V2: Managing the Sync

How to pull data from PushPay-CCB into Mailchimp (MC) and the reverse - pushing back data from MC into CCB. 1-way or 2-way -- up to you.

Updated over a week ago

Disabling the Sync (in general)

Disabling a Sync (specific pairs)


CHOOSING HOW TO SYNC

You can choose to sync the required PushPay-CCB (CCB) groups to one single Mailchimp audience (formerly known as list). Or sync the groups to multiple lists. It's very flexible. Each may impact your Mailchimp cost. You can weigh the pros and cons. Our costs are flat rates per month.

Mailchimp treats all the audiences in your account separately, and your Monthly Plan billing is based on your total subscriber count across all your lists. It can be more costly to maintain multiple audiences, and you may run into compliance issues if bounced addresses are removed from one audience in your account but still exist in the subscribed section of another audience.

If you have duplicate subscribers across different audiences, consider combining your audiences into a master audience and use tags and/or groups to organize your subscribers. This can simplify your audience management and may reduce the cost of your monthly bill. However, if someone opts out from a specific email that you sent to a group, they will be opted out from the entire audience.

NOTE: Using tags in CCBChimp depends on your plan. If you have the Pro plan or higher, you will be able to sync as either Groups or Tags at the campus level. If you are not on at least the Pro plan, syncing with tags at the campus level will not be available. To sync with tags, you will need to use the Group level.

To read more about using tags, open this article in a new tab.

NOTE: Setting up the syncing between Mailchimp back to CCB is optional.


SETTING UP THE SYNC

Please note: Syncing can often take a while, especially if it is your first sync. You may need to wait as long as 2-3 hours and as short as 15 minutes. Sometimes, the first sync fails. This can happen with large accounts. It can also happen with data-heavy accounts.

On your Dashboard, click Sync (rocket icon, pink box in image to the left).

The SYNC page will open up. Note that it has two (2) tabs: CCB to Mailchimp and Mailchimp to CCB.

THE PROCESS IS BASICALLY THE SAME FOR BOTH TABS.

So, we will do a full example with the CCB to MC side. From that, you should be able to do the other side on your own. If not, we are here to help via out website chat.

ICONS

SEARCH (magnifying glass icon in image to the left): Click to search for a specific item.

FILTER (lined upside down triangle in image to the left): Show only a portion of the items. The possibilities will differ depending on which filter you open. For example:

CCB Campuses/Saved Searches filter

Mailchimp Audience tag/Groups filter

Here is the total screen. We will zoom in in a moment...

ZOOMING IN

Left side

Note that the CCB to MC sync is toggled on (button is green, yellow square in image above). In contrast, the MC to CCB sync is toggled off (button is greyed out, second tab in image above).

Yellow numbers in image above:

1: Click here to begin the process of adding a new sync pair. More below.

2: This column shows your CCB Campuses and Saved Searches.

3: This column shows your CCB Groups and Process Queues.

NOTE that if we hover over a detail line, a toggle button appears.

The button is toggled on (green) to show that this pair is actively synced.

To un-sync this pair, click on the toggle button. A box will pop up asking you to confirm the un-sync (image to the left). Click on the gold Confirm button to continue or the X to cancel.

Right side

Yellow numbers in image above:

4: This column shows the Mailchimp Audience for the synced pair.

5: This column shows the Mailchimp Audience Tag/Groups for the synced pair.

To perform a manual sync, click on the gold Sync button (upper right corner in image above).


ADDING NEW SYNC PAIR(S)

Step 1

Click on the turquoise Add New Sync Pair button.

The following screen will display:

ZOOMING IN

Step 2

Note there are two tabs in the first (left-hand most) column: Campus and Saved Search. The screen will open with the default - Campus (gold box in image above). Notice that the title in the second column is CCB Groups/Process Queues.

HOWEVER, if we choose the Saved Search tab (gold box in image above), the title of the second column changes to CCB Saved Search.

This is logical: if we choose Campus, we then need to choose a Group or Process Queue. Yet, if we choose Saved Search, our next step is choosing the specific saved search we want.

So this step is to choose the tab you need.

OR

Step 3

Click on the downward arrow of your selected tab to open the dropdown menu. Select your CCB Campus / Saved Search.

NOTE about Saved Searches: Like systems groups, saved searches are informational only. So, the sync is one-way.

OR

Step 4

Click on the downward arrow to open the dropdown menu. Select your CCB Group/Process Queue or Saved Search.

NOTE 1: A process queue sync pair is a one-way sync.

NOTE 2: "All members of"

Pay attention to the “All Members of” group (gold box in image below).

This is an CCBChimp autogenerated, systems group. Choosing this group will allow you to sync from this group but it is not allowed to sync back to a systems group. So, this would be one-way syncing.

Step 5

Click on the downward arrow to open the dropdown menu. Select your Mailchimp Audience.

Step 6

Click on the desired tab: Groups or Tags.

Then, click on the tab downward arrow to open the dropdown menu. Select your Mailchimp Group or Tag.

NOTE: Using tags in CCBChimp depends on your plan. If you have the Pro plan or higher, you will be able to sync as either Groups or Tags at the campus level. If you are not on at least the Pro plan, syncing with tags at the campus level will not be available. To sync with tags, you will need to use the Group level.

