Shorten URLs automatically for text messages and iCal feeds

I would like text notifications that are sent out to have the URL automatically shortened like you can do through bit.ly. Right now it displays the entire URL, but a shortened one would be better for text messages so it doesn't use all our characters.

  • Guest
  • Aug 27 2015
  • Under consideration
  • Jan 27, 2017

    Admin response

    This is something we'd like to offer in the future. We don't have a timeline yet and it's not on the roadmap, but this is something we're hoping to accomplish at some point.

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  • Amanda Polson commented
    1 Mar, 2023 02:13pm

    How is this still not fixed?! We don't have the budget for a third party texting service, tried to use the bb messages and it didnt even split the link, it just truncated it which makes it totally useless!

  • Tina Pappas commented
    4 Oct, 2021 07:23pm

    We've ramped up our text notifications and just found out that links are being cut off and split across multiple messages. There's gotta be a way to use bitly or something like that to shorten the URLs.

  • Guest commented
    10 Sep, 2019 02:32pm

    OK--it's late 2019, and this still hasn't been fixed yet. We encourage our families to use text notifications, but they're worthless when the URLs are so long and they split across multiple text messages. This really needs to be fixed--I don't think any other notification system I use does this.

  • Guest commented
    16 Nov, 2017 06:20pm

    I don't understand how a shortened URL isnt being used in the first place.  We just posted an Announcement and it texted our parents a link that was 82 characters long that got split between multiple texts so it doesn't work.  Seriously, it's 2017, how are you not using a shortened URL?

  • Julie Farr commented
    31 Aug, 2017 04:58pm

    Agree!  We moved the url to the first position in the message but not ideal

  • Guest commented
    17 May, 2017 07:42pm

    I just posted an announcement and the message was split into parts on my phone due to the length of the title and the URL. This ended up cutting the URL between the two messages, and it caused an error for anyone who clicked on the link in the announcement.

  • Peter DiDonato commented
    15 Sep, 2016 08:01pm

    Agree. This seems like basic functionality that should be baked in. Also agree that [schoolname@schoolnotifications.org] is a waste of valuable characters.

  • Guest commented
    11 Nov, 2015 03:38pm

    Additionally, the text message includes [schoolname@schoolnotifications.org] which also significantly takes away from available characters for the text message. This problem should be addressed immediately.

  • +2