What is the Birthday Field?

The Birthday field captures a child's or parent's birth date (Month/Day/Year) in your family records. You can use this field to send personalized birthday messages, create automated birthday campaigns, and filter families by age.

The Birthday field can be populated through:

  • Manual entry when creating or editing a family record
  • Enrollment form submissions
  • CSV imports
  • API integrations

This field enables automation triggers based on birthdays and helps you segment families by age for targeted communication.

How to Build Birthday Reminder Campaigns

Set up automated birthday messages or special offers to engage families on important dates. Here's how to create a birthday automation:

Step 1: Configure the Birthday Trigger

  1. Navigate to Automations and click Create New Automation
  2. Set the Trigger to Birthday
  3. Choose when the trigger should activate:
    • On the birthday
    • Before the birthday (for example, 7 days before)
    • After the birthday (for example, 1 day later)
[SCREENSHOT: Automation builder showing Birthday trigger configuration with timing options]

Step 2: Define Your Actions

Add the actions you want to happen when the birthday trigger activates:

  • Send Email: Personalized birthday greetings or special enrollment offers
  • Send Text Message: Quick birthday wishes or discount codes
  • Assign Task: Alert your team to follow up personally if needed

Example Birthday Automation

Step Action
1 Trigger on Birthday
2 Send Birthday Text Message
3 Send Birthday Email
4 (Optional) Notify your team
Pro Tip: Birthday messages are a great way to stay connected with families and show you care about more than just enrollment.

How to Filter Families by Age in Smart Lists

Use the Birthday field to segment families based on age for targeted communication. This is especially useful for age-specific programs or promotions.

Steps to Filter by Age

  1. Go to Families > Smart Lists
  2. Apply a filter using the Birthday field's Age condition
  3. Select the appropriate comparison:
Filter Condition Use Case Example
Age is greater than X Target children ready for kindergarten (5+)
Age is less than X Promote infant programs (under 1 year)
Age is between X and Y Target toddler programs (ages 2-3)

The platform calculates age automatically based on the current date and the stored birthday.

[SCREENSHOT: Smart Lists filter showing Birthday field age conditions]

Best Practices

  • Capture Birthdays Early: Include a Birthday field in your enrollment forms and tour request forms to gather this information from the start
  • Validate Date Formats: Use MM/DD/YYYY format to ensure your automations trigger correctly
  • Test Your Automations: Always test birthday automations with sample family records before activating them
  • Consider Time Zones: Birthday automations may use family-specific time zones if configured in your settings
Pro Tip: For childcare businesses, consider capturing both the child's birthday and the parent's birthday. This gives you two opportunities per family to send personalized messages.

Common Issues and Troubleshooting

Birthday automation is not triggering

Make sure the Birthday field is populated with a complete and correctly formatted date (MM/DD/YYYY).

Incorrect age calculation

Confirm that the birth year is correctly entered. Missing or incorrect years will cause calculation errors.

Text message or email was not sent on the birthday

Double-check your automation timing, trigger configuration, and family timezone settings. Also verify that the family has valid contact information on file.

Birthday field is empty for existing families

You can bulk import birthday data using CSV upload, or add a task for your team to collect this information during regular check-ins with families.