Conversations VS. My Categories VS. Target Lists

Objective

To explain the differences between My Categories, Conversations, and Targets Lists to help you better decide which tools to use to communicate with your team/school. 

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Note: Conversations and Target Lists require the additional purchase of our Secured Access feature for use. If you are not a Secured Access school then this article will not apply to you. 

Similarities

My Categories, Conversations, and Target Lists can all be used to message groups of users at once. 

Target Lists and Conversations require Secured Access and Administrators can control who is listed in each of these Features. 

Differences

My Categories 

1: Can be subscribed to by users within their App, and appear publicly for users to access should they choose to. IE. Parent Joe Smith will be able to subscribe to your category in their App and will receive your news items in their Newsfeed. 
(Teachers can not remove users from Category Subscriptions. it's similar to Youtube subs, anyone can subscribe)

2: Are one-way communications that post to the user's newsfeed. Users subscribed to this category can not interact with the message or message the poster directly. 

Target Lists

1: Are Controlled by Administrators within the Dashboard, users can not add themselves to the list. This gives the school more control over who is included in a communication. Users can be removed from these lists. 

2: This feature connects with various other Features, including Conversations. It is an enabling feature that helps you isolate exactly who you want to message. If you use this to post in a User's Newsfeed it is still a one-way communication, but if you use this to message a group in Conversations it becomes a two-way conversation that everyone can communicate in similar to texting. 

Conversations

1: Conversations operate similar to messaging apps. These can either be one-on-one messages or you can communicate in groups. 

Summary

My Categories are 1-way communications via the Newsfeed. 

Targets Lists enable both of those features should you choose to target a specific list of uses. 

Conversations are 2-way conversations

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