Bulk Add and Remove Members from Spaces in Circle (and more)

https://youtu.be/11q5knfRqbI

In this tutorial, we will go over how to bulk add and remove members from spaces within your Circle community, especially if you are not on one of Circle’s business or enterprise plans that include the workflows feature.

This method applies to multiple bulk actions you can take using a tool called EasyCSV. Circle fully supports this method and specifically mentions it within their documentation. Circle was built to work with EasyCSV.

Using Easy CSV for Bulk Management

Step 1: Accessing EasyCSV

  1. Visit EasyCSV by selecting the bulk activity you wish to execute.

Here are direct links to the different bulk actions you can execute with EasyCSV:

Step 2: Obtain Your Circle API Key

  1. Navigate to API Settings: In your Circle community, go to Settings and then click on API.
  2. Create a New API Key: Generate a new API key specifically for EasyCSV. Name it something like “EasyCSV” to keep track. You’ll reuse this API key every time you execute a bulk action.

Step 3: Preparing Your CSV File

In our example, we’re going to take all of the members in one space in our community and add those same members to another space.

  1. Segment Your Audience: In Circle, go to the Audience section from the dropdown in the upper left-hand corner.
  2. Filter Members: Use filters to segment your audience as needed (e.g., by tag).
  3. Export CSV: Click on the three dots in the top right-hand corner and select Export CSV. This will email you a zipped CSV file with the filtered members.
  4. Unzip and Edit CSV: Open the CSV file in a program like Excel. Change the first column header to Member_Email and ensure it contains the email addresses of the members you want to manage.

Step 4: Using EasyCSV

  1. Enter API Key: On the Easy CSV page, paste the API key you generated.
  2. Upload CSV File: Drag and drop your edited CSV file into Easy CSV.
  3. Enter Your Email: Provide an email address to receive the results of the bulk operation.
  4. Select Your Community and Space: Choose your Circle community and the specific space you want to add or remove members from.

Step 5: Validate and Execute

  1. Test/Validate: Click Test/Validate to ensure there are no issues with your CSV file.
  2. Import Records: If validation is successful, click Import Records. This will process the bulk addition or removal of members, or execute your bulk action if you doing one of the others.

Email Notifications

After the operation, EasyCSV sends an email summarizing the results, including any failures (e.g., if a member already exists or has been removed). You should technically not receive any errors.

Workflows vs. EasyCSV

Circle Workflows will always be superior to this method. You can execute them right from within your community and right at the source of the data. There are no CSVs involved, no formatting, no API keys, or anything like that.

However, Workflows do require the business or enterprise tiers in order to get access to the feature. Although an added cost over the lower tier plans, they do add a significant level of improvement to your community and I feel they are well worth the upgrade once your community has reached a point where it can pay for the cost of the upgrade.