Emailing
- Messaging multiple students functions like a Bcc email.
- When a student replies to your email message, you will receive the response via email, and you can see and reply within Pathways or your desktop/mobile email app.
SMS
- SMS messages to multiple students appear as an individual text.
- If a text message is sent to 100 students or less, it will come from a random pooled phone number. If a student texts back, you will get the response via email. And if you message back from within Pathways, it will go back to the student as a text.
- If the text is sent to more than 100 students, it will come from the bulk message number, 412-866-1787, and students cannot text back.
- Students receive Pathways texts from a random pooled/bulk message number rather than your personal number, so they may not recognize the sender. To avoid your message being mistaken for spam, we recommend beginning each text by identifying yourself, such as with your name and role.
- Students can opt-out of receiving bulk text messages. And if a student has opted out of text messages, then text messages from the pooled number or short code will be delivered via email instead.
- When students reply to SMS messages sent through Pathways, their replies are converted into emails. As a result, if you have an auto-reply set up in Outlook, a student’s text response will trigger it. The auto-reply is then sent back to the student by SMS, and only the text before the first line break will be included. To prevent this, set your Outlook auto-reply to send Inside My Organization Only. Pathways text replies arrive as emails from a pathways.campus.eab address rather than an @pitt.edu address, so they won’t trigger an internal-only auto-reply.
Texting should be reserved for important or time sensitive messages. See the Pathways website for the text messaging policy and communication guidelines