Manage Groups

Groups include more than one client and are created to provide Groups Loans, JLG loans and Group Savings to the whole group rather than a single client.

Beginning at the main screen, select Clients then select Groups from the drop-down menu. This will launch the Groups page.

Create a New Group

From Mifos home page, there are 3 (three) ways of creating a group: Search Activities box, Clients drop-down menu, or via the Navigation bar.

1. In Search Activities box, start typing the text create group. The field auto-populates. Press Enter. The Create Group page opens. Provide details in the following fields. Or

2. Click Clients drop-down box. Select Groups. Click on +CreateGroup. The Create Group page opens.

3. Once the Create Group page opens. Provide details in the following fields taking note that the fields with asterisk(*) are mandatory.

Field name (attribute)	Description	Example	Validations (if applicable)
Office	From drop-down menu, select the office to which the clients belong to in order to create their group.
Name	Provide the name for the group (Mandatory Field)
Staff	From drop-down menu select the available staff belonging to the particular office.
Add clients	Allows you to select from a list of available clients
Active	Allows you to activate the group for specific date.
Activation Date	Allows you to select a current or back date
External Id	Provide External Id for the group
Submitted On	Provide the submission date of the created group.

Once the group is Created, The next step is to assign the meeting date for the group. In order to assign the meeting date, go to the group and click on 'More' tab and then click on "Assign Meeting Date" to see the following window:

4. After that, the window of a specific group looks like the image below:

5. As shown in the image above, the Group's window displays: i) The list of Clients in the group ii) Group's next meeting date, meeting frequency and meeting day. iii) Group Activation Date, Staff and External Id iv) Number of Active Clients, Active Group loans, etc.

Assign Staff to a Group

1. From the list of existing groups, navigate to the group you want to assign staff to.

2. From the More drop down menu, select Assign Staff. The Assign Staff page opens.

3. Select staff from the drop-down menu.

4. Click submit.

Attach Meeting to a Group

You can attach meeting to a group at the Center or Group level. Attaching a meeting at the center level attaches it to all the groups within that center.

At the group level, navigate to the group. From the Group page, click on More drop-down box. Select Attach Meeting option. Fill in the following details:

Tip: Meeting can be created backdated also.

Example: showing attaching Daily meeting:

i) Provide Meeting start date

ii) Check the check box for Repeat if meeting is repeated with every provided schedule.

iii)Repeats: select Daily

iv) Repeats every: 1 day

Example showing attaching Weekly meeting:

i) Provide Meeting start date

ii) Check the check box for Repeat if meeting is repeated with every provided schedule.

iii) Repeats: select Weekly

iv) Repeats every: 1 week

v) Select Day on which meeting should happen.(In the example below, it's on Wednesday)

Example showing attaching Monthly meeting:

i) Provide Meeting start date

ii) Check the check box for Repeat if meeting is repeated with every provided schedule.

iii) Repeats: select Monthly

iv) Repeats every: 1 Month

Sync Meeting Dates with Repayment Schedule

1. Navigate to the group you want to sync meeting dates with repayment schedule.

2. In the Group page, click the +Group Loan Application page. The New Loan Application page opens.

3. Select the loan product from the Product drop-down menu. The product list choices depend on ??. Selecting the loan product enables other fields on the page.

4. Make sure the Sync repayments with meeting option is selected.

5. Click Submit button.

Sync meeting dates with disbursement schedule

1. Navigate to the group you want to sync meeting dates with repayment schedule.

2. In the Group page, click the +Group Loan Application page. The New Loan Application page opens.

3. Select the loan product from the Product drop-down menu. The product list choices depend on ??. Selecting the loan product enables other fields on the page.

4. Make sure the Sync disbursement date with meeting option is selected.

5. Click Submit button.

Edit Group Details

1. From the list of existing groups, navigate to the group whose details you want to edit.

2. From the Group page, click Edit button. The Edit Group page opens.

   1. Edit the following details.

Field name (attribute)	Description	Example	Validations (if applicable)
Name	mandatory field
Staff	Provide the new staff name
External Id	Provide the external id for the group
Activation Date	Provide the activation date of the group

Associate Existing Clients/members with a Group

1. From the list of existing groups, navigate to the group you want to associate members to.

2. In the Group page, click on Manage Members tab to see the following window.

3. Click Add button to associate the new existing member to the group.

Assign New Members to an Existing Group

1. From the list of existing groups, navigate to the group you want to add members to.

2. In the Group page, click Add tab to create a client .

3. Enter the details of the client (See here for how to enter the details of the client) and click submit button to add the client to the group.
4. Click Submit to create the client and associate him to the group.

Transfer Clients between Groups

1. From the list of existing groups, navigate to the group you want to transfer clients from.

2. In the Group page, click on Transfer Clients tab to see the following window:

3. Select the desired clients and click on ">>" button and select the destination group.

4. Click on submit button to transfer the clients to destination group.

Click Here to see How to create Group Saving Account

Click Here to see How to create Group Loan Account

Click Here to see How to process Bulk JLG Loan Application

Explanation of how this differs with Mifos 2.x

In Mifos 2.x the concept of the group meeting and its schedule were rigidly constructed that closely affected every aspect of the client, group, center, loan. Being so central, made setting up these meetings very intuitive, but also very difficult and hard to support anything outside of this meeting behavior. The functionality for configuring group meetings is a little hidden in Mifos X so that's why we need this explanation section.

Related articles

• Page:Manage Groups
• Page:Manage Clients