A Direct message is an activity you add to a learning journey when you want to send participants or managers a piece of information — context, a reminder, a heads-up — without asking them to complete anything. It looks like an activity on the timeline, but the work is the message itself: Knowly sends it as an email or an SMS at the time you scheduled the activity.
When to use a Direct message
Use a Direct message when:
you want to share information with participants but don't want to add a step they have to complete
you want to nudge participants at a specific point in the journey without changing what the other activities are doing
a manager or admin needs an update at a journey milestone
If you want participants to do something — answer, submit, reflect — use the activity built for that work and edit its Notifications instead. Direct messages are intentionally pure information.
How a Direct message is sent
A Direct message is sent like any other notification:
as an email, an SMS, or both
with an editable Subject, message text, Sender name, and an optional Button or link
to the audience you choose — participants, managers, or both
You can preview the Direct message as either a participant or a manager before launch.
How it differs from notifications on other activities
Most activities ask the participant to do something — take a test, answer a set of questions, meet in a group — and they carry their own notifications around that task. A Direct message has no underlying task; the message is the whole point.
If you find yourself adding a Direct message right before or after another activity to introduce it, check whether the existing activity's release or reminder notification can carry that message instead. Fewer moving parts is usually clearer for the participant.