Mass Assign Family Keys and the closely related Sibling Lookup tool are the basis of the siblings management process within Aeries. The Mass Assign Family Keys page allows users with appropriate permissions to assign a Family Key to all students who do not have one assigned. The Mass Assign Family Keys process will look for the most likely sibling matches for unmatched students and update the Family Key if certain conditions are met. 


Users must have Mass Update permission to the Student Siblings Data security area to access this page. The page is located under School Info | Functions in the navigation menu.


Note: The Mass Assign Family Keys process acts on the entire district's population of students. Because the concept of siblings inherently spans multiple schools, the process will look at all students who have no Family Key assigned, regardless of the school the user has logged into.



Configuration Options


The form includes a "slider" for choosing a "match" level and several Contact Processing Options.


The Mass assign students to family keys based on a Match of slider sets the cutoff point for matching students. If the best match for a student has a Match Counter below the cutoff, the student will not be matched to that Family Key. Higher numbers require more fields to match between students for the Mass Assign Family Keys process to assign them the same Family Key. Lower numbers indicate that fewer fields are required to match. The available values on the slider are 20, 35, 50, 65, and 80.


The Contact Processing Options provide guidance to the Mass Assign Family Keys process, and will improve the validity of results, if an option is chosen that reflects how Contacts information is recorded in your school(s). 

  • Only process Contacts based on the following Code(s) in CON.CD - Enter as a comma-separated list of values from the Code Table for CON.CD. If this option is set, Contact records will only count toward the Match Counter if the Code is one of these values. 
  • Only process Contacts based on the following Relationship code(s) in CON.RL - Enter as a comma-separated list of values from the Code Table for CON.RL. If this option is set, Contact records only count toward the Match Counter if the Relationship is one of these values.
  • Only process Contacts based on a Contact Order below - Enter a number. If this option is set, Contact records only count toward the Match Counter if the Contact Order is less than this value. The default is 99, which effectively means the Contact Order is not limited.
  • Only process Contacts based on "Primary Contact" flag (CON.PC = 'Y') -  If this option is checked, Contact records will only count towards the Match Counter if the Primary Contact flag is 'Y'. 
  • Only process Contacts based on "Lives With" flag (CON.LW = 'Y') - If this option is checked, Contact records will only count toward the Match Counter if the Lives With flag is 'Y'.
  • Only process Contacts based on "Ed Rights Holder" flag (CON.ERH = 'Y') - If this option is checked, Contact records will only count toward the Match Counter if the Ed Rights Holder flag is 'Y'.


Note:  The Contact Processing Options will apply to both the Mass Assign Family Keys process and the Sibling Lookup tool. Setting Contact Processing Options is highly recommended, because if valid options are set, it will produce better matches. For example, if you can limit Contact matches by the Lives With flag or by the Relationship code, you will eliminate students who are only matched because of a Contact record that is not an immediate family member.


Assign all students below the given Match Counter a new Family Key (no siblings) - If this option is checked, all students with no Family Key assigned will be assigned a Family Key, regardless of whether they are matched to any siblings. Students who are not matched to any siblings will be assigned a unique Family Key, indicating they have no siblings.

When this option is not checked, only existing Family Keys are used to find matches, and no new Family Keys are created. Students who are not matched to an existing Family Key will be left with a Family Key of 0 (unassigned).

For example, if two students are actually siblings, but both of them currently have a Family Key of 0, they will only be matched to each other if this option is checked.


Note: If the district decides to reassign family keys for ALL students, first run a change query to set all family keys to 0 (CHANGE STU FK TO 0), including inactive students. Then run the Mass Assign Family Keys process with the option Assign all students below the given Match Counter a new Family Key turned on. This will force every student to get their family key reassigned, creating new sibling matches along the way. This course of action is NOT recommended as routine maintenance, but rather in the rare event that there are significant concerns about mismatched siblings that need to be cleaned up.


Click Save Options to save all of the selections above.


Mass Assign Family Keys Process


Click the Mass Assign button to begin the process of assigning Family Keys based on the options that were set on this page.


When the process has completed, you will receive an email confirmation like the one shown below:



If at least one student record was updated, the email will have a CSV file attached detailing the changes that were made. A sample of the CSV file is shown below:



Each row shows the School Code, Student Number, Permanent ID, and Name of the student. Next is the Family Key that was assigned, followed by the Match Counter of the best match that was found. Finally, there is a message that indicates whether the student was matched to an existing Family Key or assigned a new Family Key (if that option was turned on).


Manual Matching


Students with no Family Key assigned will be listed at the bottom of the page. Clicking a student will open Sibling Lookup, where the student can be manually matched to an existing Family Key (see Sibling Lookup for more information). 



If a student is matched this way, the page will refresh, and that student will no longer be listed.


Note: For better page performance, no more than 100 students will be listed. However, all students with no Family Key will be processed when the Mass Assign Family Keys process is run.