A person record’s Person Status is a high-level classification in Slate that uses rules to arrive at a single, easy to query data point.

Person status

These person statuses are usually mutually exclusive; a person can only meet the criteria for one of the statuses. Using exclusivity groups, every record in your database can be sorted into one of these statuses.

This article shows you how to create a new person status, Enrolled, and automate it.

Step 1 : Creating the Enrolled person status prompt

You can create custom person statuses using the person_status prompt key.

To create the enrolled person status outlined above:

1. Go to Database → Prompts.

2. Select Insert.

3. Configure the following settings:

   • Key: person_status

   • Value: Enrolled

4. Select Save.

Step 2: Creating the Current Student (Set Enrolled) rule

The first rule in the series of person status rules will set the record as Enrolled.

Create a new rule

This rule can be created by following the steps outlined below:

1. Click Database in the top navigation bar and select Rules Editor.

2. Click Insert.

3. Enter the following configurations in the popup window:

   • Name - Person Status: Enrolled

   • Base: Configurable Joins: Person

   • Type: Person Status

   • Folder: Person Status

   • Exclusivity Group: Person Status (defaulted)

   • Non-deterministic: Rule is deterministic and has an exclusive priority

   • Priority: 5

   • Status: Preview
     

4. Select Save.

Filter for enrolled students

Now, we filter the rule to return only records that meet the criteria of being a current student.

These criteria may differ from institution to institution, and the following steps are examples only. Get a consensus among your staff on what criteria are required to be an enrolled student.

To create filters that identify enrolled students:

1. On the rule overview page, in Filters, select Join.

2. Configure the following settings (these are examples—your database will have different folders and forms):

   • Join: Form Responses

   • Type: Specific form, events, or template

   • Folder: Orientation

   • Form/Event: New Orientation Session

3. Select Continue.

4. Select Save.

5. Select Filter.

6. Configure the following settings:

   • Filter: New Student Orientation Registration Status

   • Status: IN Attended

7. Select Save.
   

Set the rule action

In Action:

1. Set Status to Enrolled.

2. Select Save.
   

Repeat this process for as many rules as you require to sort students into statuses according to your needs.

Step 3: Activating the rules

To activate each rule:

1. On the rule overview page, select Edit.

2. Set Status to Active.

3. Select Save.

4. Select Save on the rule’s overview page.

5. Perform a retroactive refresh on all records. This triggers all records to be evaluated by all rules.

📖 Further reading: Retroactive refresh