Planned Not yet started — this page describes the intended design and build plan.
Overview
A reminder sent to a guardian shortly before a deadline they haven't acted on yet — homework not
submitted, a fee notice not marked paid, a permission slip not answered. It reuses due-date and
response-tracking data Notipa already has; there's nothing new for a teacher or admin to enter, and no
new concept of a "due date" to maintain.
Reminders go out in-app to start with, and are designed to also ride on
push notifications and SMS fallback
once those ship — one reminder schedule, delivered on whatever channels a school has enabled.
How it will work
Configurable windows. A reminder fires a set number of days before a due date — for example, three days out and again the day before — with the window configurable per notice type.
Only for outstanding items. A guardian who's already submitted the homework, marked the fee paid, or answered the permission slip is never reminded about it — reminders only go to genuinely outstanding items.
One reminder per item, not a stream. A guardian gets a clear nudge, not a flood — no stacking multiple reminders for the same item into one notification storm.
Visible to staff. A teacher or admin can see which guardians have been reminded about what, extending the read-tracking Notipa already does for announcements.
Development plan
1Data model
A ReminderLog model recording which guardian was reminded about which homework, fee notice, or permission slip, and when — preventing duplicate sends.
Per-school, per-notice-type configuration for how many reminder windows to send and how far ahead.
2Scheduling
A daily background job scanning upcoming due dates against existing response/submission/payment-status data, and queuing reminders for anyone still outstanding.
Dedupe logic across multi-guardian households, so a family with two linked guardians for one student isn't reminded twice for the same item.
3Delivery
In-app notification/banner as the baseline channel, available as soon as this ships.
Wired into push notifications and SMS fallback as those features land, so the same reminder queue serves every enabled channel without rebuilding the scheduling logic.
4Admin controls & testing
Per-school toggle and window configuration in admin settings.
Tests confirming a guardian who's already responded is excluded from the next scan, and that reminders respect the school's holiday calendar rather than firing on closed days.
Technical considerations
Built entirely on due-date and response-tracking fields that already exist — no new due-date concept introduced.
Designed to be useful standalone (in-app only) and to get better automatically as push notifications and SMS fallback ship, rather than being blocked on either.
Respects the school calendar so a reminder window doesn't quietly fall on a non-instructional day.