So, were you successful?

We will let you know.

(1) Snackbar (message at the bottom of your screen)

(2) Banner (message at the top of your screen)

MORE ACTIONS

Click here to refresh your lists.

Click here to add another synced pair. Continue adding as needed.

Click to delete this synced pair .

When you are finished adding your pairs, click the gold Add To Sync List button to complete your action.


Editing a Sync pair

2023.02.06

Before, if you made a mistake, you needed to turn off the sync pair and then go and add new syncs. This involved multiple steps.


Additionally, say one of the sync pairs shown an error like broken or missing sync. You couldn’t just fix it on that page.

Now, you can quickly edit any mistakes as shown below.

Hover at the end of the detail line of the Mailchimp item you wish to edit. An Edit will appear (yellow arrow in image below). Click on it.

Make your changes. Then click Save Sync Pair.


Disabling the Sync (in general)

Notice the toggle buttons in the image below (gold boxes in image below). At the moment, both are toggled on (green).

To disable syncing, toggle off the side you wish. The button will be greyed out. In the image below, we toggled off the Mailchimp - CCB side (gold box in image below).


Disabling a Sync (specific pairs)

Let's say you have synced the wrong CCB group or tag to MC. No problem. Here's how to disable that.

Step 1

Click on Sync (rocket icon in left-hand column - see gold highlight in image below).

Step 2

Locate the item you wish to disable and hover over the line. A toggle button will appear (turquoise arrow and box in image above).

NOTE: There are two other toggle buttons (see fuchsia Xs in image above).
Do not change these. If you toggle either of these off, it disables syncing in general on that side as described in the section above.

Step 3

Toggle the button off. A confirmation box will pop up.

Click on Advanced Settings to reveal further options.

Make your choice, and click on Confirm to complete your action.


MORE ABOUT THE 2-WAY SYNC

If you want to do a manual sync, it is faster from your Dashboard.

Step 1: If you are not on your Dashboard, click on the cloud icon (fuchsia box in image below). Your Dashboard will open.

Step 2: Click on the green Sync Now button (turquoise box in image below).

If you opted for the 2-way sync, we will keep both accounts updated. If someone is removed/added on CCB, we will remove / add that contact on Mailchimp and vice versa. If someone unsubscribes from Mailchimp (MC), we will give you the option to remove that person from the specific group on CCB that you have assigned below or not. No action is taken at this time if someone opts out from an email sent via CCB Mail Merge.

DID YOU SYNC ITEMS ON THE CCB-MC SIDE ONLY?

In other words, you have synced items going from CCB to Mailchimp but nothing in the Mailchimp to CCB side.

In that case, the first time you click on the MC - CCB tab and toggle it on, CCBChimp will prompt you to add your synced items via the Add New Sync Pairs screen (see image below). While the data is prepopulated with your choices from the CCB to MC side, you can always make changes. Just click on the downward arrows, reveal the dropdown menus, and choose something else.

DO YOU HAVE MORE SYNC ITEMS ON THE CCB SIDE THAN ON THE MC SIDE?

For example, you have four synced items going from CCB to MC (see image above), but only two going from MC to CCB (see image below).

In that case, when you click on the turquoise +Add New Sync Pair button, CCBChimp will remind you of that imbalance via a banner: "You have some new existing ccb-to-mc sync pairs that have not been added. Do you want to add them? Click here" (see turquoise arrow in image below).

CCBChimp will populate the sync pair boxes with the missing item(s). Again, you can sync as is or make changes.

AND IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW...

The way our syncing works between CCB to Mailchimp(MC) depends if those specific CCB-MC synced pairs are set up in CCBChimp. Note: We do NOT sync your entire people automatically to Mailchimp.

If changes are made in CCB to a specific profile with a particular CCB ID, we would only update that change in MC if

  1. That specific profile is part of the sync pairs you setup in CCBChimp.

  2. AND you run an update. If you are on the Starter plan, we update those once a week on Monday mornings. The Med plan gets updated every day in the morning. The Pro plan is updated twice a day, mornings and evenings.

Note, you can have two or more profiles using the SAME email:

Mailchimp only syncs ONE EMAIL per audience. So if you have a group of 200 in CCB, you may only see 150 in MC.

A few troubleshooting steps

  • You may want to run a duplicate check to ensure you are not using the same email for multiple profiles or double-check the changes made to the profile in CCB is the exact CCB profile you are syncing to MC.

  • If you previously synced that profile to MC then disconnected that syncing pair in CCBChimp, that email will still exist in MC and would no longer be updated.

  • If you are syncing one profile for the same person to one group but you are syncing the duplicate profile for that same person to another group, then only one profile may update.

  • Ensure you have the inactivate profiles cleanup turned on under TOOLS.

CCB allows you to have multiple profiles with the same email, and each profile is unique only by a CCB ID.

Mailchimp doesn't allow this flexibility and ties all records to a specific email. It's not a perfect one-to-one matching.

We generally encourage CCB users never to use the same email for multiple profiles, but we know this is not always possible with families. At the minimum, we recommend doing a duplicate check to ensure there aren't a "true" duplicate profiles that can be merged.

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