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Customizations

Audiences

You can create lists of Contacts based on certain criteria, then use these to send communication to different audiences. How is this different from a View? With Audiences, you can go a step further, pulling together a more complex list than what standard views allow.

For example, let's say you need to communicate with your youth group and also their group leaders and parents. You can create an Audience and send one message to all of them!

Other examples include lists of people who participate in Groups, those on a ministry team, those who have completed a milestone, men over the age of 18, parents and chaperones for an upcoming youth group trip, and more! There are so many possibilities that you can build based on your needs.

Audiences page showing the default Audience records, including Active Group Participation, Female Group Members, Men Over 18, Ministry Team Members, Small Group Members, and Youth + Parents

In the navigation menu, expand the Audiences section to see the related Audiences, Filters, and Audience Members pages.

Tip: Want to see Audiences in action? Check out the Audiences webinar in the MinistrySmart Academy!

Dynamically Updated Static Lists

An Audience is a static list of people that gets updated every day. People in the Audience can be either Active or Inactive, which means they are never automatically deleted from the list. If an individual no longer meets the criteria for the Audience, mark them Inactive and give them an End Date. This removes them from the active Audience but keeps a record of their previous inclusion.

For example, let's say you have an Audience of people under the age of 18. Billy, who is Active in the Audience, just turned 18. When the list updates, the system recognizes that Billy no longer meets the criteria for this Audience. So his Audience Member record marks him as Inactive and records the date.

End dates also act as another data set for you. For example, say you created an Audience of regular attendees. If you end-date several members based on your criteria, you can view that Inactive list to see which members may need pastoral follow-up.

Note: Once you build your audience, you don't have to add or remove members from the list. The Audience Filters do the work for you!

Building an Audience with Filters

Filters are the criteria that you can use to build your Audiences lists. There are several default Filters available to use, or you can create your own (if you understand SQL queries).

You can use a Filter to either add or remove people from your active Audience. Use Add Filters to generate an in-memory list, and then all use Remove Filters to remove applicable Contacts from that list. After the system processes those Filters, you can use the Always Add Filter to add a static list of additional people that don't otherwise meet the criteria but still need to be in the Audience. You can apply the same Filter to an Audience multiple times using different Filter parameters.

For example, you want to build an Audience of men who are 18 and older. First, you need to gather everyone who is 18 and older. There's a filter for that! So you would select the "18 or Older" Filter and the "Add" Operator. Then, you need to take out anyone with gender marked as female. There's also a filter for that! So you would select the "Gender - Female" Filter and the "Remove" Operator. Here's what that would look like on the Audience record:

Audience record for Men Over 18, showing filters to add everyone 18 or Older and to remove anyone with Gender of Female

Ready to start building your own Audiences? If you're feeling brave (and know some SQL), you can create your own Filters to use. Or, create an Audience using some of the default Filters, which include:
  • 18 or Older: Contacts 18 years of age or older. This does NOT include those without a Date of Birth.
  • Congregation: Everyone in a specified Household Congregation based on the Congregation ID.
  • Event Participation: Contacts in a specified Event based on the Event ID.
  • Gender - Female: Individuals with Gender set to Female.
  • Gender - Male: Individuals with Gender set to Male.
  • Group Participation: Contacts in a specified Group based on the Group ID.
  • Has Milestone: Individuals with a specified Milestone based on the Milestone ID.
  • In a Ministry Team: Active individuals of a ministry team.
  • In a Small Group: Participants in any small group.
  • No Date of Birth: People who do not have a Date of Birth entered on their record.
  • Under 18: Contacts under the age of 18 years old. This does NOT include those without a Date of Birth.

Create a Filter

  • You should understand SQL queries to create your own Filters.
  1. In the navigation menu, click Audiences > Filters.
  2. Click New Filter.
  3. Enter a Filter Name to describe the result this filter will produce.
  4. If needed, enter a Description to help others understand what this Filter is for.
  5. For Criteria, enter the SQL query to use to build your criteria.
    Note: Correlated subqueries are not available.
  6. For Contact ID field, enter the field to use related to your query.
    Contact_IDParticipant_ID_Table.Contact_ID
  7. For Table Name, select the table related to your query.
  8. Click Save.

Create an Audience

  1. In the navigation menu, click Audiences > Audiences.
  2. Click New Audience.
  3. Enter an Audience Name to describe the list of people you're creating.
  4. If needed, enter a Description to help others understand what this Audience is for.
  5. If this Audience relies on another Audience to be processed or updated first, set the Processing Order. Enter a number to indicate the order in which this Audience should be processed. (A higher number means, like 10, it process will later than one with a lower number, like 0.)
  6. To start using this Audience, set Active to Yes. When the Audience updates daily, the system sets all other fields.
  7. Click Save.
  8. On the Filters tab, click New Audience Filter.
  9. Select the Filter you need to build your Audience.
  10. Select the Operator to either add, remove, or always add the Filter.
  11. If you need a Filter Parameter (like an ID for a specific Congregation, Event, Group, or Milestone, as determined by the Filter), enter the ID number.
    If you're filtering for Groups 1, 3, and 5, you would add a Filter with the Filter Parameter set to "1", add another Filter with the Filter Parameter set to "3", and add another Filter with the Filter Parameter set to "5".
  12. Click Save.

Once you build your Audience, you can use the resulting static list for various Contact-related actions (like messages and announcements) and reports in the Platform, as well as other applications.

Note: The system must run your new Audience before Audience Members display in the list. When it runs, the Last Update Date populates, and the Last Update Status shows how many members you added or removed since the last run.

Need to update an Audience right away? Change the Next_Update_Date on the Audiences table, and it will regenerate within 20 seconds (or longer depending on your filters and data size).

Reference Another Audience within an Audience

You may want to create an Audience that references another Audience in it. For example, let's say you want to create a Has Milestone filter that pulls from an existing Audience of children's group Participants. You can do this using "dp_FilterParameter", which populates from the Filter Parameter field on an Audience Filter record.

If you know the Audience ID and it's stored in the Filter Parameter field, then you can write your query. In our example, we select from the Contacts table:

Contact_Status_ID = 1
AND Milestone_ID = 1
AND Contact_ID IN (SELECT Contact_ID FROM Audience_Members WHERE
Audience_ID=dp_FilterParameter AND Active=1 AND End_Date IS NULL)

Send Communication to an Audience

  1. In the navigation menu, click Audiences > Audiences.
  2. Open the Audience you want to communicate with.
  3. To send a message to the entire Audience, stay on the General tab. To send a message to only certain individuals in this Audience, click the Members tab and select those individuals.
  4. From the Actions menu, select Message.
  5. If you're sending to the entire Audience, select whether Recipients should be the Active Audience (all active members in the Audience) or the Inactive Audience (those who were in the Audience at one time but have since been changed to inactive).
  6. Enter and send your message as usual.
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Last updated: November 26, 2024

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