It's difficult to even know how to construct this question

[Jeff Thomas]

But here goes. This will take a bit of stage-setting before I get to the question.

The situation involves a single family. Two children, and mom.

All three have volunteer profiles. The kids are altar servers; mom is a Rosary leader. There is a family grouping. Only the kids are members of it; mom is not.

Kid1 and Kid2 phone and email are bound to the family group.

Kid1 serves only on Sundays, and only at the 8 a.m. service. Kid1's service time preference is bound to the family group settings.

Kid2 is available to serve Sundays at 8 a.m., but also is available to serve Mon-Fri at daily Mass. For this reason, Kid2's service time preference is not bound to the family's.

Mom's service-time preferences are set to Sunday 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. only. No part of her profile is bound to the family group.

Over in the settings for the Altar Server ministry, here is the setup:

And over in the family group, here are the settings:

Because of the way the ministry is set up (no boxes checked), I infer that the checked box in the family group has no effect. As I understand it, the "allow members..." option is a family-by-family override of the "never split up..." ministry-wide policy. But you can't override a policy that hasn't been put into effect in the first place, so checking the "allow members..." box is pointless. Maybe I'm wrong?

But that's not my question. Here comes the real question:

Mom wants to serve as a Rosary leader at either the 8 a.m. or 10 a.m. service. BUT: If Kid1 and/or Kid2 is scheduled to serve at 8 a.m., mom wants to be scheduled only at 8 a.m. She wants to serve at 10 a.m. only if both Kid1 and Kid2 are not scheduled for 8 a.m.

How to configure this family to achieve this state of affairs?

[Raina Hanson]

Hi Jeff, 

Thanks for all the amazing details here! Normally I would ask you to send in data files (Help - Send Data Files to Tech Support) so we could take a look at your specific setup, but you already provided all of that information, so I can get to the good news:

All you have to do is add the mom to the family grouping! 

By default, MSP has a setting that keeps family members from being scheduled at different services on the same weekend. If you want to double check that this setting is turned on for your database, you can do so by opening any existing schedule and going to the Schedule menu at the top of the window. Then select Scheduler settings and look for this checkbox: 

Once the mom is in the family grouping (and her service preferences should NOT be bound to the family), she will be scheduled at the 8 and service if another kid is placed there, but otherwise is free to serve by herself at the 10 am service. 

I hope that helps, but if you do have questions or run into any issues, feel free to send in your data files (Help - Send Data Files to Tech Support) and we can go from there! 

---

Raina Hanson

Director of Technical Support

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[Jeff Thomas]

Thanks, Raina.

Aside from your specific instruction, my general takeaway is that, in Scheduler Settings / General Settings,  "Avoid" is doing a lot of work. It is tight enough that it is keeping mom connected to the 8 a.m. Mass if any of the kids are scheduled at 8. At the same time, it's loose enough to allow mom to serve at 10 if neither of the kids is scheduled at 8. Given the right mix of circumstances, the scheduler is "avoiding" creating a bad outcome -- even though the specific settings don't describe exactly what should happen in those circumstances.

It's kind of a trippy realization. Computers, and computer code, and databases are binary, yes/no things. The concept of "avoid" can be difficult to grok.