---
title: "Policy Campaign Types: One-Time, Update, Periodic and Always-On"
description: "Choose a campaign type while distinguishing assignment labels, duplicate checks and service-dependent recurring processing."
url: https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb/10522
language: en
published: 2026-11-07
modified: 2026-11-08
products:
  - "Policy Acknowledgement"
author: "Lidija Reising"
tags: ["campaign types", "one-time policy campaign", "update campaign", "periodic recertification", "always-on"]
---

# Policy Campaign Types: One-Time, Update, Periodic and Always-On

Choose a campaign type while distinguishing assignment labels, duplicate checks and service-dependent recurring processing.

Campaign types describe why a policy version is being assigned. They influence assignment labels and the campaign configuration, but they do not override every existing assignment or independently run background jobs. Choose a type based on the intended workflow and verify the resulting records.

## Compare the options

| Type | Appropriate intention | Behavior to verify |
|---|---|---|
| **One-time** | Distribute a policy version to a selected population now. | Creates eligible assignments for the current audience at launch. |
| **Update** | Ask employees to acknowledge a revised policy version. | Uses the update assignment kind, subject to same-version duplicate checks. |
| **Periodic acknowledgment** | Identify a recertification exercise. | Uses the recertification assignment kind; does not bypass duplicate checks or create a recurring schedule by itself. |
| **Always-on (new audience members)** | Include future audience members as they join the population. | Enables automatic-assignment intent; later processing requires the separate service. |

An employee who previously acknowledged another version can receive an update-labelled assignment even when a new campaign begins as a one-time campaign. The stored history and version comparison matter in addition to the selected type.

## Select a type in the wizard

1. Open **New campaign** in Policy Manager.
2. Choose the policy and verify its current published version.
3. Select **Campaign type** according to the intended exercise.
4. Review the audience and the **Automatically assign the policy to new audience members.** checkbox separately.
5. Set deadlines and review the final summary before launching.

Selecting the always-on type turns on automatic assignment. Changing from that type to another does not necessarily clear the checkbox, because the wizard preserves an already-enabled value. Inspect the checkbox rather than assuming the type switch resets every setting.

![Selecting the reason for a campaign](https://static.vitextra.com/articles/10522/campaign-types-en.png)
*Selecting the reason for a campaign*

## Understand same-version deduplication

Launch skips a selected employee who already has a nonexempt assignment for the same policy version in any campaign. This includes an acknowledged record. As a result, creating another periodic campaign for the identical version does not force that employee to confirm again.

An exempt record is not itself a skip condition, but another nonexempt record for that user and version can still cause a skip. Inspect the employee's existing assignments before interpreting a zero-created result as a failure. See [KB10520. How to Review a Campaign Audience Before Launch](https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb/10520).

❗ **Important**  
Do not describe the periodic option as a complete automatic annual-recertification engine. The current launch path identifies recertification assignments but retains same-version deduplication, and no interval scheduler is provided by this wizard. Agree and verify a supported recurrence procedure before relying on it for an organizational requirement.

## Separate the first batch from later processing

The browser creates the initial assignments when you launch. Future audience additions, scheduled reminders and escalations are external-service responsibilities. A saved always-on flag, an active campaign or a connected URL alone does not prove those processes are running.

Test the initial audience first. Then, if later assignment is required, arrange a controlled membership change and verify that the service creates the intended new assignment, applies the correct deadline and avoids duplicates. Service configuration and acceptance checks are described in [KB10525. How to Connect the Policy Service and Configure Automatic Notifications](https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb/10525).

## Choose a practical starting point

Use a one-time pilot to verify the main workflow, an update campaign for a genuinely new version, and service-dependent modes only after their separate behavior is tested. Keep publication, campaign type, auto-assignment and deadline as distinct decisions. For detailed launch steps, see [KB10503. How to Create and Launch a Policy Acknowledgement Campaign](https://vitextra.com/en/support/kb/10503).