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School-level feature — managed within your school portal at yourschool.deandesk.com. Only administrators can access the Communications Dashboard.

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Video walkthrough

This walkthrough uses the real DeanDesk interface with the fictional Northstar Academy demo school and a calm, AI-generated English voice. Payments and outside services are not connected in the demo.
Screenshots use fictional Northstar demo data. The Communications Dashboard is your central place for sending emails to students, parents, teachers, and contacts. Compose one-off emails or build reusable templates, target specific audiences using users, lists, rosters, or courses, schedule emails for later, and track delivery in the history log.

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Opening the Communications Dashboard

Go to Admin Dashboard → Website & Comms → Communications Dashboard. The page opens with the heading Communications and shows quick counts for your lists, contacts, sent emails, and delivery success rate. It has seven tabs:

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Composing an email

1

Open the Compose tab

Open the Communications Dashboard. The Compose tab is selected by default.
2

Add recipients

Next to To:, click Add recipients to open the Select Recipients dialog. You can select recipients from four tabs. Each tab shows how many items you have selected:
  • Users — search by username or email and filter by role (Admin, Teacher, Student, Parent, Accepted Parent, Applicant, or Public). Select individuals, select the whole page, or click Select all to select every user matching your filters.
  • Lists — select email lists to include all their subscribers.
  • Rosters — select rosters to include all their students.
  • Courses — select courses to email all enrolled students.
Click Done when you finish. The To: line shows the total recipient count; click it to change your selection. You can combine multiple sources, and DeanDesk deduplicates so no one receives the email twice.
3

Choose a reply-to address (optional)

The Reply to: field shows where replies will go as its placeholder. If your school has a default reply-to address, that address is used and the label beside the field reads School default. Otherwise replies go to your own email address and the label reads Default. To route replies somewhere else for this one email, type that address in Reply to:; the label changes to Custom. DeanDesk checks the address before sending.
4

Enter a subject line

Type a clear, descriptive Subject. This is what recipients see in their inbox.
5

Write your email

Choose an editor mode in the toolbar:
  • Simple — a rich text editor with headings, bold, italic, underline, text color, lists, links, and images.
  • Styled — a block-based editor for building branded emails with headings, paragraphs, buttons, images, dividers, videos, and spacers.
To start from a saved template, click Templates and select one.
6

Attach files (optional)

Click the paperclip (Attach files) button to add files. You can attach up to 10 files, each under 5 MB. Larger files are skipped.
7

Preview

Click Preview to see the email in Desktop and Mobile views.
8

Send or schedule

Click Send to deliver the email immediately. There is no confirmation step, so review your recipients first. To send later, click Schedule instead (see Scheduling emails).
Northstar demo: Communications Dashboard — Compose

Northstar demo — Communications Dashboard — Compose

Open full-size screenshot

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Setting a school-wide reply-to address

Many schools want replies to land in a shared inbox, such as an office or admissions mailbox, rather than with whichever admin pressed Send. Set a default once and every email sent from the Communications Dashboard, plus every automatic system email, uses it unless the sender chooses a different address. You can change the default from three places. They all edit the same setting.
On the Compose tab, click the gear icon beside the Reply to: field. Enter the address in School-wide reply-to email and click Save. Click Clear to remove the default. The composer updates immediately.
The default applies to new sends only. Emails that were already sent keep the reply-to address they went out with, and a scheduled email keeps the address that was in effect when it was scheduled.

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Personalizing emails

Use merge tags in your subject line or email body to personalize each email for its recipient. DeanDesk replaces these tags with the recipient’s actual information at send time. Example:
Subject: Welcome, {{firstName}}! Body: Hi {{firstName}} {{lastName}}, we’re excited to have you join our program…
Personalization works in both immediate and scheduled emails, and in both editor modes.

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Email templates

Save time on recurring emails by creating reusable templates. The Templates tab lists your templates with their category, usage count, and last update. Search by name or filter by Category.
Northstar demo: Communications Dashboard — Templates

Northstar demo — Communications Dashboard — Templates

Open full-size screenshot

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Creating a template

1

Go to the Templates tab

In the Communications Dashboard, select the Templates tab.
2

Click New Template

Enter a Template Name, an optional Description, the Email Subject, and a Category (General, Welcome, Notification, Marketing, Transactional, or Other). Leave Active on so the template appears when composing.
3

Design your template

On the Edit tab, add and arrange blocks to build the email content. Use the Preview tab to check the desktop and mobile layout. Templates support the same merge tags as regular emails.
4

Save

Click Save Template. Active templates are available when composing future emails.

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Using a template

While composing an email, click Templates to open Select Template. Search your library and select a template to fill in the subject and content, which you can then customize before sending. To create a variation without starting from scratch, open a template’s menu on the Templates tab and click Duplicate. The same menu has Edit and Delete.

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Scheduling emails

Schedule emails to go out at a specific date and time.
1

Compose your email

Write your email and select recipients as usual.
2

Click Schedule

Instead of clicking Send, click Schedule. The Schedule Email dialog opens.
3

Choose date, time, and timezone

Set the Date, Time, and Timezone. The timezone ensures the email goes out at the right local time.
4

Confirm

Click Schedule Send. The email is saved with Pending status. You can view it in the Scheduled tab.
Recipients from lists, rosters, and courses are resolved when the email is sent, so people added to those groups before the send time are included.

