Send a message to your team — Commit Swimming Support

Step by step

Open Communication. The Inbox tab collects everything that needs your attention; Messages holds your sent and received mail.
Click New Message. A draft opens right away.
Add recipients in To:
- Type a name to add one person.
- Click a chip under Quick audiences to add a saved list in one click. Save current recipients saves whoever is in To right now.
- Click an audience in To to see who’s in it. Remove anyone you want to leave off this one message.
- Browse & filter opens Add recipients. The Swimmers and Staff tabs filter by age, status, training group, registration group, tags, bulletin board, or any custom field. Select all N matching grabs the whole filtered list, and Include inactive roster adds past families. Save filters as quick audience keeps the list for next time (see Quick audiences).
Write a Subject and your message. The toolbar has text styles, bold, colors, links, lists, tables and images. Paste from Word or Google Docs and the formatting and tables come along. Paste or drop a photo, or use the image button, and it sits right inside the message. Attach files adds documents (up to 15 MB per message).
Check Who receives this: how many families, email addresses and staff the message reaches. A warning names any swimmer with no parent linked or no parent email. See every recipient and address lists everyone.
Set the delivery options on the right:
- Send to: Parents only sends to each swimmer’s parents. Parents + swimmers also sends a copy to swimmers with their own email.
- Push notification: families with the Commit app get a notification, unless they turned off push for Direct messages in their own notification settings. Staff always get it. Email and the Commit inbox are always included.
- Show in all staff Sent: other staff can follow the thread from their Sent tab.
- Email look: Team header uses the logo and brand color from your website settings. Plain reads like a personal email.
- The line under it, “Replies go to…”, shows the address that gets email replies.
Click Preview email to see the email on Desktop or Phone. Send a test to me emails you a copy first.
Click the send button. Later, open the message and click View delivery report: one row per recipient with their role, active or inactive list, email, and the delivered, read and failed times. Filter by status, list or role, search a name, and export to CSV or XLSX.

Your draft saves as you type (“Draft saved” shows next to the title), so a closed laptop doesn’t lose it. Find it under Drafts. Discard deletes the draft and its recipients after you confirm. Emails to families from the inactive roster carry an unsubscribe link; a family that uses it moves to your Archived roster.

Quick audiences

A quick audience is a saved list of people you message often, like “Gold group parents” or “Meet volunteers”. Click Manage next to Quick audiences on a new message to see yours. Use the arrows to reorder them, Edit to change one, and Delete to remove it. New quick audience makes a new one.

When you make one, pick the Audience type:

Updates itself: set filters, like training group or age. New swimmers who match later join on their own. Untick anyone you want to leave out, and they stay out.
Fixed list: tick the exact people you want. The list never changes unless you edit it.

New quick audience with Updates itself picked, the Swimmers filters, and one swimmer unticked so the list shows 1 left out

Give it a name and save. Save filters as quick audience on Add recipients opens the same form with your filters filled in.

Organize your messages

Communication → Messages has four tabs: Received, Sent, Drafts and Archived. Check the box on a message to select it, or the box in the header to select every message in the list. While anything is selected, the header shows how many and the actions for that tab:

Received: Mark as read (or Mark as unread when everything you selected is already read) and Archive.
Archived: Unarchive and Delete.
Drafts: Discard.
Sent has no checkboxes and no Archive.

The ✕ clears the selection.

Two messages selected on Received, with Mark as read and Archive in the header

Hover a message for its own buttons: read or unread, Archive (or Unarchive), and ⋯ with every action for that tab. ⋯ also has Copy link when the message has a View this message online page. Clicking the message itself still opens it.

A notice confirms each action. For read, unread, archive and unarchive it has an Undo button for about 6 seconds. Delete and Discard ask you to confirm first. Delete takes the message out of your list only; the sender and other recipients keep theirs.

On a phone, the folders (Received, Sent, Drafts, Archived) are in a dropdown at the top, next to the Unread chip. To select messages, tap ⋯ and choose Select, then tap the messages you want. The actions sit in a bar at the bottom. Tap ✕ when you’re done.

Two messages selected in the Commit app, with Select all at the top and Mark as read, Mark as unread and Archive in the bottom bar

Check what a family received

Open the swimmer’s page and click the Communication tab.

Family contacts lists each parent and the swimmer with their email. Receiving means email is getting through. Bouncing means it isn’t; click Update email (on a phone, tap Bouncing · Update) to fix the address.
Below that is every message sent to the family. Search, filter by Status, Recipient or Dates, and Export the list.
Click a message to open Delivery details: when each address was sent, delivered, opened or bounced, and when a push went out. Not emailed means that person wasn’t sent an email for this message.

Common questions

A family says they didn’t get my message. Check the swimmer’s Communication tab or the message’s View delivery report first. Bouncing or Failed means the email didn’t arrive (fix the address); Delivered means check their spam folder. The message also sits in their app inbox either way, and every email carries a View this message online link that works without logging in.

“Message sent! Ava Smith won’t get it…” The message went to everyone Commit can reach. The notice names anyone it couldn’t email and why: no parent linked, no parent email on file, or no email on file. The warning under Who receives this flags them before you send. To reach them next time, add a parent on the swimmer’s Profile tab with Add Parent, add an email, or switch to Parents + swimmers if the swimmer has their own email.

What do replies do? An in-app reply comes back to you alone, in your Received tab. A family replying to the email lands in your personal email inbox (the address under “Replies go to…”), not in Commit.

The list stops partway through my messages. Received, Sent, Drafts and Archived load a page at a time. Scroll to grow the page, click Older messages for the next one, and Newest to return to the top.

Can I schedule a message for later? No. Write it, let it sit in Drafts, and send when it’s time.

Can other staff see what I sent? Two ways: turn on Show in all staff Sent on the message, and staff whose Communication permission is Edit can see the team’s sent messages regardless.

Can staff without full access send messages? Sending needs the Communication permission set to Edit. View-only staff can read but not send or reply.

Can I message only the families going to a meet? Yes. Open the meet, click ⋯ and choose Send Message. Pick Entered Swimmers, Committed Swimmers, Pending Swimmers, Declined Swimmers or Invited Swimmers. It hands the list to this same screen. Rosters, program registrant lists, and calendar events have the same shortcuts.

Can I put a photo in the message body? Yes. Paste or drop it into the message, or use the image button in the toolbar. It shows inside the email. Use Attach files for documents like PDFs.