How do I remove Constituents from the VMS?

The Constituent Deletion tool makes it easy to remove constituents from your VMS at your own convenience! 

As a reminder, excluding rows from your daily Constituent File sent via SFTP for import does not remove the constituents from your VMS. You must use the Constituent Deletion tool to remove constituents.

Managing constituents with contact restrictions (Do Not Solicit / Do Not Email)

When your CRM sends contact restriction values (such as Do Not Solicit or Do Not Email) in the VMS constituent file, note that these values only affect the selection of constituents for new assignments. The VMS uses a specific field to determine if a constituent is eligible to be newly assigned to a volunteer, and it is not a global suppression flag for volunteer email outreach.

Key details:

• The selectability field controls whether a constituent appears as an option during the Search Constituents process for new assignments. It does not affect other areas of the system.
• When the field value indicates the constituent is solicitable (for example, a true or yes value), the constituent appears in search results and can be assigned.
• When the field value indicates the constituent is not solicitable (for example, using values like N or FALSE), the constituent is excluded from search results and cannot be newly assigned.
• An empty or missing value is treated as selectable, meaning the constituent will appear in search results.
• A non-selectable status does not prevent a volunteer from emailing a constituent who was already assigned or was assigned through a bulk operation.
• The VMS does not enforce a system-wide "Do Not Email" suppression; it only gates new assignment selection.

To fully prevent volunteer outreach to a constituent, use both of the following steps:

• Omit the constituent from future SFTP constituent files.
• Remove the constituent from the VMS using the Constituent Deletion tool (accessible under Data Management > Remove Constituents by school administrators with Full permissions).

Additional notes:

• Deleting a constituent from the VMS does not remove the associated volunteer record; these records exist separately.
• To keep a constituent in the VMS while preventing new assignments, set their selectability field to a non-true value (e.g., N or FALSE). Remember, this only affects new assignment selection and does not stop emails to already assigned constituents.
• Removals via the Constituent Deletion tool take approximately 15–30 minutes to complete.

By combining field settings in your import file with selective omissions and using the Constituent Deletion tool, you can ensure your school's solicitation preferences and privacy protocols are upheld.

Please follow the steps below to learn how:

1. Navigate to your VMS > Data Management > Remove Constituents. Please note: Only school administrators with "Full" permissions can access the "Data Management" page.

2. Click “Choose File” to upload a CSV of the constituents you’d like deleted. The CSV should include only one column with the constituent ID numbers listed. Please use the following column header: constituent_id

3. Once you have uploaded a file, click “Review Changes.”

Summary tiles at the top of the review page include the following information:

• Total Constituents:  Total # of constituents you uploaded for removal
• No Name Constituents: # of constituents that are “No Name” records. For more information on “No Name” records, head to Data Management > No Name Records.
• Assigned Constituents: # of constituents that are assigned to volunteers
• Volunteer Constituents: # of constituents that currently also have a volunteer record in the system. 

The review page will list the Constituent ID, Constituent Name, Preferred Class Year, Assignment Status and Volunteer Status of each constituent you uploaded.

• Assignment Status will note if a constituent is currently assigned to a volunteer. If you proceed with deleting this constituent, they will become unpaired from any volunteers who are assigned to them.
• Volunteer Status will note if the constituent currently also has a volunteer record in the VMS. The Constituent Record and Volunteer Record are stored separately within the system, so you can delete the Constituent Record without affecting the Volunteer Record or the volunteer’s access to the VMS. 

4. Once you have reviewed the table of changes, click “Remove Constituents” to continue with the constituent deletion, or “Discard Changes” if you’d like to make adjustments to your CSV and try again. If you choose “Remove Constituents”, the constituents will be removed from your VMS within 15-30 minutes.