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Introduction

The Mailchimp plugin allows you to sync email lists between RockRMS and Mailchimp. This sync should ensure that email lists across both platforms are in sync and kept up to date with the most relevant email lists for mass communication at churches.

This plugin assumes you already have a Mailchimp account. If you would like help configuring Mailchimp, please contact the BEMA Information Technologies support at 877-817-7776.

Overview

Bundled into the Mailchimp Plugin are several new components that work together to assign and track Ministry Safe Trainings. Let’s take a look at these components.

Mailchimp Defined Types – These defined types store your different Mailchimp accounts and audiences.

Mailchimp Sync Job – This ensures that your email lists are kept up to date and in sync with one another.

Mailchimp User Pages – These pages allow you to view the currently synced communication lists and the groups they’re synced to.

SETUP

To configure the plugin, we’ll need to configure Rock and Mailchimp to communicate with each other.

Setting Up The API Key

1. Log in to your Mailchimp account, and then navigate to https://us19.admin.mailchimp.com/account/api/.

2. Look at the Your API Keys section. Copy down your API Key. If one doesn’t already exist, click the Create a Key button to create one.

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1. Go to RockRMS and navigate to Installed Plugins > Mailchimp Accounts. Click the plus button to add a new account to Rock. Add a name, an optional description, and the API key from step 2. Also add your server prefix. This is the short combination of letters and numbers at the beginning of your mailchimp url when you log into it (before the admin.mailchimp.com part). For most people this will be us19.

2. RockRMS will do an initial pull of your existing Mailchimp Audiences now.

Setting up the Sync Job

Next step is to configure when you want the sync between Rock and Mailchimp. By default, it’s set to run every day at 1:00am. If you’d like to change that, do the following:

1. Navigate to System Settings > Jobs Administration.

2. Select the Mailchimp Sync job.

3. If you would like to import tags from Mailchimp, enable Import Mailchimp Tags. Note that this may decrease the performance of the job.

4. Change how often the job runs to fit your needs.

5. Hit Save.

We also recommend setting the Days Back to Sync Updates For value after the first time running the job. After N+1 days, N being the number of days you’ve configured, you’ll start to see a drastic improvement in run time.

Setting up the Communication List Groups

By default, the Sync job will import any people from Mailchimp that aren’t already in Rock. However, if you want to maintain an up-to-date list in Rock that matches Mailchimp’s Audiences, or push Rock people into you Mailchimp audiences, you’ll need to match Rock Groups to Mailchimp Audiences.

1. Navigate to Communications > Communication Lists

2. Create or select the communication list you want to sync.

3. Set the Mailchimp Audience Attribute value to the audience you want to sync with, and then hit Save.

Plugin features

Accounts Page

Under Installed Plugins > Mailchimp Accounts, you can see the list of configured accounts:

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Account Details

Upon selecting one, you’ll see a list of audiences for that account:

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Audience Details

On clicking one of the audiences, you’ll see a list of groups synced to that audience. You’ll also be able to see any merge fields configured on that audience. Using lava, you can set what values you want passed back to Mailchimp. You have the Person object as well as a Members object containing that person’s group members for groups associated with the audience. At this point in time, Merge Fields are a one-way sync from Rock to Mailchimp. First Name, Last Name, and Address are hidden from this list.

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Member Sync Logic

• New Mailchimp Members will be matched using Rock’s duplicate matching algorithm using the first match on first name, last name, and email.

• When pushing members back to Mailchimp, first the primary email address will be used.

• If no matches are found, Person Search Keys of the Email type will be used in order to find a match.

• Once the match is established, Mailchimp’s Email Address will be updated to Rock’s Primary Email Address.

• If no match is found, a new contact will be added to Mailchimp.

• The First time a record in Mailchimp is matched, a Merge Field will be added with Peron’s Id in Rock. This Id will be used going forward. When syncing, Rock will look at the member’s Status and compare it to the member status in Mailchimp. If the values don’t match, the most recently modified record will be used to update the other. Status Map as follows:

Mailchimp Tags

If enabled, Mailchimp Tags will be saved to the person record under the “Mailchimp Tags” Person Attribute, and can be filtered and sorted on by data views.