Add Members and Set Up Member Levels

How Do I Set Up Membership Levels?

Use membership levels to allow members to select from multiple membership options upon joining your group. You can offer free or paid memberships with the option to implement automatic recurring payments. This is ideal for annual club dues, a monthly service, or any other recurring membership payment.

Set up membership levels

Assign membership levels

Glossary

Set up membership levels

1. Click Membership in the left navigation bar
2. Select Manage Membership Levels in the submenu
3. Use the dropdown menu to select My Group has Membership Levels

4. Click the Add a Membership Level button
5. Title your level (Example: "Platinum")
6. Use the adjacent dropdown menu to select if level is free or paid

• If you select Paid, additional dropdown menus will appear for you to select membership billing options.

• Select the frequency of billing.
• Select the Auto-pay or Manual to give members the option to enroll themselves for automatic recurring payments.
• If you select Auto-pay Only, members on this level will automatically be billed each period.
• Select Manual Only to require members to opt in at each renewal period.

Learn more about paid membership levels in our Process Payments section: Set Up Membership Dues Collection, Renewals, and Notifications

7. Under the level title, select the dropdown to specify whether the level you are creating is for individual members or Member Circles (organizational memberships)

Note: Member Circles are a type of membership level that allows administrators to create subgroupings within your organization and allows one person to manage the membership account for a group of people (such as a family or company account). Learn more: Create and Manage Member Circles

8. Click the Continue button
9. Optional: Add a description and edit visibility of your level

• In the Description section, click Add/Edit to add a description.

Note: This is a good place to educate members about how this level differs from other options.

• In the Visibility section, select Private to limit access for members to choose the level by entering an access code. Type in the access code in the provided text field.

10. Click the Save and Close button

• Repeat steps 4 - 10 to add additional levels.

11. When finished adding levels, click Save & Close

To Set up a Free Membership Level

1. Follow steps 1-5 listed above and then choose Free in the dropdown menu
2. Click Continue
3. Follow steps 9-11

Assign membership levels

Once you have created your membership levels, you can choose to assign it to individuals or all members.

1. Click Membership in the left navigation bar
2. Select Assign Membership Levels in the submenu
3. Choose the level you wish to assign from the dropdown menu
4. Select the Paid Through Date
5. In the Choose Members tab, check the box next to each person you wish to assign
6. Click Assign Level

Learn more about assigning members to a paid membership level or recording an offline payment: Member Dues Collection, Renewals, and Notifications

How to View Member Level History

Our reporting features are great for checking up on the health of your organization, whether you're looking for a bird's-eye view or more granular details. With our membership levels history report, admins can look at the history of each member's activity, including membership renewal, cancellation, and changes to different membership levels.

1. Click on Membership on the left navigation bar
2. Select the Membership Levels Report in the submenu
3. Click on the Members tab
4. Locate the member you wish to view
5. Click the gear icon next to their name, and select Level History in the dropdown menu

On the membership levels report, an admin can also enable or disable autopay for a member on a paid membership level:

1. Locate the member you wish to enable/disable autopay for

• You can utilize the search bar or filter by membership level

2. On the right-hand side of the record, click the gear icon and select Enable/Disable Autopay

3. Confirm your selection in the onscreen popup

• You will see the new renewal type reflected on member's record

What’s the Difference Between Members and Contacts?

Member features

Members of your group can do the following:

1. Log in to the member portal
2. Participate in group discussion boards
3. Be assigned a leadership role in your group
4. Update their profile information
5. Save payment information to make future one-click payments
6. Receive forms with auto-populated profile information
7. Receive group text messages

When to upload individuals as contacts

1. You want to only send communications, such as email campaigns and event notifications, to a person
2. You do not want the person to be able to sign into your group's member portal

Some examples of individuals you may want to upload as contacts include donors or third-party vendors.

How to Add Members and Contacts  

Members are the foundation of your group, and uploading them to your group will allow you to communicate with them, process payments, and engage with them using our platform features. There’s a ton to do on the platform, and adding members is one of the first steps to get you going. Adding them before sending emails, event notifications, or any other communications will save you time in the send process. Contacts are individuals who will not be able to log in to your memberplanet group, but those whom you still wish to receive your group’s communications. Admins can add members manually, from a file, or import them from other services.

How to add members

How to add contacts

How to add members

This video tutorial walks you through the steps of properly uploading your member database.

Adding members to your group can be done manually, by importing them from another program, or importing them from an Excel file. (We recommend importing them from an existing Excel file.)

1. Click Members on the left navigation bar
2. Select Add Members in the submenu
3. Click the Get Started button in the Add New Members section
4. Select one of the three ways to add members

From a File - Import an Excel spreadsheet

1. Click From a File
2. Select the info icon to view tips for uploading
3. Select the Browse button to select a file from your computer
4. After selecting the Excel file, click the checkbox to ignore the first row of your file if you have headers as the first row
5. In the More Options section, you can add members to a distribution list by selecting an existing list in the dropdown menu or creating a new list
6. Select the Upload button

• A sample of the spreadsheet will be displayed.

