Wrestling with CSVs and excel files is a huge pain! But practice makes perfect, so we're more than happy to help with importing your members into your membership database.
How to import Members
Our goal is to make it as simple as possible for you to get your members and all their respective information into your membership database.
To facilitate this, we've created a way for organizations to download an import template that is specific to their organization. The template will be laid out with all of Join It's default fields and the custom fields that an organization has already created in their account.
Before downloading your template, make sure that you have:
Create all the 'Membership Types' that make up your membership database
Create all the 'Custom Fields' that make up the information you want stored on your members.
To download your import template:
Once logged into Join It, go to the 'Members' section by using the left-hand navigation. Then you'll click on 'View Members'.
You'll want to scroll down to the bottom of your members table, then click on the 'Bulk Import' button.
Click on the 'Download Template' button to download your CSV template for importing members.
You can also use this direct link here.
If you do not have Excel, you can import the template to Google Sheets:
Once you have downloaded the template, you can then import the document into your Google Sheet.
Under the Google Sheet, click on 'File' then 'Import' and then choose the Template you downloaded.
What information should be included
Critical information: Below are pieces of information that are required or highly recommended for each member:
First Name (Text Field - highly recommended, if available)
Last Name (Text Field - highly recommended, if available)
Email (Email - highly recommended, if available)
Membership type (Text Field - required)
Status (Text Field): Valid statuses are Prospective, Pending, Active, Canceled, & Expired (required)
Expiration date (Date): Use the YYYY-MM-DD format (if not supplied, then we will assume there is no expiration)
You can also find more information regarding Field names on the Bulk Import page at the bottom of the page.
Optional default fields: In addition to the information above, we have additional default fields for our 'Starter package' and above subscribers.
Birthdate (Date): Use the YYYY-MM-DD format
Gender (Text Field)
Company (Text Field)
Job Title (Text Field)
Twitter (Text Field)
Facebook (Text Field)
Linkedin (Text Field)
Address - Street (Text field)
Address - City (Text Field)
Address - Region (Text Field)
Address - Zip (Text Field)
Address - Country (2-digit ISO Country Code)
Phone (Text Field)
Optional custom fields: In addition to our required and default fields, we also import information for custom fields. Learn more about creating custom fields here.
Once you've pulled all your members into a CSV (formatted per the above), send it to support@joinit.com. If you didn't have Excel and used Google sheets you'll want to download the document as a CSV by clicking 'File' then 'Download as' and then click 'Comma Separated Values'.
One of our support staff will be in contact shortly after the upload file is received.
When I import my members, will they automatically receive an email?
Nope! Once you've imported your members, there will not be an automatic email sent to your members.
If you have your Automated emails set up to go out, they will run when it's applicable. For instance if you have the Renewal Reminder set up to go out, it will do so when it's within the time-frame of a member's Expiration date.
Organizations do have the option to email their members to inform them that there has been a transition to a new system, but it's most common that organizations will wait until a renewal period to engage the user and ask them to update their information.
How long will the Bulk Import take?
The average turnaround time for importing a list of your members into Join It is under 24 hours. If you have any questions on the spreadsheet, please don't hesitate to contact us.