Data Import Feature Offers Data Updating Flexibility

Posted on January 25, 2017 in Associations, Membership, Nonprofit

Have you ever needed to adjust a member’s information after an import? Or needed to add a billing period to members who didn’t yet have one? Read this week’s blog post to learn how Membee utilizes the magic of a spreadsheet, allowing its users to adjust things at their leisure.

Since the creation of the first electronic spreadsheet for the PC (VisiCalc) way back in the early eighties, one could easily argue that for certain things, you simply can’t beat a spreadsheet as the best tool for a wide range of data manipulation tasks. A spreadsheet's ability to display data in a meaningful, visual manner while providing the ability to quickly run down a column and update values (either manually or via a formula) has stood the test of time and survived the birth of the Internet, to remain an indispensable tool in the modern office.

Our time-tested pal, the spreadsheet, is a handy sidekick to Membee’s Data Import feature.

Whether you have a number of potential or new members that need to be added to Membee or a number of records that need to be updated, Membee’s Data Import is a great tool to have this all done in a batch!

The “Import” feature is found on Membee’s Admin page and it is commonly used to:

Create and save Imports so that you may reuse them
Create Imports to regularly bring new lists of prospective members into Membee
Create Imports to update your members with data from parent or affiliated organizations
Create Imports to update your members with changes you’ve made by first exporting from Membee, changing the member data, and using an Import to bring it back in again

Create & Save Import Definitions So You Can Quickly Reuse Them

We’ve outlined above just a few of the ways you can use this feature. No matter how you use it, a big time saver is the ability to define an Import definition and then save it for reuse later. Maybe you receive data from different sources each with its own set of columns. This allows you to create an unlimited number of Import definitions, one for each of your data sources to accommodate the different layouts of the data.

Import Lists of Prospective Members

Keep your organization growing by sourcing and importing lists of prospective members. Whether it’s new business in your area, in your industry, or students graduating into your profession, importing lists of prospective members is a cost-effective way to begin the membership marketing process and to source new members that are most likely unaware of what you have to offer.

Once they are in Membee, you can start a “why a membership is a great idea” campaign by using Membee’s powerful communication tools including direct integration with MailChimp and Constant Contact.

Import Updates You Receive From a Parent or Affiliate Organization

If your members are passed to you from the national “home office” or the updates come to your from local and/or regional affiliates, keeping your data up to date used to be a manual process. No more! Map the inbound data fields to Membee’s equivalent fields and let the new Import feature do the work. You can specify how you want Membee to handle new records that are not found in Membee at the time of the import.

Export Data From Membee, Modify It & Import It Back In

This is a capability that you will use often. Sometimes, it is simply easier and faster to modify your member data in a spreadsheet. As you know, you can export any Membee report and create a data file in the “CSV” file format that is easily opened in Excel or any modern spreadsheet. Perhaps you want to define the value of a Membee User Defined Field (UDF) to categorize members (or non-members) in a specific way. All you do is export your member data using one of Membee’s member reports, modify if in a spreadsheet, and import it back into Membee using the Import feature.

New: Manipulate Member Billing Info

You’ve always had the ability to take member information (such as; name, email, status etc.) out of Membee, adjust it, and the re-import it. Now, you have the ability to adjust the member billing info as well!

The most common reason for this activity is that a user may have a category of membership that has previously not been charged. They decide to institute a fee in order to provide more value to their members and as a result need to set up billing where it has never been set up before.

Here are the guidelines that the import would follow to determine whether or not the billing record can be updated for a member:

If there is no current billing period for a member, then the record can be updated
- The import file must include:
  - Next Bill Date
  - Billing Cycle
  - Membership Billing Item
If there is a current billing period, the billing record cannot be updated
- We do not allow you to overwrite billing information in records that have a current period as this would potentially cause serious issues with your finances, for example;
  - You could end up charging someone for a period they've already paid for
  - Miss a member for a period that they should have paid for
  - Change the items that they have already paid for
  - Potentially removing access for premium features

In short, Membee has made it easier for you to import your members billing period information whenever is convenient, giving you the ability to adjust all aspects of members information as you obtain it.

Put Import to Work Right Now!

Want to learn more? Get the details in Membee’s Help From the Hive Knowledge Base article entitled “Import External Data Into Membee”. Remember to have your Membee username and password handy to access the article.