7. Select the dropdown menus above the columns to only map or label first name, last name, and email address
8. Click the Add Members button

Add Manually:

1. Click Add Manually
2. Enter first name, last name, and email address of all records
3. Add more records by clicking Add Five More

• You can also add to a distribution list by selecting an existing list in the dropdown menu or select Create a New List

4. Click Add Members to add members manually

Import:

1. Click Import From
2. Choose a site (LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL, Plaxo, Outlook)
3. Sign into your (LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL, Plaxo, Outlook) account

• You can also add to a distribution list by selecting an existing list in the dropdown menu or select Create a New List

4.  Click Add Members to import members

How to add contacts

1. Click Members on the left navigation bar
2. Click Add Members in the submenu
3. Select the Get Started button in the Add New Contacts section

You have three options to add contacts:

Add Manually:

1. Click Manually
2. Enter first name, last name, and email address of all records
3. Add more records by clicking Add Five More

•  You can also add to a distribution list by selecting an existing list in the dropdown menu or select Create a New List.

4. Click Add Contacts to add contacts manually

From a file - Import an Excel spreadsheet

1. Click From a File
2. Choose a File to import from your computer
3. Check the box to ignore the first row if you have headers for your columns

4. Click the Upload button

• A sample of the spreadsheet will be displayed.

5. Select the dropdown menus above the columns to only map or label first name, last name, and email address

• You can also add to a distribution list by selecting an existing list in the dropdown menu or selecting Create a New List.

6.  Click Add Contacts to finish the upload

Import:

1. Click Import From
2. Choose a site (LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL, Plaxo, Outlook, iCloud)
3. Follow the prompts based on your selection
4. Click the Add Contacts button to finish importing

Member Upload Best Practices

To ensure a successful Excel database upload, watch our video tutorial to avoid common errors.

Best Practices for Uploading an Excel Spreadsheet:

Ensuring your database is uploaded smoothly and efficiently is one of the first steps toward better managing your members. Utilize the above tutorial support video and these tips to achieve complete database upload success.

• Any instance of a non-email address value will cause an upload failure. The most common error in database email data is “N/A” written in the email column. Only properly formatted email addresses and blank fields will properly upload.
• Phone numbers must be a string of 10 digits, not separated by any characters or any spaces.
• memberplanet allows admins to add custom fields to member profiles. These can be either drop-down selection boxes or checkboxes. In order for that corresponding data in your Excel database to upload correctly, the field must be formatted as such. For checkboxes, the field data must be separated by a semicolon with no space between entries. Example: data;data;data. For drop-down selections, the field data can only be one of the exact options provided in the menu. Example: if the drop-down menu lists gold, silver, bronze as its selection, the corresponding data field must list only one of those options.
• Excel data sheets can include international cities; however, they must be put into their own column separate from national cities, and the column must be labeled “State Name.”
• Make sure the Excel database does not include any special characters like these: ƒ  ☻ σ╚├ which usually occur when transferring larger databases from other programs into Excel. However, as a best practice to maintain clean data, you should look over your Excel sheet and remove any non-traditional characters.

Invite Your Members to Join Your Group on memberplanet

Getting your members to join your group is an integral part to successful organizing. By joining your group through memberplanet, members will be able to make membership payments online, stay connected with your group even on the go, access their digital membership cards, and receive updates through their member portal. Sending a custom email invitation to your members is a simple way to add that extra touch when inviting members to join.

1. Select Members on the left navigation bar
2. Click Send Invitations in the submenu
3. Select whom you would like to send the email to by clicking on the designated checkboxes in the To: field

4. Hover over the subject line and click Edit to change the default text

5. Complete the body of the invitation with text, images, and links you wish to include

6. When you are ready for the invitation to go out, click Send Now

How to resend invitations to individual members

1. Hover over Members on the left navigation bar, and select Member Database
2. Click on the gear icon on the right side of the member you wish to invite
3. Click Resend Invitation in the dropdown menu
4. Click Send Now at the bottom of the page

View invitation history

You can view an invitation history to see how many members have opened and accepted the invitation. This tool is helpful when tracking invites and seeing who needs their invitation to be resent.

1. Select Members in the left navigation bar, then click Invitation History
2. To view tracking in further detail click the gear icon on the right-hand side of the screen
3. In the dropdown menu, click View Tracking Data

Approve new members before they join

You have the option to require administrative approval for members attempting to join your group through a membership form or link. This option limits who can join the group by allowing the admin to approve members before they obtain access to the group. Below is how to set up approval-only groups.

Require approval for membership:

1. Click Membership on the left navigation bar
2. Click Edit on the far right

3. Click the option in the popup that says Restricted

To receive an email notification when members request to join:

1. Click Membership on the left navigation bar
2. Click Send an Alert When a Member Joins or Requests to Join
3. Check the box at the top of the popup screen

4. List all emails that you would like to receive the alert
5. Click Save

To respond to pending member requests:

1. Hover over Members in the left navigation bar, and click Members Applying to Join

2. Click the gear icon adjacent to member's name
3. Select Approve or Reject in the dropdown menu

Automatically Add Members to Member Level Distribution List

After you set up distribution lists for your group, this feature lets you automatically sort new and renewing members into a distribution list based on their membership level.

1. Click on Membership in the left navigation bar
2. Select Membership Levels, Sign-up and Renewal
3. Click the gear icon next to the level you want to assign to a distribution list
4. Select Edit in the dropdown menu
5. Navigate to Sign-up and Renewal and check the add to distribution list box

Glossary - Add Members and Set Up Member Levels

Member Circle: a type of membership level that allows administrators to create subgroupings within your organization and allows one person to manage the membership account for a group of people (such as a family or company account).