How do I send direct messages to learners?

Looking to send direct messages (DMs) to your learners in Bridge? Great! Here’s everything you need to know to ensure your messages are delivered exactly as intended.

First things first, make sure the “Direct Message” feature is enabled. You can do this by navigating to the Admin > Notifications panel and toggling it on.

Once enabled, you’ll have the ability to send direct messages to learners within Bridge.

As an Admin or Author, you can easily message learners assigned to a course. Simply select “Send Message” from the meatball menu in the top right-hand corner of the course description. You’ll then be able to choose from several recipient options: Everyone, Overdue, Not Started, Required, Finished, and Permanently Failed.

In the example below, the user is an Account Admin who wants to send a message thanking their learners for completing the course.

Another way to message learners is through groups. By default, managers can send messages to their assigned learners, and this setting cannot be changed. To view or adjust permissions, navigate to Admin > Roles & Permissions, where the relevant permission is listed as "Message Users."

Managers are automatically granted control over their groups in Bridge. This is set up through user provisioning—whether via auto CSV, manual CSV, or API—when an active UID is assigned as the manager UID for one or more learners.

By default, managers have permission to navigate to Admin > Users & Permissions > Manage Groups, where they’ll see a group labeled “My Learners.”

Once selected, the Manager can message their learners by clicking the mail icon in the top right-hand corner.

If you have the necessary permissions, you can message all learners directly from the "Admin" panel. To do this, navigate to Admin > Users & Permissions > Manage Users and click on the envelope icon in the top right corner. This feature allows you to easily communicate with all learners in your system, ensuring important updates or reminders are delivered efficiently.

Again, If you have the required permissions and setup, you can also send a direct message to individual learners. By clicking on a learner’s name from within a group or by navigating to Admin > Users & Permissions > Manage Users, you can easily send them a custom message or initiate a password reset. This flexibility allows for more personalized communication and user support when needed.

How direct messages appear to the user depends on several factors: the Bridge support siteadmin, the account’s notification settings, support configurations, and user settings.

Managers do not have permission to modify account, support, or user data. Therefore, the following notes are primarily relevant for Admins who may want to customize the information displayed in those emails.

The notification will be delivered to the user as follows:

We’ll start with the username, which is displayed in both the subject line and the sender details at the beginning of the notification.

The sender’s name in the DM is pulled from the “Full Name” field in Bridge’s user data, which combines the “First Name” and “Last Name” from the user provisioning. Admins have the option to temporarily adjust the “Full Name” if they want the notification to appear as if it's coming from the company.

If auto CSV is enabled, there’s no need to worry—any changes will be corrected during the daily sync. However, if your company relies on manual uploads, it’s important to remember to revert the name change afterward.

The sender information is displayed as the sender's name.

This information is pulled from two synced areas in Bridge. The first is located in Admin > General > Notifications > More Settings > From Label, and the second in Admin > General > Account Settings > Custom From Label.

These two fields must always contain the same value and cannot differ.

This contact name is pulled from Admin > Account Settings > Custom Support Contact Information > Name.

Custom Support Contact Information will also influence other fields in the footer of the notification.

The email field is located under Admin > Account Settings > Custom Support Contact Information > Email or Ticket URL.

If your company has put a phone number in the appropriate field for the Account Settings, then that, too, will be exposed in the footer.

The final element that an Account Admin can control is the logo that appears in the header of the notification.

This is pulled from Admin > General > Custom Branding. The primary logo and the reversed logo will be exposed depending on a user’s settings with dark mode.

Now that you're fully equipped with all the details about direct messaging in Bridge, it's time to put it into action! If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact support.

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