VBS Friend Preferences

A five-year-old who knows one other child wants to be with that child. When Friend Preferences is on, registration asks parents who that is, and this screen is where those requests turn into crew assignments.

Note

Turn it on first, under Sign-up Form → Registration Settings. Requests can only arrive while the setting is on — Registration settings.

Where the requests appear

Groups → Friend requests, beside the search box. The requests open in a panel next to the board, so you can see the crews while you work through them. The top of the Groups page and the overview both say when any are waiting.

The Friend requests panel with Needs a match, Suggested matches and Confirmed sections; each request shows both children's crews and whether they are together — Every request shows where both children are placed right now

The three states

Needs a match — a name Hubl could not match to a registered child. Pick the child… lets you choose the right one yourself; Dismiss sets it aside.
Suggested matches — a name matched to a registered child, marked strong, likely or weak. Confirm accepts it, Change match… picks a different child, Dismiss drops it. Confirm all accepts every suggestion at once.
Confirmed — agreed, and ready to affect the crews. You can still change or dismiss it.

Tip

A request that needs a match usually means the friend never registered, or registered under a different surname. Both are worth a quick word with the parent before the week starts — a child expecting a friend who is not coming is better told on Sunday than on Monday.

Finding and linking friends

Find matches runs the name matcher again over requests that have no match yet — useful after a late family registers and their child is finally findable.
Link two kids pairs two registered children yourself, for a request that came in by phone or at the door.

Getting friends into the same crew

Each matched request shows both children’s crews and a Together or Apart tag. There are two ways to act on it:

Move them yourself

Move together on an Apart request puts the child in their friend’s crew (or the friend in theirs, if the friend has no crew yet).

Or let auto-assign do it

Auto-assign keeps confirmed friends together when it places children. If suggested matches are still unconfirmed, it offers to confirm them first.

Warning

Moving children changes their crew. Do it before you print badges, not after — a child holding a Summit Seekers badge who has been moved to River Runners is exactly the confusion badges are meant to prevent.

When friends are in different grades

Two children who asked for each other may not fit in the same crew, if your crews have grade ranges. Auto-assign stops and lists each set of friends it cannot place together, with the range each child falls in, then asks you to choose once for all of them:

Respect grade ranges — keeps your crews age-appropriate and leaves those friends apart.
Keep friends together — puts the friends in one crew, grade range or not.