Skip to content
WelcoYour alerts, by text.

School board IT alert texts for tech and facilities staff

Over winter break, a boiler lockout in a cold snap or a forced door can sit unseen for days. Welco texts the alert emails your access panels, BAS, network monitor and urgency line already send to the staff member who covers them. Nothing goes into any building, and students and families never get these texts.

Text me my school board alertsBook a demo

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

  • Works from alerts you already email
  • Staff phones only
  • No per-user fees

Works by email with

  • Door forced & held open
  • WebCTRL
  • WhatsUp Gold
  • Urgency lines

A floor plan of West SS Gym: West SS Gym (door 3) goes into alarm, held open, its room turns orange and Access server emails the alert. The email reaches Welco and the phone shows: “Welco: [West SS Gym] Exterior door 3 HELD OPEN at 9:42 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Animation: alerts arrive through the night and each goes to the right person. 9:42 p.m., to Night custodial lead: "Welco: [West SS Gym] Exterior door 3 HELD OPEN at 9:42 PM. Reply STOP to opt out." 1:16 a.m., to On-call HVAC tech: "Welco: [Elm PS] Boiler 1 lockout alarm at 1:16 AM. Reply STOP to opt out." 6:04 a.m., to Board network tech: "Welco: [MS Core] Switch MDF-1 not responding to ping at 6:04 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

What a school board gets from Welco

IT, building and urgency line alerts reach the staff member who covers them, by text, on nights, weekends and breaks. Nothing is installed in any school.

  • Breaks stop being blind spots

    A boiler lockout during break texts the one tech checking buildings. Rules tell school days, weekends, PD days and breaks apart.

  • Doors reach whoever is on duty

    A door forced or held open alarm names the school and the door for the night custodial lead.

  • The MDF switch is found before first bell

    A WhatsUp Gold down alert texts the network tech at 6 a.m., before teachers try to log in.

  • The urgency line reaches a phone

    Messages on the urgency line arrive with a tap-to-listen link, as our US school district urgency line case study shows.

A boiler lockout on the second night of winter break

The buildings are empty, it is minus 28 outside, and one HVAC tech is checking every school in a rural Manitoba division. Here is how a heating failure plays out.

  1. The break rule starts on the last school day

    On-call routing moves boiler and door alarms from each head custodian to the tech covering the break.

  2. WebCTRL emails a boiler alarm

    Alarm: Oak MS / Boiler Plant / B-1 Status: LOCKOUT Loop supply 36 C

  3. The break tech gets it at home

    Welco: [Oak MS] Boiler B-1 LOCKOUT, loop supply 36C at 4:12 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

  4. He answers before leaving

    On my way to Oak, will reset B-1 and walk the gym coils

  5. The reply goes back by email

    Text replies are emailed to the alarm's sender. The facilities manager reads it with the night's alarms, no phone call needed.

    Reply from the break tech's phone: On my way to Oak, will reset B-1 and walk the gym coils

  6. Heat is back before the coils freeze

    The tech resets the lockout and checks the gym air handler. The delivery report later shows which phones got the alarm.

The times are a sample, and mobile networks set how fast a text lands. Replying by text does not clear the alarm in WebCTRL.

How to set up school board alert texts

The IT manager or a facilities tech can do this. Each system needs one more email recipient.

  1. Sign up and verify your school board

    Tell us which systems will send alerts. Every board or division is verified before its alert number can send.

  2. Invite the staff who cover alerts

    Techs, custodial leads and administrators enter their own cellphone and reply YES once. Students and parents are never invited.

  3. Add Welco to each alert email

    Add your Welco address next to today's recipients and approve the sender. Try it first in test mode, which sends nothing to phones.

Send your next after-hours door alarm to staff

Sign up, verify your board and point one system's alert email at Welco.

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

Text me my school board alertsBook a demo

Which school systems can send alert texts?

If it can email an alert, Welco can text it. Guides cover access control alarm texts, WebCTRL building alarms and ping and uptime monitors. Board phones on 3CX or Allworx can text urgency voicemails too.

Alerts school board staff act on after hours

These are masked examples. Long-term care and retirement homes and municipal offices split alerts across teams the same way. See how other sectors use alert texts.

  • Network: Welco: [West SS IDF-2] Switch uplink DOWN, 48 ports offline at 5:41 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • Cafeteria: Welco: [West SS Cafeteria] Walk-in cooler 7.8C, high limit 5C at 2:19 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • Urgency line: Welco: New voicemail on Facilities Urgency Line from (204) 555-0177, 1:05. Listen: welco.ai/v/T4nW8c. Reply STOP to opt out.

