Kavi Help CenterKavi® Members Help
| Chapter 30. How to Add Memberships through Upload Data | ||
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Part I. Kavi Members Concepts and General Instructions | 
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Table of Contents
Super Admins can use the Upload Data tool to add first-time and historical memberships for large numbers of companies or users simultaneously. This is usually done during site setup, but if your memberships aren't moderated or billed, you can use this to add add new first-time memberships in bulk. This document walks Super Admins through the data file preparation process.
If companies or users do not yet exist in the database, memberships can be added during the upload action that is used to add these companies or users. If the companies or users do exist in the database, memberships are added by editing the company or user records.
Back to topMemberships that are added through the Upload Data tool are managed differently than memberships added through the regular membership application process. The process is closer to the way that administrators manually add individual memberships, but there are certain key differences. This is explained in the following section. For an instant overview of membership states in the workflow, see the membership workflow diagram.
You can only upload first-time memberships or historical memberships. Once a company or user has a membership, subsequent memberships need to be added through tools expressly designed to support membership renewal or replacement so the membership history can be accurately maintained.
If the membership type is moderated, memberships automatically pass the moderation step.
If the membership type is billed, memberships automatically pass the billing step and no bill is issued. This makes it possible to add memberships that already exist as long as the bills have been paid. Memberships with outstanding membership bills can be added manually through Admin Area tools.
Historical memberships can be added through the Upload Data tool. Upload Data checks to see whether the membership expiration date is in the past, and if it is, the membership moves automatically to the 'Archived' state.
For an example, see Adding Historical Memberships.
When you add memberships that are already current, be sure to enter the correct start date for each membership. Kavi Members can calculate the end date according to rules for that membership type, but if the end date doesn't adhere to the standard rules, it should be set manually. Upload Data immediately sets all existing memberships to the current state.
For an example, see Adding Current Memberships.
When adding memberships that are not yet current (i.e., the start date is either today or in the future), you can enter the start date or let the Upload Data tool calculate the start date based on rules set in the membership type. This value is set to the current date by default, unless the start date is set to the future in the membership type rules. If the start date is today, the state is set to 'Current' during the upload process and the membership goes current immediately. If the start date is in the future, the membership state is set to 'Pending Start Date'. Kavi Members can calculate the end date according to rules for that membership type, but if the end date doesn't adhere to these rules for any reason, it should be set manually.
For examples, see Adding New Members and Memberships and Changing Nonmemembers to Members and Adding Memberships.
Upload Data enforces most other membership rules. For example, you won't be allowed to add a membership for a company or user with an incompatible purpose. The Company Purpose must be 'Member Company' and the User Purpose must be 'Individual Member'. If you are editing the records of nonmembers who are already in the database, be sure to include the Purpose column and set it to the appropriate value.
Because the data upload process is complex, there is quite a lot of documentation available.
If you are adding members and memberships at the same time, follow the basic file preparation instructions outlined in How to Add Records through Upload Data. If you are adding memberships for members who already exist in the database, follow the instructions in How to Edit and Delete Records through Upload Data.
The three fields in the CSV data files that are used to add memberships do not have a one-to-one relationship with membership fields in the database. The membership fields in the CSV data files are used to pass values into membership tools, so the upload process doesn't set these values directly, they are set by the membership tools. If you want more information about the field values that will be set as the membership passes through the workflow, you can refer to Membership Data Fields in the Appendix.
If you haven't prepared data for this tool before or would like some tips on working with comma-separated values, see Preparing CSV Files for Upload.
When your files are prepared and you are ready to proceed with the upload, consult the Upload Data tool page help for instructions.
Be sure all other Kavi Members configurations steps are complete before you begin to upload data—particularly membership types, Company Types, User Types, Contact Types and custom fields—which affect database structure and determine membership validation rules. When you download the company.csv and person.csv templates, the column headings will already contain all the default and custom fields that are present in the database.
If this is an established organization, members may have acquired memberships before the creation of this website. You may add both current and historical memberships for these members.
