Description.
Under Members, start typing a person's name and select them to add.
Configure Connected Groups (see below).
Click Save & Edit, then Ok.
When you return to Classrooms, the new classroom appears in the list with its image, name, teacher(s), and member count.
Manually — import multiple classrooms
To create many classrooms at once, click Import Classrooms at the top of the page. This opens a 3-step wizard (Choose File and Settings → Review Errors → Import Data).
Upload an XLSX file with a single worksheet. The first row must be column headers. Columns: Name (required), Description, Icon Url.
Use the downloadable template link in the wizard for the correct format.
Under Settings, set the Relationship Mode (default Normal) and optionally Restrict Group to Staff Members, then add the group.
Click Continue to review and import.
Import members into classrooms
To add members to existing classrooms in bulk, click Import Members. This is also a 3-step XLSX wizard with two options:
Remove existing members — replaces current members with the imported list.
Create group for new classrooms — generates a connected group for any classroom that doesn't have one yet.
You can also use Export Members to download the current membership.
Connected Groups
Creating a classroom auto-generates a Connected Group with the classroom's name. This is the group you select as the audience when sending push notifications, news, or conversations.
Multiple groups per classroom: a classroom can have more than one connected group — for example a "Students only" and a "Parents only" group. Each is disambiguated by appending its relationship mode to the name (e.g. Paddle Board team Only Parents).
Relationship Mode (required, default Normal): controls which family relationships are included in the group (e.g. only parents, only students).
Restrict Group to Staff Members: a visibility control. When enabled, only staff members can see, use, and message the group.
Use Add Group to attach another connected group to the classroom.
Classroom settings
Open Settings from the top of the Classrooms page to control auto-subscription behavior:
Automatically subscribe/unsubscribe students and parents — when on, students and parents are automatically subscribed to their classroom teacher's personal news categories when added, and unsubscribed when removed. Enabled by default.
Apply To All Sites — on district sites, applies the setting change to all schools.
How auto-subscribe works: Adding a student to a classroom subscribes the student and their parents to the associated teacher's news categories. Removing a student unsubscribes them — but only if that classroom was the last classroom linking them to that teacher. If the student is still in another classroom with the same teacher, the subscriptions are kept. This is turned on by default.
How to use Classrooms
Set up your news categories
Teachers create the Categories that notifications are sent under:
Navigate to News > Settings > Categories.
Click the My Categories tab.
Click + New.
Be specific when labeling a category so students and parents know what they're opting into, especially if more than one section is offered — for example: Algebra – Period 2 – Mr. Teacher, JV Boys Basketball – Coach Teacher.
In the Marketing section of the Dashboard (Marketing > Documents) there are branded, ready-to-share documents showing your community how to opt in.
Send a push notification to a classroom group
Navigate to News > Create New.
Give the notification a Title, add your message and any attachments, then click Continue.
Check the channel you want the push notification to go to, then click Continue.
In the first column, select the Category. In the second column, under Secured Access, scroll to Visible only to (Groups) and select your classroom's connected group. Click Continue.
Review the preview and optional settings, then click Send.
Your message is sent to your classroom group.
Create a conversation with a classroom group
Select Conversations from the App Menu on your mobile device (group conversations cannot be started from the Dashboard).
Select + to create a new conversation and choose your classroom group.