Why didn't my Broadcast arrive?

A Broadcast that does not arrive is almost never a fault. It is nearly always one of a handful of settings, and they are quick to check. Work down this list in order, because the first three account for most cases.

If one person did not get it

1. Do they have the app installed? Broadcasts arrive inside your church app. Someone who only ever uses your website on a computer will not receive one. Ask them to visit your website address followed by /app on their phone and add it to their home screen. See installing the church app on your phone.
2. Did they allow notifications? This is the most common single cause. If they declined the prompt when they installed the app, nothing will reach their lock screen. Ask them to log out, log back in, and accept the prompt when it appears. Our guide on app notifications covers the rest.
3. Are they subscribed to the Broadcasts channel? Broadcasts is a mailing channel like any other, and people choose which channels they receive. Somebody who has not consented to it will not get one, and that is working as intended rather than a fault.
4. Were they in the recipients? Check the send itself. It is easy to select a group that turns out not to contain the person you had in mind.
5. Is their phone blocking notifications? Focus modes, do not disturb, battery savers and per-app notification settings all quietly suppress them. Worth checking before assuming the problem is at our end.

If a child did not get it

This is usually correct behaviour rather than a fault, and there are several reasons for it. See Sending a mailing or Broadcast to a group that includes children for the whole picture.

• The message is waiting for a parent. If your church uses Safe Messaging, every child’s copy is held until their parent or guardian approves it. Until then it has not been sent. Your delivery report shows those children as awaiting guardian approval.
• A guardian rejected it, or nobody acted in time. Then it is never delivered, and you are told. See What a parent sees, and how they approve a message.
• They are under 13. Younger children have no login of their own, so a push notification has nowhere to land. They can only receive the email copy, and only once a guardian has approved it.
• They have no contactable guardian. A child with no guardian on record, or whose guardians have no email address, is left out of the send with a warning naming them, because there is nobody who can approve for them. See How to get your family data ready for Safe Messaging.
• You do not hold Safe Messaging permission. Without it, children are excluded from your sends altogether, with a warning naming them. See How to give a leader permission to send Safe Messages.

If nobody got it

1. Is the Broadcasts channel switched on for your site? It lives in Config, then Consent, with your other mailing channels. If it is not enabled, there is nothing to send on. See How Broadcasts work, and what your church controls.
2. Did the send actually go out? Check the message in your web office rather than assuming. A message left as a draft looks very like one that was sent.
3. Did you choose Broadcasts as the channel? A message can be written and sent by email without ever going out as a notification.
4. Has anyone subscribed to the channel yet? If you have only just enabled it, your congregation may not have opted in. Worth telling people the channel exists before relying on it.

---

Good to know

• Broadcasts do not bounce. If somebody is not reachable, the message simply does not arrive, with nothing to tell you. That is why the checks above matter more than they would for email.
• A notification that is dismissed is gone. Somebody may genuinely have received it and swiped it away without reading it.
• For anything that really matters, send on more than one channel. See Broadcasts, email or SMS: which to use when.
• If you have worked through all of this and something still looks wrong, tell us what you sent, when, and to which group, and we will take a look.