If you are adding memberships at the same time that the member is added, download the company.csv or person.csv templates. If you are adding memberships for members that are already in the database, download the company.csv or person.csv data files.
There are three columns that you'll need to add to your template or data file: 'membership_types', 'membership_start_dates' and 'membership_end_dates'. The only one of these that always requires a value is 'membership_types'.
If the start date isn't specified in the data file, it is set to the date specified in the membership type rules or the current date. If the start date is specified, it overrides the value that would otherwise be set automatically.
Table 30.1. Membership Fields
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This section describes how to prepare files where memberships are added as new members are added. Since the Upload Data tool skips any billing or moderation steps, this process works best for free, unmoderated memberships.
Download the appropriate template and add the three membership fields: 'membership_types', 'membership_start_dates' and 'membership_end_dates'.
Enter the company or user data, then the membership type.
Since these are new memberships, you can leave the start and end date fields empty and Kavi Members will set these values for you.
If you add new member companies and memberships in the same upload process, your data file will look something like this. For simplicity's sake, this example includes only the fields that are required by the Upload Data tool. Fields required by the database (e.g., 'display_publicly', 'show_on_signup_form', 'status' and 'company_type') will be set to the default values automatically during the upload process. In this example the organization has a flat membership structure and only has one Company Membership Type, 'Community Member'. The membership type has a fixed 1-year duration, which means that the term's start and end dates aren't fixed, but it starts on the day that the membership is acquired and ends a year later.
Sample file description:
The first row contains the column headings. The Super Admin manually added the 'membership_types', 'membership_start_dates' and 'membership_end_dates' columns because these fields aren't included in the downloaded company.csv template.
The first column contains the Upload Action 'Add'.
The company name is added to the second column. In this example, this is the only column where field values vary. In the real world, you might add a company mailing address or other information specific to this company.
The value in the Purpose column must be set to 'Member Company' in order to add memberships for these companies.
The organization has only one Company Membership Type, so the value in this column is 'Ecosystem Member'.
The 'membership_start_dates' field is left empty and there are no rules in the membership type that will keep this membership from going into effect immediately, so the start date is automatically set to the current date and membership immediately goes current for every company added in this batch.
The 'membership_end_dates' field is also required but in this example it is also left blank. This value is set automatically to one day before the current date of the following year.
Upload Data now sets default values in all the fields that are required by the database but aren't present in this data file. The 'status', 'display_publicly' and 'show_on_signup_form' fields are all set to '1' (Yes) so that these companies are now displayed on the signup form and roster. The 'company_type' field is populated with whatever Company Type was set as default for companies with the 'Member Company' Purpose plus any Company Types granted through the 'Ecosystem Member' membership. Company Representatives can now be added via a different data upload or can signup online.
Table 30.2. Sample data file for adding companies and memberships
| upload_action | name | purpose | membership_types | membership_start_dates | membership_end_dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| add | Alpha Inc. | Member Company | Ecosystem Member | ||
| add | Beta Co. | Member Company | Ecosystem Member | ||
| add | Gamma LLC. | Member Company | Ecosystem Member |
When doing site setup you may add members with existing memberships. The start date of these memberships is in the past and the end date is in the future, so you'll have to set both dates when adding memberships. These memberships may be added as the last in a series of historical memberships. For more information, see the section on Adding Historical Memberships.
In this example a data file is prepared to add current memberships for Individual Members. For simplicity's sake, this example includes only the fields that the Upload Data tool requires when adding individual memberships. When this file is uploaded, fields required by the database (i.e., 'purpose', 'display_publicly', 'receive_email', 'status', 'member_type' and 'company_contact_type') are automatically set to the default values. Even if the membership types are billed or moderated, these memberships must have already passed through any billing or steps before the membership went into effect.
The memberships shown here have different durations for illustration purposes, in real life your organization's memberships probably all have the same duration (with the exception of any lifetime membership types). The membership types are named after the durations they represent. The current date is June 28th, 2007.
