Messages

Harness emails your families when something happens, like a sent invoice or lesson notes, and keeps a copy. Open the Messages tab on a student, person, or account to see what went out and whether it arrived.

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Emails Harness sends

Harness emails families at these moments:

• Invoices and reminders: when an invoice is sent, by you or by automatic billing, plus reminders around the due date on the Professional plan. See Invoices.
• Lesson notes: when you click Send Notes on a lesson. See Lesson notes.
• Welcome and portal invites: when you add a student with the welcome box ticked or approve a sign-up, and whenever you choose Send portal invite. See Give a family access.
• Policy updates: when you save changes to your published studio policy and choose to notify families. Each one shows on the person’s Messages tab as “Updated Studio Policy from” and your studio name.
• Sign-up confirmations: when a family submits your sign-up form, with your confirmation message.
• Booking and reschedule confirmations: when someone books through a scheduling link or picks a new time with a reschedule link. A booking confirmation isn’t tied to a student, so it doesn’t show on any Messages tab.
• Can’t attend confirmations: when a family taps Can’t attend in the portal. See Late cancellations.

Lesson emails go to the contacts you choose under Who gets emails, and invoices go to the account’s people.

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Message history

Every student, person, and account has a Messages tab listing what Harness sent, newest first. A student’s tab shows every email about them, whoever got it, and an account’s tab holds its invoices and reminders. Each person gets their own copy, so an invoice to two parents shows as two rows. Click a row, or View email on a send confirmation, to see the email as they saw it, whether it arrived, and a link to what it was about. If you delete a person, their emails stay on the student’s and account’s tabs.

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Send an email again

You can send an email again from the row’s menu or from the open email. Send again sends an exact copy of an email that arrived. Try again retries one that didn’t go out, and it sends to the person’s current address, so fix a typo first. For an invoice, Send again sends the invoice as it stands today, so it may not match the original email. The new email shows as its own row, with View original to open the one it came from.

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When an address stops working

When mail to someone bounces, Harness tells you so you can fix the address. You get an Email address stopped working item in your inbox, and an Email bouncing warning shows on the person, their students, and the account. Update the address with Edit person, or from Needs attention, and the warning clears. If nobody on an account can receive mail, the account shows No billing recipient receiving mail.

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What your families see

Families get ordinary emails from you, with nothing to sign up for.

• Each email comes from your name “via Harness”, and replies go to your own inbox.
• Everyone gets their own copy, so no one sees another parent’s address.
• Booking and reschedule confirmations carry a calendar invite they can add to their calendar.
• Lesson notes, welcome emails, and portal invites link to the student portal.

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FAQ