How to Use Priority Lottery in ActivityHero

Overview

Before You Begin

Step 1: Set Up Priority Groups

Step 2: Assign Priority to Registrations

Step 3: Create a Priority Lottery

Step 4: Understand What Happens When the Lottery Runs

Step 5: Understand How Siblings Are Handled

Step 6: Review the Results

FAQs

Key Takeaways

Overview

When more families want a spot than a session has space for, a lottery gives everyone a fair chance. The priority lottery goes one step further. It lets you give certain groups of families, such as staff or returning students, a better chance at the available spots, while keeping the draw random.

This document walks through how to set up and use the priority lottery: priority groups, assigning priority to registrations, creating a priority lottery, how the lottery runs, how siblings are handled, and how to review results.

This guidance is intended for providers who run lotteries, and for support staff who help providers with them.

In brief:

1. You decide which priority groups you want to use (for example, Staff or Unduplicated Students).

2. You tag students with the group they belong to in your SIS. This data will be sent to us via SIS sync along with the student data

3. You can also tag change the groups after families have registered

4. When you create a lottery, you choose which priority groups apply and put them in order.

5. When the lottery runs, families in your first priority group are drawn first, then the second, and so on. Everyone else is drawn after the priority groups.
   
   

Within each group the draw is random, so families in the same group have an equal chance.

Before You Begin

To use the priority lottery, make sure of the following:

• Priority lottery is turned on for your account. ActivityHero staff enables it for you. Once it is on, you will see priority options when you manage registrations and create lotteries.
  
  
• Your list of priority groups has been set up. To enable priority lottery or change your list of priority groups, contact ActivityHero Support.
  
  
• The sessions you want to include accept registrations through a lottery. 
  
  
  

Step 1: Set Up Priority Groups

Priority groups are defined for your account by ActivityHero. Examples include Staff and Unduplicated Students.

1. Contact ActivityHero Support and tell them which priority groups you want.

2. Support turns on priority lottery and adds your groups.

3. Confirm that the priority options now appear when you manage registrations and create lotteries.

4. Confirm with ActivityHero Support that the priority groups are being sent as part of the SIS sync to ActivityHero.
   

Step 2: Assign Priority to Registrations

Once priority lottery is enabled, you can assign one or more priority groups to a registration. Registrations with no priority group are treated as General.

• A registration can belong to more than one priority group.
  
  
• If a registrant is marked as a staff member, they are automatically added to the Staff priority group. If that is later changed, the Staff group is removed.
  
  
• You can filter your registration list by priority group, including General, to review who is in each group before you run a lottery.
  
  
• Only you (the provider) and ActivityHero administrators can assign priority. Parents cannot choose or change it.

Step 3: Create a Priority Lottery

1. Create a lottery as you normally would: name it, choose the sessions it covers, and set the dates.

2. Select the option to set priority. This appears only if priority lottery is enabled for your account.

3. Choose the priority groups that should apply to this lottery. You can also include General.

4. Choose how siblings are handled (see Step 5).

5. Save the lottery.
   
   

The order you select the groups is the order of priority. The first group you pick has the highest priority.

Step 4: Understand What Happens When the Lottery Runs

• Priority groups go first. Families in your first group are considered before the second group, and so on, until spots run out.
  
  
• Everyone else follows. Wait-listed families who are not in a selected priority group are drawn after the priority groups, in random order.
  
  
• Random within each group. Position within a group is not based on when the family signed up.
  
  
• A family in several groups is counted once, under the highest-priority group they belong to.
  
  
• Spots are limited by session capacity. Priority groups fill spots first. If your first group has enough families to fill a session, later groups and General families will not get a spot in that session.
  
  
• Families that do not get a spot stay on the waitlist.

Step 5: Understand How Siblings Are Handled

Brothers and sisters registered by the same parent are kept together. If a child receives a priority spot, their waitlisted siblings are placed in the same priority position, even if the siblings have no priority group themselves. Siblings are enrolled together, or none are enrolled if there is not room for all of them.

When you create the lottery, you choose how far this applies:

• Same session (default) – siblings are kept together within the same session.
• Whole lottery – siblings are kept together across all sessions in the lottery.

Step 6: Review the Results

After the lottery runs you can see:

• Each registration’s result, either enrolled or wait-listed, and its rank in the draw.
  
  
• For waitlisted families, the reason they were not enrolled when one is available, such as not enough room for all siblings.
  
  
• A summary of how many families were enrolled from each priority group.
  
  
• A Priority column in the downloadable results (CSV) file.
  
  
• Filters for priority group and enrollment status.

FAQs

Can a family be in more than one priority group? 

Yes. They are placed under the highest-priority group they belong to.

Can parents see or choose their priority?

No. Priority is assigned by you or by ActivityHero administrators.

Does the order I select groups matter?

Yes. The first group you select has the highest priority.

Does signing up earlier help?

No. The draw within a group is random. 

What does the General group mean? 

General covers registrations with no priority group. You can include it in a lottery to control where those families fall in the order.

How do I turn this on or change my priority groups?

Contact ActivityHero Support.

Key Takeaways

• The priority lottery lets you give selected groups, such as staff or returning students, first chance at spots while keeping the draw random.
  
  
• Only providers and ActivityHero administrators can assign priority. Parents cannot.
  
  
• The order you select priority groups is their order of priority, and General families are drawn after the selected groups unless you include General.
  
  
• Siblings are kept together, within the same session or across the whole lottery, as you choose.
  
  
• Priority is not a guarantee. Spots are limited by session capacity.