Sample file description:
The first row contains the column headings and the second and subsequent rows contain records of companies being added to the database.
The first column contains the 'Add' Upload Action.
The second, third and fourth columns contain the user's personal data.
The fourth column contains the user's company. In this example the company 'Pseudocompany' was added to the Kavi Members database to group all Individual Members. It isn't a real world company.
The fifth column, the Purpose column, is set to Individual Member for all these users so that memberships can be added.
As mentioned, each of these sample membership types is named after a different membership duration, which is not a likely real-world scenario.
All the 'membership_start_dates' are in the past. For illustrative purposes, all these values have been set, but in actuality, membership types that use the Fixed Dates duration don't need to be set.
All the 'membership_end_dates' are in the future. For illustrative purposes, all these values have been set, but in actuality, you can let these values be set by membership rules unless the membership dates vary from the rules for some reason.
Table 30.3. Sample data file for adding users with current memberships
| upload_action | first_name | last_name | primary_email | company_name | purpose | membership_types | membership_start_dates | membership_end_dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| add | Alba | Ari | alba@example.com | Individual Member | Pseudocompany | Annual Fixed-Term | 2007/01/01 | 2007/12/31 |
| add | Bill | Barr | bill@example.com | Individual Member | Pseudocompany | Fixed Duration | 2007/03/25 | 2008/03/24 |
| add | Cora | Carr | cora@example.com | Individual Member | Pseudocompany | Lifetime | 2004/04/14 | Lifetime |
| add | Don | Dan | dan@example.com | Individual Member | Pseudocompany | Fixed Dates | 2007/1/1 | 2008/1/1 |
If your organization has members whose memberships preceed the establishment of the website, you may add historical memberships during site setup. You may add these memberships in the same data file used to add members, or may add these memberships by editing the records of members who were added to the database during a previous upload operation.
You must use a membership type that is known to Kavi Members, so if you want to add historical memberships, the membership types must be manually added through Add Individual Membership Type or Add Company Membership Type before you can successfully upload these memberships.
This is a good opportunity to set the member's 'signup_date'. If a member's signup date is available, enter it in this column. If not, set it to the start date of the earliest membership in the series.
In this example the company.csv data file is downloaded through the link at the top of the Upload Data tool. The Super Admin probably searched for companies with the 'Member Company' purpose, then removed any unnecessary columns and added the three membership columns: 'membership_types', 'membership_start_dates' and 'membership_end_dates'. As the memberships are added, the Super Admin would remove any rows containing companies for which memberships are not going to be added during this upload. As with other examples, the membership types shown here use a variety of different membership durations, whereas real organization memberships consistently use the same duration or possibly two—the second being the lifetime duration, specifically.
Sample file description:
The first row contains the column headings, and the first column contains the Upload Action 'Edit'. When the company.csv data file was downloaded, the Upload Action field was already prefilled with 'edit', so there was no need to set this value.
The second column contains the item key, which is required and must not be edited. If this value is inadvertently edited or deleted, the correct value must be retrieved from the database and copied into this field. Note that these are fake item keys; real item key values are much longer.
The 'name' column isn't required by the Upload Data tool, but the Super Admin uses it for reference, rather than trying to match item keys visually.
The 'membership_types' field contains the names of the membership types being added. Multiple memberships are added as a comma-separated series. Dates in the 'membership_start_dates' and 'membership_end_dates' field must appear in the order in which the memberships appear in the 'membership_types' field, so that the correct dates are assigned to each membership. If a current membership is included in this series, the end date doesn't need to be specified, but if it is omitted, the placeholder comma must be included to maintain the structure of the ordered series.
When adding historical memberships, it is easy to set the 'signup_date'. If the actual signup date is provided, the Super Admin enters that date. If it is not, the Super Admin finds the start date of the first membership in the series and enters this value (if not set, the signup date would default to the current date).
The first record shows a membership that uses the Annual Fixed-Term duration. This member has only one archived membership. The second membership in the series is current (today's date is June 28th, 2007). If the organization only offered Annual Fixed-Term memberships, every year's memberships would start and end on the same day for all members.
