Originally published

We have been really busy the last two months. So busy, that we missed our monthly update email. Here’s what we did in June and July 2017.

Besides the dozens of fixes based on your use and feedback, we added several tweaks and new features.

Inactive Accounts Cleanup

We added an Inactive Accounts Cleanup tool. Once active, our script will prevent new, inactive accounts from CCB from being stored on MailChimp. We also added an option to do a manual cleanup. This will look at your emails in MailChimp and remove any emails that have been flagged as ‘inactive account’ on CCB. If you turn this off, we will skip this process.

If you make accounts inactive on CCB, we will not add those new emails to your MC list. However, if they already had existed in your MC list, you will need to do a one-click manual cleanup.

You will be able to get to this by visiting Profile → Tools.

Value?

Clean data that prevents you from sending messages to contacts or members who are inactive for one reason or another.

Custom Fields Mapping (Not available for the starter plan)

The highly anticipated “custom merge field mapping” is live. By turning this option on, you would be able to add additional merge fields to MailChimp—e.g. birthday, anniversary etc.  When you use this option, you implicitly agree to allow us to securely store your contacts (required for this feature). Birthday mapping and others.

You can turn this on by going to Profile → Tools.

Value?

This is huge for your church. You can send segmented emails based on gender or marital status from the same group. One of the really cool features is being able to send birthday wishes automatically. In fact, MailChimp has a prebuilt template that you can use.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONpvOoX7uCc

The video is a tad outdated as automation is now included on ALL plans—including the free tier. What a great way to show that you care.

2-way Syncing

Are you ready for two–way syncing? If you are, the wait is over. Now, you can sync your MailChimp (MC) lists/groups back to CCB.

If you are ready to be an early adopter, login and give it a go. Just visit your Profile –> Integrations. You will see a new step, Step 3b.

https://ccbchimp.com/2-way/

https://trello.com/c/bcFlhLgm/115-two-way-syncing

Unlimited Manual Syncing

We have enabled unlimited manual syncing for everyone.

Before, we limited manual syncing per plan. No more. You can now login at any time and manually trigger syncing. No limits on how many you can do.

Other Tweaks

  • Large server and tweaks in our code to handle syncing large groups (20k+ member groups). This ensures you can process your data with confidence.
  • We added a note to the system that sends you an email if a sync fails for any reason. We also get a copy so we can act on it as needed. We know things can break. This can be due to the data from CCB being corrupted (as we have seen in a few rare cases) or it could be our software. Now, you don’t have to wonder if all is well.
  • Your logs now show the CCB profiles we skipped that didn’t have any email.
  • We added an additional sync at 4 am Central. So, we are syncing twice a day: 4 am and 4 pm Central. We also cleaned up the info on the dashboard to reflect the accurate records.
  • You can now disable or delete the integration or stop any sync in progress.