A program is one accreditation standard your organization runs. For example, you might have one standard for four-year colleges and another for vocational schools. Each school accreditation, phase, site visit, report, and team candidacy belongs to exactly one program. If your organization accredits schools under more than one standard, create a separate program for each standard. A school that participates in more than one program needs a separate accreditation record for each one, because each program can have its own phases, timelines, and requirements.
What It Controls
The Programs setup page controls the accreditation programs available across Accreditation. You use it to manage each program's name, display order, description, active status, and two options that automatically deactivate team candidates when a person or school's membership changes. Staff choose the program they want to work in from this list, and each phase, visit, notice, and billing run belongs to one program. This is also the Program a team candidacy record refers to. Whether you add one candidate at a time or import many candidates, Program means this same program identifier. A candidacy's own Status — Approved, Pending, or Inactive — is separate from any status on the program itself.
Where to Find It
Go to Accreditations › Setup › Programs. The list shows each program's name, last changed date, and active status. Programs are sorted first by display order, then by name. Inactive programs stay hidden until you select (show all).
To add a program, select Create Program. To update one, select its Edit icon. To start from an existing program, select Clone.
Warning
Clone copies the program's name, description, and options, but it does not copy related setup. Configuration such as phases and review setup is not copied, so plan to recreate that configuration on the new program.
Tip
If Accreditation opens to a blank page because your account has no programs yet, go directly to this Programs setup page instead of the usual landing page. Create your first program here. Once at least one program exists, Accreditation loads normally.
The Settings
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display Order: | Any number | Empty | Controls where the program appears in the Programs list, program pickers, billing pickers, and notice pickers. Programs without a number appear after programs with one. When two programs use the same number, Rhythm sorts them by name |
| Name: | Any text | Empty | Shows the program's display name wherever someone chooses or views a program |
| ID: | Letters, digits, and underscores only | Suggested from the name | Sets the program's permanent identifier. Every record that belongs to the program builds its own identifier from this value. For example, a phase in program FAA becomes FAA:<suffix>. You can't change it after you save |
| Status: | Active, Inactive | Active | Controls whether the program appears in program pickers by default |
| Program Description | Formatted text | Empty | Shows a description on the program's own setup pages |
| First option (no separate label; described below) | On, off | Off | When a person leaves a school, sets that person's team candidate record in this program to inactive |
| Second option (no separate label; described below) | On, off | Off | When a school's membership becomes inactive, sets the school's team candidate records to inactive and clears the link between each candidate and the school |
The two checkboxes read:
- "When a person leaves a school, automatically set the team candidate record to inactive"
- "When a school's membership becomes inactive, set the school's team candidate records to inactive and remove the link between each candidate and the school"
Warning
The on-screen wording for these two options has not always matched what they do. Use the descriptions in this article as the current behavior, even if a label on screen says something different.
An on-screen tip next to these options says changes take effect about a minute after you make them, which gives you time to catch a mistake. Rhythm has not confirmed whether that delay actually happens, so do not rely on it. Treat any change to a person's organization or a school's membership as something that can affect team candidacies right away.
Tip
ID: is built automatically from the capital letters and digits in Name:, and it ignores anything in parentheses. "Fictional Program 123" becomes FP123; "Middle States (MSA)" becomes MS. Each name change replaces whatever you typed in ID:, so finish naming the program before you adjust the identifier. If the program name starts with a lowercase letter or punctuation, Rhythm may not suggest an identifier, and you will need to type one yourself.
Dependencies and Precedence
- Display order only affects lists. It controls how programs appear to staff, but it does not control processing order for billing runs, advancement, or anything else.
- Marking a program inactive doesn't stop anything already running. Advancement, new schools, and new reports in the program continue as before. If a staff member's current working program becomes inactive, Rhythm does not move them out of it automatically.
- The two team-candidacy options only react to specific changes. The first option watches for a contact's organization changing on an existing contact. It does not react to a new contact or a deleted contact. When it applies, Rhythm sets the existing candidacy record to inactive. It does not delete the record, even though the option's wording says "removed." The second option watches for a school's membership record being added or changed to inactive. Deleting a membership does not trigger it.
- Membership and accreditation are separate records. Dropping or terminating a school's membership, including through a billing run, does not fill in the accreditation record's termination or lapse date. Those date fields stay under your manual control regardless of what happens to the membership.
Removing a Person from an Organization or Removing a Team Candidate
These are two different actions with different results:
- Removing a person from their organization (in CRM) affects the person's team candidacy in this program only when the first option above is switched on, and only for the organization changes that option reacts to. It applies when the contact's organization changes, not when the contact is deleted. When it applies, Rhythm sets the person's candidacy record to inactive, but the record stays on the list. The organization and candidate-organization fields on that candidacy are not cleared, so the person can still appear on the former organization's team candidate list. You may need to handle that old candidacy directly before the same person can be added again as a candidate elsewhere.
- Removing someone directly from the Team Candidate list (from the Trash Can or Remove action on a school's Team Candidate tab, or from the mark-inactive action available directly on the organization's own Candidate tab) is separate from this program's options. It sets the candidate record to inactive, clears the candidate's link to the school, and leaves the contact itself untouched and active in its organization. Because the school link is cleared, the same person can be nominated again as a team candidate later. See Add and Manage Team Candidates for the exact steps.
If a contact was removed from an organization and still appears on the school's team candidate list, check whether the relevant option is switched on for the program. This behavior has caused confusion in the past, and Rhythm has corrected at least one defect where an inactive contact kept appearing on the list.
Change Impact and How to Revert
- Renaming a program is safe. Its identifier and every record built from it stay the same.
- Changing the identifier is not possible after you save, so plan the name and identifier before the first save.
- Marking a program inactive is reversible at any time and has no other side effect. Use it instead of deleting a program you may need again.
- Deleting a program cannot be undone from the Console. You can delete a program only when nothing refers to it, including phases, school accreditations, visits, reports, team candidates, team members, and billing templates. If any of those records still name the program, Rhythm refuses the delete and shows how many records depend on it, but not which ones. To delete the program, remove or reassign whatever still points to it first, or mark it inactive instead.
- A notice's program restriction or a billing run's filter list can still name a deleted program. Deleting the program does not clear those references, so a notice or filter that named it keeps naming a program that no longer exists. Before you delete a program, review any notices and billing filters that reference it.
Permissions
Creating, editing, and deleting programs requires access to Accreditation setup. If your organization restricts that access further, ask your administrator to confirm that you can maintain programs. Rhythm shows an access-denied message if you try to take an action you are not allowed to take.
Validation and Errors
- Name is required. If you save without one, Rhythm shows a Form Errors list and blocks the save.
- ID is required and can only contain letters, digits, and underscores. Rhythm refuses a hyphen or other character when you save, even though the automatic suggestion can sometimes produce one.
- A duplicate identifier is refused when you save. While you create a program, Rhythm checks in the background and shows a warning next to ID: if the identifier is already taken. This check is advisory and does not block the save by itself. The save fails if the identifier is truly in use.
- A program that other records still reference can't be deleted. See Change Impact above.
Related Tasks
See Choose Your Working Program to switch which program you're working in, and Phases to set up the stages within a program.