This article contains the following:
1. Overview
2. Sending and receiving messages
3. Message notifications
4. What if a teacher turns off Messages?
5. Who can see my messages?
Overview
Teachers and students can chat back and forth with Messages right from the Clever Portal! From the students' Messages page, any of their teachers who have enabled Messages will be listed and available to receive a chat. To find out more, read below!
Sending and receiving messages
As long as one of your teachers has Messages turned on, you will see the Messages icon on your Clever Portal.
When you receive a message from a teacher, you will be notified at the top of your Portal.
From the Messages page, you can view new and previous messages from your teachers and send a reply to continue the conversation.
On the left-hand side, you will see any of your teachers who have Messages turned on. From there, you can start or continue a chat with any of these teachers.
Please note: If a teacher has never turned their Messages on their name will not be listed.
Message notifications
Students can customize their Messages settings to allow for sound and browser notifications. When you receive a message from a teacher you can choose to be notified by a sound, through your browser, or both!
To start, navigate to the Messages tab in your Portal. From there, select the new 'Settings' button.
Browser notifications
By default, browser notifications will be set to 'off'; however, you can update this at any time!
If you'd like to enable browser notifications, toggle the 'Browser notifications' button to 'on'.
When turning browser notifications on, a pop-up window will open asking if you'd like to 'Allow' or 'Block' these notifications. To continue with turning your browser notifications on, select 'Allow'.
Once you have selected 'Allow' the 'Browser notifications' toggle will be green.
If you choose to 'Block' notifications the toggle will become disabled. To enable browser notifications in the future, you will need to go to your browser preferences and enable them from there. (See these resources for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge).
When you're done, simply select 'Save' and your settings will be updated!
Sound notifications
By default, sound notifications will be set to 'on', but you can adjust this at any time! To do this, navigate to your Settings and toggle the 'Sound notifications' button 'on' or 'off'. A green toggle will indicate that the sound notifications are 'on'.
Whether turning the notifications on or off, don't forget to select 'Save' once you're done. You can always edit these settings as needed!
What if a teacher turns off Messages?
Teachers can turn off their messages at any time.
If your teacher has turned off Messages, you will be notified and will not be able to chat with that teacher until they have turned Messages back on.
Who can see my messages?
All Message history will be saved for the rest of the school year and can be requested from Clever by a Clever District Administrator.
How does Clever promote respectful messaging?
If a student sends a message that contains a swear word, a dialogue will display that prompts the student to confirm they would like to send their message. They can choose to select Don't send and edit their message or to select Send and the message will be delivered to their teacher. 
At this time, Clever cannot detect swear words that appear within another word or if appended by a punctuation mark. Example: "word!"