Why can't I select recipients to send communications to?

This article explains why you may be unable to select recipients for sending communications such as SMS or emails. It outlines steps to resolve the issue, including creating a new communication, checking contact details, ensuring the recipient list is valid for club participants, and verifying template settings.

You might receive this message when trying to send SMS, emails or in-app messages.

This email cannot be sent - there are no recipients, either because there are no email addresses on file for the chosen recipients, or the recipient group is empty.

Step 1 - Try creating the communication again

In some instances, if you've previously created a draft communication and not sent it, you might not be able to edit the 'to' field. 

To clear the draft and create a new mail merge, just click the Discard draft button at the bottom of the page.

Step 2 - Check contact details

If you are still unable to send the communications, please check that a mobile number/email address has been added for the intended recipients.

You can update emails from School > Data > Data Quality Dashboard > Contact details or use our Bulk import student, guardian or staff email addresses feature. Make sure their main email address is marked as the default on their profile.

Step 3 - Check whether your recipient list is based on a Club

If you are communication with club participants, you can only use a Mail Merge if their membership period has started, as they are not participants until then.

To communicate with Club Participants for a specific club session (excluding students who are no longer attending), please see Emailing Guardians from a Club.

Step 4 - Are you using a template?

If your recipients clear or disappear when you select the template, or you can't find the recipients you want when the template has been added, it might be because the template is linked to a custom report.

You can check this in the settings of your template if you go to School > Communications > Templates and click on the tab for the correct communication type. You will be able to see the name of any linked custom reports next to the template name from here.

To amend this and enable you to add in your recipients, you will need to change the custom report in School > Custom Report Writer or use a different template.