Add an existing person to a household

Who this is for

This guide is for desk staff, managers, and owners putting somebody who already has a record into a household: a sibling who started separately, a parent added later, or a member whose family you are only now setting up.

The point of doing it this way is that it moves the existing person rather than making a second copy of them. Their attendance, ranks, and history come with them.

You need the members.change permission.

Before you begin

• Search for the person first, so you know they already exist. If they do not, create them new instead; see Create a member.
• Know that PositiveForm only offers people who are not already in a household, at this household's location. Somebody already placed will not appear in the search, which is what stops you putting one person in two families.
• You can also work from the other end: open the person's own profile and use Assign household on their More menu. That is the better route when you have the person in front of you and are not sure which family they belong to.

Steps

1. Click Households in the left navigation and open the household. It opens on Overview, with People cards for everybody already in the family.
2. Click Add person in the header.
3. Choose Existing member, which moves someone who already has a record into this household. The other choice, New member, creates a person from scratch and adds them here. The dialog that opens is titled Add existing member.
4. Type at least two characters into Search by name or email. Until then PositiveForm says Start typing to search., and while it looks it says Searching…
5. Find the person in the results, which show their email, phone, or membership status under their name, and click Add beside them.

Expected outcome

PositiveForm confirms with Added to household, and the person's card appears once among People on Overview, with their summary line and either Nothing outstanding or a count such as 2 required items.

They take a household role from their age: an adult record becomes one of the household's adults, and anyone under 18 is added as a dependent. Change that later on their own profile if it is wrong.

They are moved, not copied. Their member record, attendance, ranks, and history are unchanged and now sit inside this family, which is what makes shared billing and sibling handling work.

The household's member and adult counts update to match. Continue in Manage household people and safety context to record who is a parent or guardian of whom and to set emergency contacts, or in Maintain member profile and notes to finish their own profile.

Recovery

If the search says No unassigned members found., the person is already in a household. That is the safeguard working. Open their member record to see which household they are in, and move them from there rather than adding a duplicate here.

If the search itself fails, PositiveForm says Could not search unassigned members right now. with Try again. That is a failed lookup, not an empty studio, so do not read it as "this person does not exist".

If nothing happens as you type, you have entered fewer than two characters. Results also disappear the moment you change the query, so that a stale match is never left clickable.

If adding fails, PositiveForm shows Couldn't add that person. with the reason, and nothing changes.

If you added the wrong person, remove them under More then Manage people; see Manage household people and safety context. Removing them from a household does not delete them.

If you cannot find somebody who genuinely has no household, check the location picker: the search is scoped to this household's location, so a person recorded at your other site will not appear.

Related guides

• Manage household people and safety context: set connections, emergency contacts, and remove somebody added by mistake.
• Maintain member profile and notes: finish the person's own profile once they are in the right family.