Create and manage channels

A channel is a named, ongoing conversation for a group, like #grade-5-team for your staff or #grade-5-family for one classroom's parents. Reach for a channel when the same people need to talk over time. For a quick note to one or two people, send a direct message instead.

Staff or Families

Every channel sits in one group (labeled Audience in the app and Section on the web), and it decides who can be in the channel.

• Staff keeps the conversation among your team.
• Families opens it to parents, plus whichever staff you add.

Switch a channel from Families to Staff and any parents you'd selected drop off the list. A staff channel can't hold families, so Clear Day clears them for you.

Create a channel

1. Open Messages.
2. On the app, pick the group you want with the tabs at the top, then find the Channels header and tap the + beside it. On the web, click Channel at the top of the conversation list.
3. Choose the audience (Audience in the app, Section on the web) and set it to Staff or Families.
4. Type a Name. It carries a #, and short, lowercase, hyphenated names read best: grade-5-team.
5. Add a Description if it helps people know what the channel is for. This one's optional.
6. Flip on Private channel if it should stay invite-only. Leave it off and anyone in that audience can find it.
7. Add your Members (more on that below).
8. Tap Create Channel on the app, or click Create channel on the web.

The create button stays greyed out until the channel has a name. That's the only thing it asks for.

Adding members

You're on the channel from the start, as its creator.

On the app, you've got a few ways to fill out the list:

• Quick Add groups bring in a whole set at once: all teachers, a classroom's parents. Tap a group to add everyone in it, tap again to take them back out. Each one shows its headcount.
• The Search members box narrows the full list by name or role.
• Whoever you've picked shows up as chips above the list. Tap the x on a chip to drop someone.

On the web, Members is one multi-select dropdown: type to search, click each person to add them. Quick Add groups are an app-only shortcut.

Household reach on a Families channel

When you're building a Families channel, Clear Day shows a small, sibling-aware reach line as you add members. It counts students and the distinct households they belong to. For example: "Sibling-aware: 12 students → 9 households — one message per family." That's the number a post will actually hit: when two siblings are enrolled, their family still gets one message, not two.

Add a whole classroom's families with a Quick Add group and the preview totals the deduped reach across the rooms you've selected. Hand-pick parents instead and it falls back to a plain household count (one per family), so the line always describes exactly who the channel reaches.

Once the channel exists, anyone in it can post. See Post and reply in conversations.

View members and leave a channel

Open any channel and the header line shows its headcount ("12 members · Families") and below it sits an Info button. Tap either to open the members sheet.

The sheet lists everyone in the channel. Each row shows the person's name and role (Teacher, Admin, Parent), and parents carry a second line, "Parent of <child>" (with both names joined by & when they have more than one student enrolled). Your own row is marked You.

Some channels are managed for you and can't be left:

• A school-wide channel shows the banner "School-wide channel — all members are automatically included."
• A classroom channel shows "Classroom channel — membership syncs with the classroom roster."

On a standard channel, a red Leave Channel button sits at the bottom of the sheet. Tap it and Clear Day asks you to confirm: "You'll stop receiving messages from this channel. You can be re-added later." Confirm and you drop off the member list and the channel leaves your list. Anyone managing the channel can add you back at any time.

Building a channel for a recurring group? A saved audience can do the same targeting for a one-off message, without creating a standing channel.