The test of Boston University’s emergency-notification system Friday went “well but not perfect,” said the campus police chief, as many students did not receive messages until hours after they were scheduled to be sent. Still, flaws in the Send Word Now test were expected because of complications in sending mass messages to thousands of recipients, said BU Police Department Chief Thomas Robbins on Friday. Although most students received all three forms of notification – text messages, emails and voicemails – many said the messages were spaced out across several hours, and groups of people received the messages at different times. Others said they received one form but not all three. Robbins said the BUPD received valuable feedback from students – and some parents – who submitted comments about the test. “The good news is the message was received,” Robbins said. The police did not meet the goals of sending the messages in 20 to 40 minutes and sending all three forms of messages at the same time. Another test will probably take place later this semester, Robbins said. College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Kieran Mace, who said he signed up for the system about a month ago, said he received an email but not a text message or phone call. “[BU] should actually get it together if they want to make this work,” Mace said. Other students said they received anxious calls from their parents because they had mistakenly entered their parents’ contact information for the emergency system on the Student Link. The nature of the test is to see if it creates problems, said Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore on Friday morning before the messages were sent out. “It needs to be done in a certain way, or else it could create problems for our ability to receive it,” he said. “That’s why we want to do this test. We want to see how long this takes. We want to see if the system works well.” During the test, televisions hooked up to campus cable were locked on a channel with scrolling messages that would explain the situation during an actual emergency. There was also a notice on the BU homepage. The two-part text message stressed the alert was only a test and encouraged students to comment on its success. A few students noted they wished BU had sent one text message instead of two, because some cellphone plans charge users to receive and read a message. “This is a test of the BU Emergency Alert System,” the text stated. “In a real emergency, info about the incident would be given here.” Robbins said in a real emergency, an officer would verify a report and radio information about the incident to the dispatcher if it was serious enough. The dispatcher would then send the notification through Send Word Now after getting the chief’s approval.