Dynamic or rule-based groups are a handy tool to intuitively group, segment or categorise your members based on a range of criteria, including custom fields.
This process is fully automated, so you can "set and forget" and let the system do the hard work for you by automatically adding and removing members from a group as their member properties or group criteria change.
Dynamic groups can be useful for many different scenarios:
Automating the segmentation and grouping of existing and new members
Quickly filtering on members that match certain criteria
Adding members to teams
Rolling members over from existing groups for the next year/season
Creating a subset of members which are allowed to sign up to certain events
Read on to learn how to set up and use dynamic groups to automate your work flows and processes. Dynamic groups are available from the Standard Plan onwards.
Setting up dynamic groups
To get started with dynamic groups, it’s best to create a brand new group:
Go to the Settings page
Open the Members card and click on the Groups tab
Click Add group
Select the option This group is dynamic and press Save
Note: You can also make an existing group dynamic by editing it and ticking the dynamic option, however, please be aware that this will remove any members that may already be present in that group.
Setting up rules and criteria for dynamic groups
Once you've set up a group as dynamic, you will need to specify the rules and criteria for the group. These rules are essentially filters based on various properties and conditions, which will enable members to be automatically added or removed from the group.
This means that any member matching the rules will be added to the group automatically, and those that no longer match will be removed again.
To get started, press the link which says Add rules next to the group name, and set up your rules and conditions as required:
You can add as many rules as you'd like based on a range of properties, and you can also group a set of rules together in multiple conditional blocks by using the and/or options.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are members added and removed from a dynamic group?
After you set up a new dynamic group or make changes to the rules of an existing group, we will immediately check which members match the group rules, and add them to the group accordingly.
In addition to that, the groups are automatically kept up-to-date by checking the criteria and member properties every 10 minutes or so. New members that are eligible will be added to the group, and if members no longer match the criteria, they will automatically be removed from the group.
What fields can I use for setting up dynamic group rules?
Currently, you can use the following standard member fields to set up rules:
Number
Full name
Date of birth
Age
Gender
Email address
Phone numbers
Address fields
Member since date
Account credit balance
Amount owing
Existing groups
Current membership
Grade
Grade achieved date
In addition, you can also set up rules for custom fields of the following types:
Text
Paragraph
Dropdown
Multiple choice
Yes/no
Date
Note that you can also check for the presence of, or the lack of a value for a field.
Can I pause a dynamic group so it stops adding and removing members?
Yes, you can do this by converting the dynamic group back to a regular group by unticking the corresponding checkbox when editing the group.
This will convert the group to a regular group, and members will no longer be added and removed automatically.
Any rules you have set up will be preserved, so if you want to turn the group into a dynamic group again in the future, you can.
How can I see which members are in a dynamic group?
This is done the same way as you‘d filter for any regular group. Head to the People > Members page, open the filters and select the groups you want to filter on. The members that are in these groups will appear in the member list.