Bulk assign & bulk attendance

These are the two bulk actions you'll reach for most often. Bulk assign moves a selection of members into an org unit, ministry, or group in a single dialog. Bulk attendance marks them all present at a specific meeting on a specific date. Both go through the same safety net: a dry-run preview, an effective count, and a per-row failure list when things go sideways.

Bulk assign

Open the members module, filter or select the people you want to move, and hit Bulk actions → Assign.

Pick the target type:

Target	What happens	Replace vs add
Org unit	Sets member_unit_assignments.unit_id	Replaces — each member can be assigned to one unit at a time
Ministry	Inserts into ministry_members	Adds — a member can be in many ministries
Group	Inserts into group_members	Adds — a member can be in many groups

Pick the specific unit/ministry/group from the searchable dropdown, then click Preview. The dialog shows a breakdown:

• Already there — members who are already in the target. They'll be skipped, not duplicated.
• Moving — members being moved from another unit (only for org-unit assigns).
• New — members joining for the first time.

Click Apply to commit. The action queues, and you watch progress on the monitoring page.

Org-unit assigns replace; ministry and group adds layer

Re-running the same org-unit bulk-assign on the same list is a no-op (everyone is already in the unit). Re-running a ministry add is also a no-op — the unique index on (member_id, ministry_id) quietly skips duplicates. You can re-run safely.

Bulk attendance

Same pattern, different action. With a selection of members loaded, click Bulk actions → Mark attendance.

The dialog asks for three things:

1. Meeting — the recurring meeting these members attended (Sunday Service, Wednesday Prayer, Youth Group). See Calendar — meetings if you haven't set yours up yet.
2. Date — defaults to today in your org's timezone. You can backfill earlier dates if you're entering attendance after the fact.
3. Attendance type — present, excused, absent. Most bulk runs are present.

Click Preview. The dialog shows:

• Will mark — members who don't have an attendance row for that meeting+date yet.
• Already marked — members with an existing row. Those rows aren't overwritten unless you tick Update existing.

Click Apply and the action queues.

Dates are validated in your org timezone

The dialog uses your org's configured timezone (set in Settings → Organization). If you're traveling and your laptop clock is in a different zone, the picker still shows the org's "today" — so you don't accidentally backfill into tomorrow's row.

The safety net

Both actions share the same guardrails:

• Effective count — what you'll actually write, after filtering out duplicates and already-applied rows. This is almost always smaller than the selection count.
• Selection snapshot — the action runs on the IDs at the moment you clicked Apply. If someone else edits a member while the action is in flight, that doesn't change what gets written.
• Per-row failures — if a single row errors (permission denied on a specific record, a soft-deleted row), the rest still apply. The failing rows are surfaced on the monitoring page.
• Cancel mid-flight — open the run on the monitoring page and click Cancel. Already-applied rows stay; pending rows skip.

Permissions

Bulk assign requires members.edit and the relevant target permission (org_units.edit, ministries.edit, or groups.edit). Bulk attendance requires attendance.write. If you're a shepherd with scoped permissions, you can only assign to and mark attendance for members in your scope.

Next steps

1. Creating a bulk action — the broader flow for any bulk action type.
2. Monitoring runs — watch progress, retry failures.
3. Delete & restore — soft-delete and bulk-restore.
4. Audit log — the long-term record of what changed and when.