Options for Contact Filters: Who to contact

If you are using legacy fields for your phone/emails then there isn't a need to specify which people to contact, only which fields to use. That is because each field only shows up for a student 1 time. Contacts, however, allows for there to be an unlimited number of times the same field is used for a student. If a student has 4 contacts then each contact field is used a minimum of 4 times for that student. Some schools will only put in the contacts they want to receive messages, while others put in any contact that applies to the student, even if they don't need to get messages such as attendance notifications. Because of this we need to decide which contacts will be used when sending a message.

There are 2 filter sets, each having it's own set of contact filters. If you have one set of conditions for who gets normal messages and another for who gets emergency messages you can set them up separately. You do not need to include everyone who will get any message ever.

What are the options?

The list of options may change over time. 

What happens if I select more than 1 filter?

When using stock filters you can easily make changes within the interface. The queries are all programmed to respect the filters so making a change here makes the change in your current selections and your nightly exports without any update needed. While we will be here to help you when needed we know that some people would prefer to handle things themselves and this is an attempt to make that easier.

A key thing to remember is that all of the filters above the "exceptions" will combine. This means if you select Lives with and also select Custody that the contact must have BOTH in order to be used. For this reason many options have been added with "OR" built in so that you can use any contact that has option 1 OR option 2 selected instead of needing both. 

Ex1: Filters enabled
     1. Receives Mail
     2. Either Custody OR Lives With

Ex2: Filters enabled
     1. First 3 contacts per student
     2. Lives With
     X. Allow Override Disabled

Ex3: Filters enabled
     1. First 3 contacts per student
     2. Lives With
     X. Allow Override Enabled

What is the custom filter?

When you select to use a custom filter the stock filters will hide. This is to remove confusion and make it very easy to see what the real filter is. We've provided a field where you can enter what your custom filter is as a reminder.

What is the Allow Filter Override option?

You can now allow a contact to be included even if that contact wouldn't meet the other filter requirements. If this is disabled the override field will be ignored.
How does the filter override work?

Why aren't there relationship filters?

We do not offer relationship type as stock option as it is not reliable. When asked to use Mother or Father the immediate question becomes who to contact when a student doesn't have a mother or father? There needs to be a way to catch the exceptions. Using any of the other fields per contact is much more reliable.

What if my filter isn't in the options?

Since each student can have as many contacts as you're willing to enter we need a way to know which contacts you actually want to use. To help with this there are many stock filters already built in. If you need a filter that is not available we can either build it in or make a custom filter in a custom plugin.

Avoid this common mistake

It's easy to forget that there are so many options to account for the "OR" scenarios. Occasionally people forget and choose something like top 3 contacts per student and receives mail with the intention of having it be top 3 plus anyone outside the top 3 that has the receives mail checked. That is not the case. If "Up to how many contacts per student?" is not set to "No Limit" then it is saying filter down to the top N contacts and then out of those only select the ones that match the other