Moving your club to Colors

Most clubs can move in an afternoon. The membership chair brings the roster and officer history; the treasurer brings past payments. Do it in that order: payments and history are matched to members who are already here.

Every import works the same way. Choose the file, check the column matches, press Check the file to see exactly what would happen, then import. Nothing changes until you import, and you can import the same file again safely: people and payments already here are left alone.

If an import goes wrong

Open the import from Past imports and press Undo this import. Undo removes exactly what that import added and puts back what it changed, such as renewal dates. It works for 14 days, and only while nothing it touched has been used: no imported member has signed in, paid, or been edited, and nothing newer was imported on top of it. If undo isn't possible, the report says why. Undo newer imports first.

1. The roster

Go to Import members. Export from your old system as CSV:

• WildApricot: Contacts, Export. Include the membership fields. Membership level, status, member since and renewal due all come across.
• TidyHQ: Contacts, Export to CSV. Nick Name becomes the scene name.
• Mailchimp: Audience, Export audience. You get a zip; import the subscribed file. Subscribers come in as lapsed, because a mailing list isn't a member list. Mailchimp birthdays have no year, so they're left out.
• Square: Customers, Directory, Import/Export, Export customers. Nickname becomes the scene name. Customers come in as lapsed.
• Givebutter: Contacts, Export, Export to CSV. Donors come in as lapsed.
• Memberful: Members, Actions, Export CSV. Plan becomes the tier and Expiration date the renewal date.
• MembershipWorks: Dashboard, Export. Column names follow your own signup form, so check every match.
• Zeffy: Newsletter, Contacts, Export. Contacts come in as lapsed.
• Membership Toolkit, Join It and others: export your member report to Excel, then save it as CSV and use Spreadsheet.
• Eventbrite: the attendee summary report. Attendees come in as lapsed until they join.
• Google Sheets: File, Download, Comma-separated values. Excel: File, Save As, CSV UTF-8. Put one person on each row with a header row on top. A Scene name column saves you work later.

What comes across: scene name (or a placeholder), legal name, email, phone, address, date of birth, pronouns, tier, status, member since and renewal date. Legal names, contact details and birth dates are encrypted as they arrive and the import screens never show them back.

What doesn't: officer roles (give those by hand, below), passwords, profile photos, notes, custom fields, group memberships, and anything about who looked at whom. Imported members start unlisted, photos off and every profile field hidden, until they choose otherwise. Nobody is emailed because of an import.

Fill in missing emails in the file before you import: a member without one can't sign in. If you forget, undo the import, fix the file and import it again.

Rows with problems are listed by row number. A legal name that matches someone already here with no matching email is skipped, so two people never get merged by accident. In an 18+ club, anyone under 18 is skipped.

2. Officer history

On Import members, choose Officer history. Make a spreadsheet with one row per person per office: scene name or email, the office, a start and an end. A bare year works for either date. Offices match president or chair, treasurer, secretary, membership chair and safety lead; vice-chairs and other seats are listed so you can add them on Club history by hand.

People are matched by sign-in email or exact scene name, never by a guess. Past officers who aren't members any more can be kept under the scene name in the file. Only put scene names in that column: it goes into the club history as written.

Importing history never gives or takes away a role. Current officers have no end date yet, so they're skipped: give them their role from their member page, with the date they actually started.

3. Past payments

The treasurer goes to Import past payments, also linked from Money. Export completed payments as CSV:

• PayPal: Activity, Reports, Activity download, Completed payments, CSV.
• Stripe: Payments, Export, CSV.
• Square: Transactions, Export, Transactions CSV. Square has no payer email, so these can only be recorded without a member attached.
• Givebutter: Transactions, Export, All Transactions. Don't group by campaign.
• Zeffy: Payments, Export, Payments. Check whether the amount includes Zeffy's tip.
• Memberful: Revenue, Orders, Export CSV.
• WildApricot: Finances, Payments and refunds, Export. Include the date, amount, email and status.
• TidyHQ and others: export transactions to CSV and use Spreadsheet.

What comes across: date, amount, what it was for (dues, donation, ticket or merch), the item or campaign, cash or not, and the transaction ID so the same payment can't be imported twice. Payments are recorded like cash and bank payments: no money moves. Dues payments can move a member's renewal date to a year after their latest payment; dates never move backward.

What doesn't: refunds, failed payments, fees and payouts, and anything about cards. If something in the file looks like a card number, it's removed and the row says so. Payers' names and emails aren't stored on payments. Payments from people who aren't members are listed, or, if you choose, recorded with no member attached so your totals are right.

Day one

1. Import the roster, then officer history, then past payments. Read each report.
2. Give current officers their roles from their member pages. Officers must set up a second sign-in step before they can see member data.
3. Tell members to claim their accounts. Colors doesn't email them, so send the news yourself: they sign in with the email the club had for them. New people who weren't in the old system join through Invite.
4. Ask members to choose a scene name if they show as "New member", and to decide what to share in the directory.
5. Check a few renewal dates and payment totals against the old system before you switch it off. Keep the old system's export files somewhere safe and private for a year, then delete them.