Promote By Age

The daily promotion routine automatically moves individuals from one Group to another as they age out of a specific group. This is primarily for young children in age-based Groups, but you can use it for any Group Type. To configure your Groups to use this routine, see Promotion for Age Groups.

Requirements

The Group must be defined as follows:

• Age in Months to Promote must be configured.
• Promote Weekly must be Yes.
• Promote to Group must be set to a Group.
• Promotion Date must be left blank.

The Group Participant must be defined as follows:

• Auto Promote must be set to Yes.
• You must have the correct Group Role Type.
• The Start Date is current or in the past. Those with future Start Dates will not be promoted.
• The Date is blank or in the future.
• The Associated Contact record has a Date of Birth and meets the age in months to promote. Those without a Date of Birth will not be promoted.

Promote By Date

The daily promotion routine automatically moves individuals from one Group to another when the Group reaches its Promotion Date. This is primarily for children in grade-based Groups, but you can use it for any Group Type. To learn how to configure your Groups to use this routine, see Promotion for Grades.

Requirements

The Group must be configured as follows:

• Promotion Date must be configured for a specific future Date. See "How Promotion Routines Work" below for additional details.
• Promote to Group must be defined.
• Promote Weekly must be undefined or No.

The Group Participant must be configured as follows:

• Auto Promote is set to Yes.
• You must have the correct Group Role Type.
• The Date is current or in the past; those with a future Start Date are not promoted.
• The End Date is blank or in the future.

New vs. Updated Group Participant Records

You can set the promotion to end date the current Group Participant record and create a new Group Participant record. Alternatively, you can set it to change the Group Participant record from one Group to the next.

This choice is governed by the Configuration Setting SERVICES, WeeklyPromotionByUpdate. Set the value to Yes to move the Group Participant from one Group to another. Set the value to No to ensure their Group Participant record is end dated, and a new Group Participant record is created for the Group promoted into. The newly created Group Participant record uses the same Start Date as their Group Participant record in the prior Group. This is to prevent people who are no longer attending your children's ministry (but have not been end dated) from appearing to have restarted their attendance simply because of promotion.

This setting also impacts the Selected Group Attendance report on the Groups page.

How Promotion Routines Work

You do not have to space out Groups by date and do one grade at a time, like you would do manually. The routine first builds a temporary table of all Group Participants that are promoting with their current and promote to Groups. It then steps through each person one-by-one and promotes them so no one gets left out and no one gets promoted more than once.

The routines also Audit Log each change so you can undo an action if needed. Audits show as "Mass Updates by SVC MGR".

"I want my Groups to promote when the nightly routine runs tonight. Should I set the Promotion Date to today, or tomorrow?"

This is a frequently asked question. The answer depends on what time the routine runs on your system. To determine this value, reference Q1 on the Routines FAQ, or ask Support. If the routine runs before midnight, set the date to today. If the routine runs midnight or after, set the date to tomorrow. The routine promotes groups whose Promotion Date matches the date at the time the routine runs.