A phone showing these alert texts: Network, "Welco: [West SS IDF-2] Switch uplink DOWN, 48 ports offline at 5:41 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."; Cafeteria, "Welco: [West SS Cafeteria] Walk-in cooler 7.8C, high limit 5C at 2:19 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."; Urgency line, "Welco: New voicemail on Facilities Urgency Line from (204) 555-0177, 1:05. Listen: welco.ai/v/T4nW8c. Reply STOP to opt out."

Which school board alerts should text staff after hours?

Text the alerts that leave a building cold, open or offline before students arrive. Routine events during the school day can stay in email.

Worth a text on nights, weekends and breaks

  • A door forced or held open after lockup.
  • A boiler lockout, a freeze stat trip or a classroom falling below its low limit.
  • The core or MDF switch down, or the internet circuit lost.
  • The MDF closet UPS running on battery.
  • A cafeteria walk-in cooler or freezer over its limit.
  • A new voicemail on the after-hours urgency line.

Fine to leave in email

Doors held open between classes, toner and printer alerts, and a single access point offline. Nightly backups that passed can wait too.

Plan winter break and the summer holidays early

Breaks are when alarms sit unseen the longest, and winter break falls in the coldest weeks. Set the break rule before the last school day, and send heating alarms to a second phone. Our guide on how to share on-call duty helps a small team plan it.

A door alarm from access control, as a text

Access control emails list the event, the door and the site. Welco puts all three on one line for whoever is on duty tonight.

Alert email from access@security.example.ca, subject “Alarm: Door Forced Open”. Welco trims it to one text of 95 characters: “Welco: [West SS] Door FORCED OPEN, Stair 2 emergency exit at 11:18 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Text received: Welco: [West SS] Door FORCED OPEN, Stair 2 emergency exit at 11:18 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.

Characters173951 credit

Animation: the alert email "Alarm: Door Forced Open" is trimmed into one text: "Welco: [West SS] Door FORCED OPEN, Stair 2 emergency exit at 11:18 PM. Reply STOP to opt out."

One Welco address can take alarms from every school. Per-building rules send each building's alarms to its own staff.

Weekend and break alerts, then and now

Found on Monday

  • Door alarms land in a security inbox nobody reads on Saturday.
  • The first word of a boiler lockout is a cold classroom.
  • A dead MDF switch shows up as a pile of help desk tickets.
  • Urgency line voicemails wait for someone to log in.

With Welco

  • The school, the door and the time on the custodial lead's phone.
  • The break tech hears about the boiler while there is still heat in the pipes.
  • The network tech sees the switch alert before buses roll.
  • Urgency line messages play from a link in the text.

Frequently asked questions

Can Welco text parents or students?

No. Welco only sends system alerts to board staff who accepted an invite and replied YES from their own phone. It is not a tool for family messages, snow day closings or class notices. Use your board's family messaging system for those.

Our 911-dial alert goes to the front office. Can the school's police liaison officer get a copy by text?

Yes, if your phone system emails the notice. Invite the liaison officer and put them on that rule, so the notice reaches the front office and the officer together. The text is a heads-up for staff. It does not place or replace the 911 call.

Do we need a separate setup for each school building?

No. One Welco address can take alerts from every building. Rules match the school name in each email and send it to that building's staff. The alert emails you get today keep arriving as before.

Do staff need an app, and what if a text doesn't arrive?

No app is needed, because alerts arrive as normal texts. If a phone is off or a number can't take texts, the delivery report says why in plain English. For key alarms, send each one to two staff phones.

What does it cost to cover a whole school board?

Welco has no per-user fees, hardware or setup fee, so covering many buildings doesn't mean buying many seats. Each alert text uses message credits from your plan, priced in US dollars on Welco plans. A board can test it for 7 days with 15 credits. A card verifies the board, and nothing is billed until you approve a plan.

Can HALO sensor alerts go to the administrator on duty?

Yes, if your sensors email their alerts. A rule matches the building name and sends school-day alerts to the principal or vice-principal on duty there. After hours, you can send them to the night custodial lead or nobody at all.

Will a cold snap that trips several schools flood the tech's phone?

It doesn't have to. Alarm flood control caps how many texts one burst can send, so the tech sees the first few and opens the BAS. Alarms past the cap are not texted. A night rule can also drop return-to-normal messages.

Could someone outside the board send a text to our staff?

No. Welco only texts mail from senders the board approved, such as your BAS or access control server. Anything else sent to your Welco address is refused. Nothing connects back into your network either.

Let tonight's door or boiler alarm find the right staff member

Point one board system at Welco and invite the staff who cover it.

Text me my school board alertsBook a demo

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing