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Emergency Broadcast lets your team email urgent messages to groups of users, such as security incidents, outages, planned maintenance and important announcements. An AI writer helps you draft the message, and the history records every send and each recipient’s result. You can also post a portal status banner that appears at the top of your clients’ portal home page. It is for MSP staff. Open it from MSP Tools > Emergency Broadcast. The page has four tabs.

Compose

Write a broadcast, choose recipient groups, preview it and send it.

History

See every broadcast, its status and each recipient’s result.

Groups

Create and manage the groups broadcasts go to.

Portal Banner

Post outage and maintenance notices to the portal home page and update them as the incident changes.

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Before you start

  • Company users cannot use Broadcasts.
  • Viewing needs read access to broadcasts. Sending, testing and saving drafts need write or manage access. Creating groups and deleting drafts need manage access. Ask an administrator if you do not see the Compose tools or Create Group.
  • Set up a verified sending domain under Email settings so broadcasts come from your own address. Without one, they are sent from MSPortal’s default no-reply address.
  • Create at least one broadcast group before you send. See Create a recipient group.

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Sending a broadcast

1

Open the Compose tab

Go to MSP Tools > Emergency Broadcast and click the Compose tab. Saved drafts show under Saved Drafts at the top. Click one to load it.
2

Write the subject and message

Enter a Subject and write your Message in the rich-text editor (bold, lists, links, and more are supported).
3

Choose recipients

Click Select groups to open the Select Groups dialog. Search, use Select All / Deselect All, and tick the groups that should receive the message. Each group shows its member count, and a running unique recipients total is displayed. Selected groups appear as removable chips.
4

Pick a theme

Choose a Dark or Light email theme (Dark is the default). This controls how the email looks in recipients’ inboxes.
5

Preview and test (optional)

Click Preview to see the email as recipients will, and toggle between light and dark. Click Send Test to Me to send a copy to your own inbox first.
6

Send

Click Send Broadcast. A confirmation dialog tells you how many unique recipients across how many groups will receive it. Confirm to send. You’re taken to the History tab to watch progress.
Sending cannot be undone, and broadcast sending is queued immediately (there is no email-send scheduling). Always use Send Test to Me or Preview before sending to a large audience.

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Saving drafts

Click Save Draft to store the current subject, message, selected groups, and theme. Drafts are personal to you and appear at the top of the Compose tab so you can pick up where you left off.

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Using the AI Broadcast Writer

The AI Broadcast Writer drafts both the subject line and the message body for you.
1

Open the writer

Click the floating AI Broadcast Writer button on the Compose tab to open the writer panel.
2

Describe the message, or pick a quick template

Type what you want to communicate, or choose a Quick template to get started:
  • Security Incident: alert users about a threat with actionable steps
  • Scheduled Maintenance: notify users about planned downtime and impact
  • Service Outage: communicate an ongoing disruption
  • General Announcement: share an IT policy change or update
3

Apply and refine

The assistant proposes subject and message changes. Review and apply the proposal to update the Compose form; applying it does not save a draft or send the broadcast. Keep chatting to refine it, for example “make it shorter” or “add more urgency.” The writer is aware of which groups you’ve selected and how many people will receive the broadcast.

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Recipient groups

Broadcasts go to broadcast groups. A group is a reusable list of recipients. It can include users from one or several companies. A person in several selected groups gets one email. Which groups you can use depends on your company scope. Tenant-wide access can use groups across all companies. Single or assigned-company access can use only groups for those companies.

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Create a recipient group

1

Open the Groups tab

Go to MSP Tools > Emergency Broadcast and click the Groups tab.
2

Click Create Group

The button is in the page header. You need manage access. The Create User Group dialog opens.
3

Name the group

On Details, enter a Group Name and an optional Description.
4

Choose the scope

Turn on Tenant-Wide (available to all companies), or leave it off and pick a Company.
5

Add membership rules (optional)

On Rules, choose Match ALL rules (AND) or Match ANY rule (OR), then click Add Rule. Rules add users automatically by attributes such as job title, company, company type or Microsoft 365 group. Click Preview Matching Users to see who matches.
6

Click Create Group

The group appears in the table. To pick individual people, open the group again and use the Manual Members tab. Group membership is the rule matches plus the manual members.
Use the actions menu on a group row to edit its details, manage members or delete it. Deleting a group removes all its members from it and cannot be undone.

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Track delivery

1

Open the History tab

The table lists each broadcast with its Subject, Groups, Recipients, Status, Sent By and Date.
2

Check the status

See the table below.
3

Open a broadcast

Click a row. The Recipients tab shows each person’s name, email, company and Sent, Pending or Failed status, with the error for failures. The Message tab shows what was sent.

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Portal status banners

The Portal Banner tab posts an outage or maintenance notice to the portal home page, with no email. Banners appear at the top of the home page for your clients, styled by severity. You can post updates as the situation changes, like a status page. Viewing the tab needs read access to broadcasts. Creating, editing, switching on or off, posting updates and deleting need write or manage access.

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Create a banner

1

Open the Portal Banner tab

Go to MSP Tools > Emergency Broadcast and click Portal Banner. Existing banners show their severity, companies, schedule and update count.
2

Click New banner

Enter a Title (required) and a Message, for example “Email delivery delays” with a short explanation.
3

Choose a severity

Pick Info, Warning or Critical. Severity sets the banner’s icon and color.
4

Choose the companies

Use Companies to limit the banner to certain companies. Leave it empty to show it to all clients.
5

Schedule it (optional)

Set Show from (optional) and Show until (optional) to show the banner only in a window, such as planned maintenance. Leave both empty to show it right away.
6

Set Dismissible and Active

Turn on Dismissible to let users hide the banner after reading it. Turn on Active to show it. Only active banners show on the portal home page. The Preview at the bottom shows how it will look.
7

Save

Click Save. An active banner inside its schedule window appears on the portal home page right away.

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Post an update

1

Click the Post update icon

Each banner row has a Post update icon button next to its Active switch.
2

Write the update

Enter a short status, such as “Microsoft has identified the cause and a fix is rolling out.” Click Post update.
3

Remove a mistaken update (optional)

The Update history list in the dialog lets you remove an update that was posted in error.
Updates show on the banner as a timeline, newest first. The Latest update is highlighted and earlier ones collapse under Show earlier updates. Posting an update brings the banner back for users who dismissed it. Editing the banner does the same.

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Turn off, edit or delete a banner

  • Use the Active switch on the banner row to turn it off or on without editing it.
  • Click the pencil icon to edit it.
  • Click the trash icon to delete it. Deleting removes the banner from the portal for good.

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What clients see

Active banners show at the top of the portal home page, on both the classic and the AI home. When several are active, the selected one shows its full message and timeline and the others collapse to one row. Dismissible banners have a close button. Banners that are not dismissible stay until you turn them off or delete them. Active banners are also shared with the portal’s AI assistant. When a client asks something like “is email down?” and it matches a banner, the assistant answers from it and says it is already being worked on. It still offers to create a ticket if the client wants individual follow-up.

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Troubleshooting

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Frequently asked questions

No. A broadcast with failed recipients can still be Completed. Check the Sent, Failed and Pending counts. A sent email does not mean the person read it.
No. Preview only shows the email, and applying AI text only fills in Compose. Send Test to Me emails only you. Send Broadcast emails the selected groups after you confirm.
No. Show from and Show until only control the portal banner.
No. It saves your broadcast email. A banner shows as soon as you save it as active inside its window.
No. Turning it off only hides it. Deleting the banner removes it for good.
Check who failed and who got the message first. A new broadcast can email people who already received it, so choose the follow-up audience carefully.
No. Banner updates and broadcast emails are separate. Send a broadcast too if you want an email.