The second and third records shows 1-year Fixed Duration memberships. The start and end dates vary for each member because the start date is the day that the membership was acquired.
The fourth record shows a series of Fixed Dates memberships. This membership's start date coincides with the start of the organization's fiscal year and overlaps by one day.
The fifth record shows a single Lifetime membership being added for a company that is a founding member of the organization. The value in the 'membership_end_dates' field is set to 'Lifetime'. This field could also have been left blank.
Table 30.4. Sample data file for editing companies to add memberships
| upload_action | item_key | name | membership_types | membership_start_dates | membership_end_dates | signup_date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| edit | 555555 | Baker Ltd | Annual Fixed-Term,Annual Fixed-Term | 2006/01/01,2007/01/01 | 2006/12/31,2007/12/31 | 2006/01/01 |
| edit | 555566 | Cooper LLC | Fixed Duration,Fixed Duration | 2006/03/25,2007/03/25 | 2007/03/24,2008/03/24 | 2006/03/25 |
| edit | 555667 | Fixed Duration,Fixed Duration | 2006/09/15,2007/09/15 | 2007/09/14,2008/09/14 | 2006/09/15 | |
| edit | 555566 | Miller Inc | Fixed Dates,Fixed Dates | 2006/4/1,2007/4/1 | 2007/4/1,2008/4/1 | 2006/4/1 |
| edit | 556677 | Tailor Co | Lifetime Membership | 2006/04/12 | Lifetime | 2006/04/12 |
If your organization tracks nonmembers who are potential members, the Upload Data tool can be used to change nonmembers to members and add first-time memberships, providing the membership type is free. Since memberships added through the Upload Data tool don't pass through a moderation step, the memberships should be approved before they're added, if approval is required. This approach works best for inclusive organizations that manage nonmembers almost like members.
In this example the organization offers memberships for individuals and also tracks nonmember individuals. After a membership drive a number of nonmembers have decided to join the organization. To convert these Individual Nonmembers to Individual Members, the Super Admin searches on the 'Individual Nonmember' Purpose when downloading the person.csv data file.
When the file is downloaded the upload_action is already set to 'Edit' for all records. The Super Admin removes all unnecessary columns, being careful to retain the item_key column (which is required for any Edit action), the Purpose column (which needs to have it's values changed from 'Individual Nonmember' to 'Individual Member') and the name columns, which he uses for reference. The last thing the Super Admin does before editing individual records is to add the three columns required to upload memberships: 'membership_types', 'membership_start_dates'and 'membership_end_dates'.
Sample file description:
The first row contains the column headings and subsequent rows contain data records.
The Super Admin goes through the data file, updating records of nonmembers that he's going to convert to members and deleting nonmember records that won't be edited.
The information in the first through fourth columns is left as is.
Values in the purpose column are changed from 'Individual Nonmember' to 'Individual Member'.
This organization has a flat membership structure, so all memberships are the same type. These are 1-year Fixed Duration memberships, so the start date is set automatically to the date that the membership is added.
The 'membership_start_dates' value isn't set. It defaults to today's date and the memberships go current immediately. In this scenario you wouldn't want to set the 'signup_date' field because that value is already set to the date that the individual was first granted a nonmember account in the Kavi Members database.
The 'membership_end_dates' value isn't set. It defaults to one day before today's date of the following year. If auto-renewal is enabled, these memberships will automatically be renewed in subsequent years, providing an indefinite series of successive, uninterrupted memberships.
Table 30.5. Sample data file for editing users to add memberships
| upload_action | item_key | first_name | last_name | purpose | membership_types | membership_start_dates | membership_end_dates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| edit | 55e555 | Neu | Welle | Individual Member | Fixed Duration | ||
| edit | 55ln66 | August | Caesar | Individual Member | Fixed Duration |
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| Chapter 29. How to Edit and Delete Records through Upload Data |  |
Chapter 31. Creating Custom Reports in Report Builder |