The daily promotion routine will automatically move individuals from one Group to another as they age out of a specific group. This setup is primarily for young children in age based Groups; however, it can be used 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:
The Group Participant must be defined as follows:
The daily promotion routine will automatically move individuals from one Group to another when the Group's Promotion Date is reached. This setup is primarily for children in grade based Groups; however, it can be used for any Group Type. To learn how to configure your Groups to use this routine, see Promotion for Grades.
The Group must be configured as follows:
The Group Participant must be configured as follows:
The promotion can be set to end date the current Group Participant record and create a new Group Participant record. Alternatively, it can be set to simply change the Group Participant record from one Group to the next.
This choice is governed by the Configuration Setting SERVICES,WeeklyPromotionByUpdate. Setting a value of Yes, will simply move the Group Participant from one Group to another. A value of No will 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 will use 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 re-started their attendance simply because of promotion.
This setting also impacts the Selected Group Attendance report on the Groups page.
You do not have to space out Groups by date and do one grade at a time (like you would do when doing it 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 if something does go awry, it can be undone relatively easily. 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 will run on your system. To determine this value you can reference Q1 on the Routines FAQ article if you have access to your server, or ask Support if you do not.
If the routine runs before midnight, you should set the date to today. If the routine runs midnight or after, you should set the date to tomorrow. The routine will promote groups whose Promotion Date matches the date at the time the routine runs.
Whether or not the routine promotes a Group Participant is determined by the Auto Promote bit field on the Group Participant record. When Auto Promote = False, the Group Participant will not be promoted when they reach the "Age in Months to Promote" value on the Group OR when the Group's "Promotion Date" is reached.
When Auto Promote is set to true, the routine will promote based on the Age in Months to Promote value OR the when the Group's "Promotion Date" is reached. If both values are set, the first value reached will cause the routine to promote the Group Participant. If Auto Promote is set to false, the routine will not promote the child. This is usually used in cases such as a child that may have special needs.
If Group Participants with Group Role Types of Servants and Leaders in the Group should be left behind (not promoted), set Promote Participants Only to True.
0:05 - Overview of the Promotion Routine
0:40 - Example: Participant Promoted Based on Age
2:23 - Configuration Setting Related to Promotion
3:04 - Example: Participant Promoted Based on Specified Date
