# Contact policy

> Set the rules every student-facing message from Unifuse must pass: message budgets, quiet hours, channel order, whether the assistant replies automatically, staff overrides and opt-outs.

Source: https://docs.unifuse.ai/administration/contact-policy/

Every message Unifuse sends to a student, whether from a campaign, an advisor or the
assistant, passes through the institution's contact policy. The **Contact policy** tab is
where that policy is set.

## Before you start

- You need the *manage institution* permission. The opt-out section also needs
  *manage campaigns*.
- Open **Administration → Contact policy**.

## Budget

| Setting | Range | Default |
|---|---|---|
| **Messages per window** | 1 to 20 | 1 |
| **Window (days)** | 1 to 90 | 7 |
| **Minimum spacing (hours)** | 0 to 2160; 0 turns spacing off | 24 |

The budget is per student, rolling, and counted across all channels.

## Quiet hours

**From** and **Until** are 24-hour times in the chosen **Time zone** (a list of common zones,
or **Other** to type an IANA zone name). The default is 21:00 to 08:00 in America/New_York.
Setting the same time for both turns quiet hours off.

Quiet hours block proactive and transactional sends. A reply to a student who has just
written in is exempt.

## Channel preference

An ordered list of channels, from SMS, Email, WhatsApp, Web chat and Voice. At least one is
required. The default is SMS then Email.

## Assistant replies

**Reply mode** is **Calibration** (recommended, the default) or **Auto**. In Calibration, the
assistant's replies to students wait in the Review Queue for a person to approve. In Auto they
are sent directly, still subject to the budget and quiet hours.

## Overrides

**Allow staff to send past the budget and quiet hours** is on by default. When a member of
staff overrides, they must give a reason, and the override is logged.

## Saving

A **Preview** sentence reads the form back as a rule. **Save contact policy** applies it;
**Discard changes** reverts. Every change is recorded in the audit log with the values before
and after.

## Opt-outs

The consent section lists people who have opted out of contact, filtered by **Opted out**,
**Opted in** or **All**.

- **Record an opt-out on someone's behalf**: choose the **Channel**, enter the **Phone number
  or email**, and optionally a **Reason**.
- **Restore** lifts an opt-out.

An opt-out can never be overridden by the budget, by staff or by the assistant.

## Related

- [Student Success: Review Queue](/student-success/review-queue/)