Intro to the Appointment Tool in New Brick River
In late 2025, the appointment tool migrated into the New Brick River and the UMC Center. Under our new billing model, effective September 2025, all UMC conferences have access to Brick River’s appointment-making tool module.
We did an introductory webinar, which you can watch at this link. The accompanying instructions are below.
APPOINTMENT TOOL SETUP
Salary Configuration Settings
If your Conference hasn’t been using the Appointment Tool, it’s important to configure some settings. Console admins can find these settings under Sites > My Websites and selecting your main website.
What salary or compensation fields make up your total? The default is BaseSalary + AccountableReimbursement + UtilityExclusion + EquitableComp. If yours is something different, you’ll want to enter it here.
Do you keep older salary or compensation records as current or do you always make a new record for each year? If set to NO, only salary records from this current year are considered "current". If set to YES, all salary records where "end date" is null are considered "current". Said another way, if your Conference opens and closes new salary records every year, leave set this to NO. If your Conference considers records without an end date the current record, then set this to YES.
Give Permissions
Console admins can give individual users permission to access the Appointment Tool. Now that the Appointment Tool is under the UMC Center, access and log in are easier but require different permissions.
Under the Gear Icon > Users. Select the user you want to change permissions for. Look to the Additional Permissions section. From the drop-down select:
- Can access UMC Center
- Can access appointment tool module (base permission)
- Can access appointment tool module READONLY (finite permission)
- Can access appointment tool module NO BULK (finite permission)
If you want to give them further permission, add “Can access appointment tool module FULL (finite permission)” instead of the options that list READONLY and NO BULK.
Pro tip: If your console admin has a user group set up for Cabinet in Brick River, they may want to give appointment tool permission at the group level instead of the individual level.
USING THE APPOINTMENT TOOL
We find that most conferences using the Appointment Tool effectively have one person in the room who is tasked with driving the tool. We’ve designed a whole training for this role, which you can watch at this link.
STAGE 1: A month or two before appointment-making begins
District staffs should go into the Appt Tool > People (for appointment making) tab and set move statuses for all their active clergy.
Even if all you do is add this data, it’s helpful for pulling quick reports based on move status.
If your Cabinet wants to take it a step further, there is space to record qualitative data, such as competencies and skills, theological preferences and more. Some conferences input all the data from their consultation process into these boxes, so it’s easily at-hand in a Cabinet meeting.
STAGE 2: At a Cabinet Meeting
Access the appointment tool by clicking on New Brick River > UMC Center > Appointment Tool.
We recommend utilizing the filtered tables available under each square option. You can toggle your columns under the Cols drop-down to the right. Having the most essential information visible in the table will keep you from clicking into every church or clergyperson.
When you’re ready to project an appointment, click on the Menu button in the upper left and select the green Make an Appointment button. Filling out the data form appears will “project” the appointment.
There are three appointment statuses baked into the system for pending and projected appointments. They are Projected, Fixed and Announced. It’s up to your Cabinet to decide which one constitutes “done” for you.
STAGE 3: Project Some Appointments!
The beauty of the appointment tool is you can pretend to move one clergyperson to Church A and see what the effects are. If you come back and decide that’s not the right move, it’s easy to remove that projected appointment and try again.
Continue on until the appointment is in the “done” stage, whatever your Cabinet determines that label to be (see previous step).
STAGE 4: Send Appointments to the Database
Whenever you’re ready, appointments projected, fixed and announced in the appointment tool can be sent directly into your database in the Appointments section under the People view.
Some conferences wait until the end of the appointment-making season to do this. Others do it on a weekly basis as appointments are announced. Either way, the appointment tool is equipped to do it.
Click on the Menu button in the upper left. At the bottom of the list of options, there are two Bulk Editor choices. One starts and stops appointments. The other cleans up your projected appointment temporary records.
STAGE 5: Clean Up
To reset the system for the next appointive year, use the options in the Bulk Update tool referenced in the previous step.