How to remove a group of constituents from C360?

Robert Blackmon

We are teetering on the brink of exceeding our contracted email limit and want to remove a group that is not opening our emails even though they are not opted-out.

Is there a simple way to do this?

Thanks in advance.

Bryce Katzman

I believe we looked into this and were told no. I'd love to hear an answer that says otherwise.

Sally Heaven

Bryce Katzman:

I believe we looked into this and were told no. I'd love to hear an answer that says otherwise.

There are two ways to get this done:

1. Create the Group to be removed, and submit a support ticket asking that this group be set to Active Status = Removed

2. Create a file of e-mail addresses, add a column for accepts_email and make the value 0 (zero) for all of these records. Do a Standard Constituent Import - all of these records will be opted out of email. For most Convio contracts (check yours to be sure), you're charged for usable house file, so if this group is opted out of email, they are not "usable house file."

Hope this helps!

Robert Blackmon

Sally Heaven:

There are two ways to get this done:

1. Create the Group to be removed, and submit a support ticket asking that this group be set to Active Status = Removed

2. Create a file of e-mail addresses, add a column for accepts_email and make the value 0 (zero) for all of these records. Do a Standard Constituent Import - all of these records will be opted out of email. For most Convio contracts (check yours to be sure), you're charged for usable house file, so if this group is opted out of email, they are not "usable house file."

Hope this helps!

Thanks!

I thought there was a way to do it with a re-import.

I will check on the definition of usable housefile in my contract and get busy cleaning house.

Bennett Donovan

Robert Blackmon:

Thanks!

I thought there was a way to do it with a re-import.

I will check on the definition of usable housefile in my contract and get busy cleaning house.

I don't recommend changing data in such a way that it no longer matches reality. For example, you may use an import to change 1000 people in Convio from Accepting Email to Not Accepting Email, but in reality, they may have never actually indicated that they won't accept email, so now we have a disparity between one of their Convio profile attributes and reality. Moreover, if you ever use their Convio profile data to update your offline database, you could end up updating your master datasource with incorrect information.

It seems like deactivating the records in Convio is the better approach from a data integrity point of view. The information about the constituent remains accurate; you're just archiving the record so that it won't count toward your house file.

Sally Heaven

Bennett Donovan:

I don't recommend changing data in such a way that it no longer matches reality. For example, you may use an import to change 1000 people in Convio from Accepting Email to Not Accepting Email, but in reality, they may have never actually indicated that they won't accept email, so now we have a disparity between one of their Convio profile attributes and reality. Moreover, if you ever use their Convio profile data to update your offline database, you could end up updating your master datasource with incorrect information.

It seems like deactivating the records in Convio is the better approach from a data integrity point of view. The information about the constituent remains accurate; you're just archiving the record so that it won't count toward your house file.

bdonovan - agreed, for sure, it's best if constituent data matches reality. For client administrators who want to do this themselves, then opting folks out is really the only option for a bulk remove. It would probably be better if there was a way for client administrators to remove Groups in bulk themselves rather than having to go through Support to get that done.

Robert Blackmon

Sally Heaven:

bdonovan - agreed, for sure, it's best if constituent data matches reality. For client administrators who want to do this themselves, then opting folks out is really the only option for a bulk remove. It would probably be better if there was a way for client administrators to remove Groups in bulk themselves rather than having to go through Support to get that done.

I contacted support and they make the inactivation process pretty simple - just add the group name to to a support ticket and they run the batch at the end of the next business day.

Thanks to all for your help with this.