Each year, children and students must be promoted from their current group/class into their new class. This article outlines a few different ways to accomplish this, depending on how you keep track of your classes.
Promotion Using Groups
The most common way to keep track of your classes is by creating Groups for each age group represented at your church.
Watch the Screen Capture showing the promotion of a Group or follow the written steps below
IMPORTANT: Work from the oldest group down to the youngest group. Otherwise, you’ll mix age groups and be unable to promote properly. When beginning this process, we recommend creating an empty group to move your highest grade into.
Instructions:
- From the Groups List, open the oldest group of students you want to promote.
- Check the box at the top of the list to “Select All.”
- From the tri-dot menu, select Move to Group.
- In the dropdown that appears, choose which group you want to move these individuals into. (Note: If you haven't yet created a group to move them to, select A New Group from the dropdown menu to create the new group).
- Once your group is selected, click “Move”.
At this point, the group you started with should be empty and ready to accept the new individuals. You’ll follow this process for each class until you reach the lowest age group.
Example Summary:
- Move 12th Grade group into College and Career group.
- Move 11th Grade group into 12th Grade group.
- Move 10th Grade group into 11th Grade group, etc.
PRO-TIP: Use naming conventions as a group name prefix to help keep your groups together in a large list. For example, for your Sunday School Classes, you could use “SS-1st Grade - Boys“, “SS-2nd Grade - Girls“, etc.
Promotion using Configurable Fields
You can also use a Configurable Field to track an individual's age group or class. Then, we will use our Mass Edit tool powered by the Advanced Search or Import tool to accomplish class promotion.
Instructions:
REMINDER: Work from the oldest group down to the youngest group. Otherwise, you’ll mix age groups and be unable to promote properly. When beginning this process, we recommend creating an empty group to move your highest grade into.
- On the Individuals page, click Advanced and open Advanced Search.
- Locate your configurable field and search for the oldest age group you want to promote. (Ex. If you have a configurable field for “Class Grade,” begin by searching for 12th Grade individuals)
- Once the search returns your results, use the tri-dot menu to select Mass Edit.
- Take action on These Individuals and select your configurable field in the Field dropdown menu.
- Use the Value field to choose the next highest grade for promotion and then select Mass Edit Individuals.
At this point, no one in your database should have a value equal to the highest Class Grade you’re promoting. You’ll then begin to follow this process for each Class Grade until you reach the lowest age group.
Example Summary:
- Mass Edit individuals with a “12th Grade” Class Grade value to have a “College and Career” Class Grade value.
- Mass Edit individuals with an “11th Grade” Class Grade value to have a “12th Grade” value.
- Mass Edit individuals with a “10th Grade” Class Grade value to have an “11th Grade” value, etc.
Promotion Using Data Export/Import
Alternatively, you can export all of your individual data from Settings Export. Once you have the .csv file, you can edit it in Excel to the configurable field column holding your age/class data. Once the edits are finished, use our import tool to update that information in your database quickly. Click here to see how our import tool works.
Pro-Tip: Ensure your data export that includes the USER ID. After you've updated the configurable field values, you can import by matching on the USER ID to ensure 100% accuracy.
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