In this article, you'll learn how to create an Automation Rule that will automatically give custom demographics to users belonging to an HL-managed community. This will eliminate the need for you or other admins to do the work manually.

EXAMPLE: Check out Manage Automation Rules to learn more about accessing and managing your Automation Rules.

Before we begin...

This article is meant for customers leveraging HL-managed communities, not AMS-managed communities. What's the difference?

• HL-managed communities do not interact with a membership database, or AMS (e.g., NetForum, Aptify, Personify, etc.). They are created solely on the Higher Logic side, and membership is managed through the community settings on our platform only.

Steps

1. Access the Admin interface.
2. Navigate to Automation > Automation Rules.
3. Click Create.

4. Configure the Rule as shown in the images below:

• Select the Add a Demographic to option from the first dropdown.
• From the every contact who dropdown, select a criterion to pinpoint which users to add to your community (TIP: use the search field to quickly find a criterion). In our example, we selected "is in the security group [specified]" because we're going to target all users belonging to a specific Security Group.
• With your criterion selected, click Add. The page will reload and additional options will appear.

• Next, select Add the > [your desired Demographic]. This is where you're telling the system which Demographic to give your users.
• Below, you'll notice the criterion you selected a moment ago, along with a dropdown to configure it further. In our case, we chose to pinpoint by Security Group, so we now need to select that Security Group. Configure your criterion as appropriate.

• At this point, you've selected one criterion to target which group of users to give your Demographic to. If needed, you can repeat these steps to choose additional criterion to further segment your users. If you add multiple criterion, you can use the And/Or toggle to control whether they function as "AND" conditions or "OR" conditions. In our case, we're targeting users who belong to a specific Security Group who ALSO live in Arizona, so we'll use the AND condition.

• Click the Calculate Who Qualifies button to check who the Automation Rule will affect. Once calculated, you can click the blue numbers to check who the Demographic will be given to and removed from, based on your current criterion.
• Next, you can decide how this Automation Rule affects users who already have your chosen Demographic but no longer meet its criteria. Click the dropdown shown below and select to either remove the Demographic or let these users keep it.

• Give your Automation Rule an appropriate name so its easily identifiable and its purpose is clear (e.g., "Give [X Demographic] to [these users]").
• Lastly, decide whether to just Save the Rule and have it run according to your Automation Rule schedule (see Automation Rule Settings) OR select Save and Run Now from the Save dropdown to have it run (nearly) instantaneously. If you're planning to have it run according to your schedule, make sure to also enable the Schedule toggle at the top of the page (the toggle will be green).