Why You Shouldn't Reopen a Previous Group
In specific cases, such as rolling selections (e.g., for music tuition) or enabling new students to select in a previously closed group (where locking selections would be recommended), it is appropriate to reopen a previously closed Activity Selection Group.
In the majority of cases, however, this is not the best-practice approach. When you reopen an existing Activity Selection Group and rename it for a new term, all selections made by students in the previous term are still there, carried over from the last time the group was open. Clipboard will display a clarification to check if you want to copy the group instead of reopening. This is your cue to check for the best method to use.
The consequence of carrying over old selections is that students (or their guardians) who want the same activity as last year may not bother remaking their selection, since it already appears correct to them. This means:
Some selections will show a date from the previous term, not the current one
When you filter for students who have made a selection in recent months, those students won't appear, even though they intend to participate
This can lead to incomplete enrolment data and students being missed
Others may deselect their old selection and select a new one, which can cause problems if payments are taken where:
Cancelling their old selection will trigger a refund request assigned as a credit balance
When they make a new selection, they will show correctly as having selected in the current period, but the credit balance will be applied to pay for the selection, meaning they may show as having paid when no new payment has been taken
Recommended Method: Copy the Group
The best practice is to duplicate the previous group and edit the copy for the new term. This ensures each term starts with a clean slate; no carry-over selections, and accurate, up-to-date timestamps on every submission.
To do this:
Navigate to your Activity Selection Groups
Locate the previous term's group
Use the Copy function to duplicate it
Edit the copy with the new term's details, activities, and dates
What to Do If You've Already Reopened a Group
If you've already reopened and renamed a previous group, don't worry — there are steps you can take to resolve the situation. The right approach depends on whether your school uses Clipboard to collect payments for activity selections.
If your school does not collect payments through Clipboard
Option A: Ask affected students or guardians to resubmit their selections
Students or guardians who appear to be missing from recent selection reports should log into the Portal, deselect their current activity, and reselect it. This refreshes the timestamp on their selection and ensures they appear correctly in filtered reports.
Option B: Duplicate the group and start fresh
Duplicate the reopened group to create a clean copy
Contact any students or guardians who appear to be missing selections
Ask them to log into the Portal and remake their selections in the new group
If your school does collect payments through Clipboard
Where payments are involved, the situation requires more careful handling. It's important to understand what has happened to payments before deciding on a course of action.
Understanding what happens to payments in a reopened group
When a guardian deselects and reselects an activity in a reopened group, the following occurs automatically:
The original (carried-over) selection is refunded to their Clipboard credit balance
That credit balance is immediately applied to cover the cost of the new selection
As a result, no new payment is processed; the transaction appears settled, but the school has effectively not received a new payment for the current term
You can verify this for affected guardians by checking for corresponding payments in Stripe, or by navigating to the Invoice tab, filtering to the past year, and looking for patterns where an invoice was paid for a selection, followed by a refund to credit balance, and then that credit is reapplied to a new selection for the same activity.
Recommended fix: Duplicate the group and manage selections manually
This is the recommended approach, though it does require some manual work and more input from guardians. If you are unsure about any of the steps below, please contact our support team for clarification.
Close the reopened group if not already done
Duplicate the reopened group to create a clean copy for the current term, and make it available for selections
For guardians who have not yet paid: ask them to make their selection in the new group and pay as normal
For guardians who have already selected and paid in the reopened group you can choose:
To leave their selections and payments as they are, if you don't use capacity limits for your Selections, or, if you do,
To delete and refund their selections in the reopened group and ask them to select again in the new, copied group. When they select in the new group, their credit balance will be applied automatically.
These steps need to be done carefully, so please double-check with our support team if you're unsure about any of them. Our team is available to help guide you through this process.