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Managing scheduled emails

The Scheduled tab lists each email’s subject, status, scheduled time, type, and who scheduled it. You can:
  • Filter by Status: Pending, Processing, Sent, Failed, or Cancelled
  • Cancel a pending email before it sends. Click Cancel, then Yes, Cancel It to confirm.
  • Review failures — a failed email shows its error message in the row
Scheduled emails cannot be edited. To change one, cancel it and schedule a new email. Once an email moves to Processing or Sent status, it can no longer be cancelled.
Northstar demo: Communications Dashboard — Scheduled

Northstar demo — Communications Dashboard — Scheduled

Open full-size screenshot

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Email lists and contacts

Email lists let you organize contacts into reusable groups for targeted outreach. The Lists & Contacts tab shows your lists on the left and the selected list’s details on the right.
Northstar demo: Communications Dashboard — Lists & Contacts

Northstar demo — Communications Dashboard — Lists & Contacts

Open full-size screenshot

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Creating an email list

1

Go to Lists & Contacts

In the Communications Dashboard, select the Lists & Contacts tab.
2

Create a new list

Click Create List. Enter a List Name and optional Description, then click Create List.
3

Configure the list

Select the list and open its Settings tab. Turn on Enforce Marketing Opt-in if this list is used for marketing emails and you need to track consent. Use List is Active to activate or deactivate the list, then click Save Changes. Delete List is also here.
4

Add subscribers

On the list’s Subscribers tab, click Add Subscriber. Search for an existing user, or enter an Email Address, First Name, Last Name, and Phone Number. Check User has consented to marketing communications if applicable, then click Add Subscriber. To add many contacts at once, use the Bulk Import tab.

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Managing subscribers

  • Search subscribers by name, email, or phone, and filter by status: Active or Unsubscribed
  • Edit a subscriber’s details, status, or marketing consent, then click Save Changes
  • Remove individual subscribers
When composing an email, you can select one or more email lists as recipients. Only Active subscribers receive the email.

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Email history

The History tab shows a log of every email sent from the Communications Dashboard.
  • Search by subject line or recipient email address
  • Filter by Status: Success, Partial, or Failed
  • Select any email to see its status, sender, recipients, send time, attachments, any error message, and the email content
Use the history tab to verify delivery, troubleshoot failed sends, or review past communications.
Northstar demo: Communications Dashboard — History

Northstar demo — Communications Dashboard — History

Open full-size screenshot

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Best practices

The Communications Dashboard is for admin-initiated outreach. For course-specific updates, use Announcements. For ongoing group conversations, use Chat & discussions. To customize the automatic emails DeanDesk sends for you (receipts, confirmations, reminders), use the System Email Library.
  • Build templates for recurring emails. Welcome emails, payment reminders, and event invitations are great candidates for templates.
  • Use email lists for segmentation. Create lists like “Prospective Students”, “Alumni”, or “Parent Newsletter” to target the right audience without selecting users one by one.
  • Preview before sending. Click Preview in the composer and check the Desktop and Mobile views. The preview also shows the reply-to address in use. Send delivers immediately without a confirmation step.
  • Route replies to a shared inbox. Set Reply to: to an office or admissions mailbox when several staff members handle responses, so replies do not land in one person’s inbox.
  • Personalize. Emails with the recipient’s name in the subject line and greeting feel more personal and get higher engagement.
  • Check the History tab after bulk sends. Verify that emails were delivered successfully, especially for large recipient lists.

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Email families and product buyers

You can select a child User who has linked parent recipients even if the child has no direct email address. Review the intended family audience before sending; child-account delivery can route to linked parents. For a product-specific message, open Finance → Products & Donations, select the product, open Sales, and click Email buyers. The composer includes buyers across all sales pages and statuses, deduplicated by email address. Remove anyone who should not receive that message or add an extra address, then review the subject, message, and attachments before sending. Buyer messages are sent individually. Read the result after sending. If delivery cannot be confirmed, check History before trying again. Review failed recipients lets you prepare a retry for failures without resending to everyone.
Email history records sending outcomes; a successful send does not prove that a recipient opened or read the message.

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All Communications tabs

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Import and deduplicate contacts

1

Prepare the contact list

Open Bulk Import (Bulk Create Contacts) and choose the destination Email List. Click Upload CSV to import a file with an email column (required) and optional firstName, lastName, and phone columns, then use Map to to match each column. Or type contacts under Manual Entry, using Add Row for more rows. Check Has marketing opt-in if these contacts consented to marketing, then click Add Contacts. Bulk Import adds email contacts only; it does not create school User accounts.
Northstar demo: Communications Dashboard — Bulk Import

Northstar demo — Communications Dashboard — Bulk Import

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2

Review the import

Check the CSV Preview before submitting, and review the import results afterward. Correct invalid rows before retrying them.
3

Resolve duplicates

Open Contact Merge. Under Possible Duplicates, DeanDesk groups contacts that share an email or name. In each group, choose the contact to Keep and the one to Merge, then click Merge Selected. You can also use Search Contacts to find records manually, and Find Contact/User Matches to link a contact to an existing user. Check the resulting contact and list membership afterward.
Northstar demo: Communications Dashboard — Contact Merge

Northstar demo — Communications Dashboard — Contact Merge

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Automatic transactional messages are customized separately in System Email Library.