Are you a state school and use your free SMS messages from the government?

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

I work for an MIS support team and we are looking at the GOV.UK Notify service for our schools. From my understanding, state funded schools get an allowance of 10,000 free text messages a year, and then the option to purchase more at 1.72p (+VAT) each after the free allocation is exhausted.

 

There are API integration options but I have yet to find a schools messaging provider who integrates with this service despite it being significantly cheaper than their current offerings.

 

Does anyone currently use this at all? If so how have you found it?

[Oaktech]

We don't, *because* it doesn't integrate with our MIS.

[David44]

We don't use it yet as we are stuck paying ESS for Intouch at the moment but EduLink One supports GOV.UK Notify

 

https://www.overnetdata.com/how-to-integrate-gov-uk-notify-with-edulink-one/

[AlistairB1983]

We started using it in September as we moved from using Keeping Kids Safe to EduLink, and the latter doesn't come with its own 'built in' SMS option, so in somewhat of a desperate search I came across this and managed to get our school signed up.

 

It's all working well so far (as in the messages have at least been sent!), but we've not yet (that I'm aware of) gone past the 10,000 point so I'm not sure about charges etc.

[Linfit]

We have been using this quite happily with Edulink for nearly two years - works well and very reliable.

We are moving to Bromcom in Feb and will have to more away from it which is a shame.

It was significantly cheaper than our previous provider, although we burn through the free allowance in less than a month.

Once you have used your allowance up you just get invoiced for what you have used - much better then having to buy bundles in advance.

[chall]

I've just tried to register for this service, as we use a .co.uk domain it's saying i can only register with a public sector email address.

 

I raised a ticket and got the following reply from support.

 

We’re currently reviewing how public sector services use Notify. The review could lead to changes in who can use Notify in the future.

 

We’ll be able to consider your request to go live in January 2023. Until then, you can continue to use Notify in trial mode.

 

We apologise for the inconvenience this will cause.

 

I can't even get into trial mode!!

[FragglePete]

We too have it setup with Edulink - works well, but only a select few can use it to send SMS messages.

 

We use it also for e-mailing out from our various systems also, saves using a Office365 mailbox to do so. Again, we use Edulink with it to send messages to parents, etc. The only downside is that it doesn't support attachments in Emails with Edulink just yet.

 

Pete