Why make Group Members Inactive - and what happens when you do?
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1Why make a Group Member Inactive anyway?
Before you remove a person from Group, consider these top reasons changing them to inactive may be helpful.
- Don't lose Attendance History! Removing a person from a Group will delete all their Group attendance history. Permanently.
- Retain their Join Date. This could be helpful for future trend reports or other needs.
- Call in the Reserves! In service or volunteer groups, it's sometimes helpful to see former participants if a need arises to enlist further volunteers - even on a temporary basis.
- Leadership Sabbaticals: Some organizations require time off to avoid ministry burnout (an excellent idea for your volunteer leaders, too!) Make your leaders inactive in their Groups to provide a reprieve from Mass Communication to those Groups.
- Don't lose Attendance History! Removing a person from a Group will delete all their Group attendance history. Permanently.
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2What happens when you make a Group Member Inactive?
When you choose to Inactivate People from a Group within your database, a few things will happen:
- First, that person will no longer receive Mass Contacts (Email, SMS, etc.) that are sent to that particular group.
- Secondly, when taking attendance for that Group, this Individual will not appear as a member of the group.
Pro-Tip: If a future need arises to include inactive individuals in a mass message, you can select Include Inactive when composing your communication.
Choosing the make someone inactive within a group does not remove that person from your database.
After deactivating a member, that member will no longer be visible in the group unless you filter by inactive individuals.
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4Distinguish between Active & Inactive Group Members
After selecting a group, select the Fields drop-down menu, then select Active? as one of the columns to display. When the Show All People filter is selected, the Active? column will display Y or N for active or inactive individuals.
Pro-Tip: You can also view a log of when individuals were made Inactive under the Group Activity Tab or on their Timeline!