Every Membership count follows the rule for that tile or screen. This includes the three Overview tiles, the status tiles on Members, the active counts on Chapters and Sections, the Members count on a chapter or section page, and the Committees active count. Almost all of these counts also follow two shared rules: memberships in packages whose names start with "Tier" count as direct memberships, and counts include only records in your Rhythm account. Use this article to understand what each number includes when a count looks too high, too low, or different from the list behind it.
Before You Begin
Prerequisites
- You can open the Membership Console. You do not need a specific permission to see counts on Overview, Members, Chapters, Sections, or a chapter's or section's own page.
- You need access to the Query Center to open the list of records behind a count.
The Rule Behind Every Count: Tier Packages Count as Direct
Tip
Wherever you see a Membership count, a membership in a package whose name starts with "Tier" is counted as though the person held that membership directly. For example, this includes a corporate package that gives memberships to a company's employees. If an assigned employee does not appear on the package's own membership record, that person is also left out of every Membership count and breakdown for the same reason. Because of this rule, a count can be higher than the number of memberships purchased directly, and the "Principal" label on one tile does not mean the tile counts only direct memberships. This rule is fixed for every Rhythm account; you cannot turn it off or change which packages it applies to.
The one exception is Expired Members Receiving Benefits (see below), which counts directly held memberships only.
Read the Overview Screen's Tiles
Go to Membership & Committees › Overview to see the landing dashboard. If your association configured an embedded dashboard instead, these tiles are not shown.
- Active Members - Principal. Counts active memberships, whether members hold them directly or through a "Tier" package. The label says "Principal," but the count includes more than the label suggests. Outside of the "Tier" package exception, this figure is principal-only and leaves out assigned and flowdown memberships from every other package. A query filtered only to active status returns principal, assigned, and flowdown memberships together. To match this tile, add Origin equal to Principal to the query, then account separately for any "Tier" package memberships.
- Dropped Members. Counts every membership that has ever received a termination date, with no time limit. A membership terminated years ago still counts today, so this number only grows over time and does not show how many members you lost recently. Rhythm has no native way to calculate a person's total cumulative years of membership when their history has separate, non-contiguous membership periods. If you need that figure, total the individual periods yourself, such as through a query.
- Expired Members Receiving Benefits. Counts directly held memberships that are still active, have no termination date, and have an expiration date in the past. These members have expired but have not yet been dropped by a renewal billing run, so they still keep their benefits. This count ignores the "Tier" package rule and has no upper limit; a membership that expired years ago and was never dropped is still counted.
- Members by Type chart. Shows active memberships in a pie chart, split by membership type name and using the same "Tier" rule as Active Members. The chart has no refresh control, and clicking a slice does not open a list. If two membership types share the same name, they appear as one combined slice. If Rhythm cannot find a membership's type record, that membership is left out of the chart.
Each of the three count tiles has a sync icon you can click to recalculate the number on demand. Otherwise, the figure can be up to a few minutes old. Click a tile's number, or its loading indicator before the number appears, to open the records behind it in the Query Center. The search that opens, and the file name Rhythm uses if you download its results, both match the KPI you clicked. For example, opening Inactive Members opens a search named for inactive members, not Active Members.
Warning
A tile's number and the list it opens do not always match. The lists behind Active Members - Principal and Dropped Members include only directly held memberships, so they leave out anyone counted through a "Tier" package. If your Rhythm account has many of those memberships, the tile can show a noticeably higher number than its list. To confirm that this rule explains the gap, compare status and Origin: a "Tier" package membership whose Origin is not Principal but whose status is active is counted by the tile and left out of the list.
Read the Members Overview's Status Tiles
Go to Membership & Committees › Members to see three status tiles: Active, Inactive, and Suspended. Each tile counts memberships in that status and uses the same "Tier" package rule as the Overview screen's Active Members tile. There is no tile for a fourth status, active without benefits; use a query if you need that count.
Read a Chapter's or Section's Members Count
Open a chapter through Chapters › Search or a section through Sections › Search, then open its own page. The Members figure counts active memberships that include that chapter or section, including "Tier" package memberships regardless of your account's flowdown setting.
Warning
This figure can differ from the member list below it on the same page. The list loads live and shows only active, directly held memberships that name the chapter or section, so it leaves out anyone counted through a "Tier" package. Treat the Members figure as the count of everyone reached by the chapter or section, and treat the list as the roster of members who hold that chapter or section directly.
The Members figure and this list are intended to represent the same total, and the "Tier" package rule above is the only documented, expected reason they disagree. If the two numbers differ for any other reason, treat the Members figure as the more reliable one.
This directly-held-only limit also applies to the query this page queues and to the chapter's or section's own roster. Assigned and flowdown memberships that are not in a "Tier" package are left out there too, even though they are stored correctly and stay visible on the member's own record. A different Query Center search for the chapter's or section's memberships, one you build yourself rather than one queued from this page, can still return those assigned and flowdown memberships.
For everything else on a chapter's page, see Review a Chapter's 360 Page.
Read the Active Counts for Chapters, Sections, and Committees
- Chapters (active), on the Chapters screen, and Sections (active), on the Sections screen, count only chapter or section records marked active. Opening either tile's list shows every chapter or section, active or not, so the list is longer than the tile whenever any record is inactive.
- Committees (active), on the Committees overview, counts committees from the first page of a committee search when their active flag is true or not set at all. If your association has more committees than fit on one search page, this count can be lower than your actual number of active committees. The tile's list shows only committees explicitly marked active, so the list can be shorter than the tile even while the tile itself undercounts.
Expected Result
You know which memberships, chapters, sections, or committees each Membership count includes and leaves out. You also know why a tile's number can differ from the list it opens.