Recording a graduation
When a student completes a school's curriculum, you record the graduation. This closes their enrolment row, adds them to the alumni list, and unlocks the optional certificate-issuance flow. From here, that student is recognized as a school graduate across the platform — and can be filtered in reports, included in workflows, and shown the "Foundations alumni" badge on their profile.
Two ways to record
You can record a graduation from two places, depending on where you're working from:
From the student's enrolment row
Open Schools → [School] → Enrolments, find the row for the student, and click Mark graduated.
The dialog asks for:
- Date graduated — defaults to today; backfill an earlier date if the ceremony already happened.
- Notes — optional; a place for ceremony details, special honors, or "completed in alternate cohort".
Click Confirm and the row updates: school_graduations.date_graduated is set, and the enrolment moves from "Active" to "Completed".
From a school-wide bulk
When a whole cohort graduates at once (a class ceremony), open Schools → [School] → Graduate cohort. Filter to the active enrolments you're graduating — usually by start date or session — and confirm. The dialog walks you through:
- The list of enrolments to mark.
- The shared graduation date.
- Whether to auto-issue certificates.
One click and the entire cohort is graduated.
What gets written
For each graduation, GCM creates one row in school_graduations:
| Column | What it stores |
|---|---|
member_id | The graduating student |
school_id | The school they're completing |
date_graduated | Date of graduation |
notes | Optional ceremony notes |
certificate_url | URL to the issued certificate, if generated |
created_by | The user who recorded the graduation |
The corresponding row in school_enrolments gets status = 'completed' and date_completed set to match.
Issuing a certificate
If your school has a certificate template configured, the graduation dialog has an Issue certificate checkbox. When checked, GCM generates a PDF using the template and the student's details (name, date, school name, signatories) and stores it. The URL goes onto the graduation row.
The student can download their certificate from their member profile. You can also re-issue from the graduation row's ... menu → Re-issue certificate if the template changes.
Certificate templates are per-school
Set up the template once at Schools → [School] → Settings → Certificate. You upload a PDF or an SVG with placeholders for {name}, {school}, {date}, {signatory}. Future graduations from this school will use this template automatically.
Alumni list
Once graduated, students appear on the school's Alumni tab. You can filter this list by graduation year, cohort, or search by name. From here you can:
- Bulk-message your alumni for reunion events.
- Add them to a "graduates" ministry or group.
- Export the list to CSV for offline records.
Editing or undoing a graduation
If you recorded a graduation by mistake, open the row from the alumni tab and click ... menu → Edit graduation or Delete graduation. Deleting a graduation row puts the student back into "Active" enrolment status — useful if you accidentally marked the wrong person, or the student failed a final assessment after the ceremony date.
Soft-delete only
Deleting a graduation row uses the same soft-delete mechanic as the rest of GCM. The row stays in the database for 30 days, recoverable via the recycle bin. After 30 days, it's hard-purged.
Permissions
Recording a graduation requires the schools.write permission. Issuing or re-issuing a certificate requires both schools.write and the storage permission on certificates/ — that's bundled into the default Administrator and Pastor roles.
Next steps
- Objectives — tracking what students must complete before they're eligible for graduation.
- Reports — completion rate, time-to-graduation, transcripts.
- Enrol members — getting students into the school in the first place.
- Members — the alumni show up in every member-facing surface.