.. _Send an Email Message to Course Participants:

############################################
Send an Email Message to Course Participants
############################################

.. tags:: educator, how-to

.. contents::
 :local:
 :depth: 1

You can send an email message to course participants from the instructor dashboard immediately or schedule it to be sent at a later time.

.. note::
   To send bulk emails, you must first :ref:`Enable Bulk Email` on your Open edX instance.

.. _Send Bulk Email Immediately:

**********************************************************
Send an Email Message to Course Participants Immediately
**********************************************************

.. Important:: You cannot cancel non-scheduled bulk email messages after you send them.

   Before you send a message to a wide audience, send the message only to
   yourself to test and review it. Make sure it displays as you intend it to,
   and that any links or media function correctly.

To send an email message to course participants, follow these steps.

#. View the live version of your course.

#. Select **Instructor**, and then select **Email**.

#. From the **Send to** option, select one or more groups of email recipients.

   .. note:: Make sure you understand who is included or excluded when you
      send a message to one, or a combination, of the recipient groups. For
      details, see :ref:`Bulk Email Who Is Included or Excluded`

#. In the **Subject** field, enter a subject for the message.

#. In the **Message** box, enter the text for the message.

   For details about options for composing your message, see
   :ref:`Guide to Composing Email Messages`.

#. Select **Send Email**. A bulk email task is queued for processing.

Multiple courses use the same queue to complete these tasks, so it can take
some time for your message to be sent to all of its recipients. You can
perform other tasks on the instructor dashboard or navigate to other pages
while you wait for your message to be sent.

.. _Send_Scheduled_Bulk_Email:

*****************************************************
Send a Scheduled Email Message to Course Participants
*****************************************************

We have introduced a way to schedule a bulk email message to be sent at a
specified date and time in the future. Once a message has been scheduled,
and until the message has been sent, it will be possible to view, edit, or
cancel these messages.

.. Important:: Messages may not be sent at the *exact* time specified

   .. note:: We check the message schedules every fifteen minutes. For example,
      A message scheduled to be sent at 09:10:00 will not be processed until
      09:15:00. Once the schedule for a message has elapsed it will be sent.
      When processed, these messages will be placed on the same queue that
      non-scheduled messages use, so it may take some time for your message to
      be sent to all recipients.

To send a scheduled email message to course participants, follow these steps.

#. View the live version of your course.

#. Select **Instructor**, and then select **Email**.

#. From the **Send to** option, select one or more groups of email recipients.

   .. note:: Make sure you understand who is included or excluded when you
      send a message to one, or a combination, of the recipient groups. For
      details, see :ref:`Bulk Email Who Is Included or Excluded`

#. In the **Subject** field, enter a subject for the message.

#. In the **Message** box, enter the text for the message.

   For details about options for composing your message, including using keywords to make the message more personal, see
   :ref:`Guide to Composing Email Messages`.

#. Check the **Schedule this email for a future date** checkbox. This also
   updates the **Send Email** button to a **Schedule Email** button.

#. Enter a date (in the future) within the **Send date** field, or optionally
   click on the calendar icon to open up a date picker to assist in selecting a
   date for the message.

#. Enter a time within the **Send time** field, or optionally
   click on the clock icon to open up a time picker.

#. Select **Schedule Email**. A bulk email task is then scheduled for
   processing.

.. seealso::

 :ref:`Enable Bulk Email` (how-to)

 :ref:`Guide to Bulk Email Messages` (reference)

 :ref:`Review Sent Messages` (how-to)

 :ref:`Example Messages to Students` (reference)

**Maintenance chart**

+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Review Date  | Working Group Reviewer        |   Release      |Test situation                                               |
+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 08/12/2025   | John (Curricu.me)             | Sumac          |Pass                                                         |
+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| 09/17/2025   | Leira (Curricu.me)            | Sumac          |Fail (https://github.com/openedx/docs.openedx.org/issues/932)|
+--------------+-------------------------------+----------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+