Groups - MikeBlyth/mission_database GitHub Wiki

Click on the “Groups” link on the side menu to view/edit groups.

Groups are used to select message recipients. Create any groups you need, select the members for each one, then use the groups for sending messages. (Presently, you cannot assign individuals to receive messages, only groups.)

Groups are nested (hierarchical) so a given group can have a parent group and children (sub-groups). Anyone listed in a child group (sub-group) is considered to belong to any ancestor groups as well. So, for example, you could have a group named “Office staff,” with sub-groups “finance” and “personnel,” with “finance” and “personnel” both listing “Office staff” as their parent). Put the finance people into “finance” and the personnel people into “personnel,” and no one in “Office staff.” Then, when you send a message to “Office staff”, everyone will receive the message.

Group attributes

Groups include

  • Name: A descriptive name
  • Abbreviation: A shorter abbreviation. Group abbreviations are important because they’re used in SMS messages (where you don't want to waste characters on the group name). Keep them as short as you can, though they should be memorable as well.
  • Primary: This simply indicates which groups will be listed in circumstances when only the most important ones can be shown (as in an SMS message).
  • Type: Use whatever you want to describe the type of group (geographical, administrative, age ...)
  • Members: Everyone belonging to the group
  • Parent: The group (if any) which includes this one as a sub-group
  • Children: Groups that are sub-groups of this one.

Adding Members to Groups

To add members to a group

  • Open the list of groups

  • Click on the "edit" link for the group to which you want to add members.

    Caution You will see a list of everyone in the database. This is a multi-select list where you must hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on members to select or remove them. If you forget, and click a name without pressing the Ctrl key, all the existing selections will be lost. If that happens and it is not easy to re-add the existing members, cancel the edit and start over. (Developer: this needs to be fixed by using a tick-the-box list instead of the plain multiselect one.)

    Add or remove members of the group by clicking on their names, observing the caution above.