Getting started: migrate your organization to MapleGather

By the end of this guide, you’ll have your members imported into MapleGather and a welcome email sent to them with a personal link to set up their accounts. The whole process takes about 30–45 minutes, depending on the size of your member list. It’s free during your trial.

What you’ll need

An admin account for your MapleGather organization
A member export file from your current system — CSV or Excel (.xlsx) works best
About 30 minutes

Step 1 — Start the AI migration wizard

The AI migration wizard is the easiest way to get started. It guides you through each setup step and helps you map your member data without needing to figure it all out yourself.

When you first sign in to your MapleGather admin account, select Get started on the welcome screen.
On the Get started page, the wizard greets you in a conversation pane. Type a question in the Message the wizard box and select Send whenever you want help.
The Setup checklist on the left lists the 6 setup steps. Check a step’s box once you’ve finished it.

You should now see the 6-step Setup checklist on the left and the wizard’s first message in the conversation pane. There’s no menu entry for the wizard yet — if you leave the page, go to /admin/onboarding to come back to it.

Step 2 — Upload your member file

Go to Migration (under Admin & Security in the admin sidebar) and select New import. The checklist doesn’t open the import screen for you.
Drag your member export file onto the upload area (Drop your file here or choose a file), or select it to pick the file from your computer. CSV, Excel (.xlsx), and XML files are accepted. There’s no sheet picker — if your Excel workbook has more than one sheet, save the sheet with your members as its own file first.
Wait a moment while MapleGather reads your file and suggests a mapping for each column.
Review the mappings in the Map your columns grid and change any Target field that’s wrong; choose Unmapped to leave a column out. If a membership-level column names a level that doesn’t exist yet, select Create new level… to create it on the spot.
When the mapping looks right, select Confirm mappings. Email or a name must be mapped to continue.

You should now see the Preview import screen showing how many rows will be created or updated, and how many have errors.

Step 3 — Review the preview and commit

On the preview screen, check the Needs attention band at the top — “N rows need a look at before committing.” — and any warnings below it, such as Membership data in these rows, Duplicate column mapping, or Invalid email address. The preview doesn’t list individual rows and doesn’t show household or corporate relationships.
If you see Duplicate column mapping, select the Keep button named for the column that should keep that field (for example, Keep Email) — the other becomes unmapped.
When you’re satisfied, select Confirm import at the bottom of the page.
Read the Commit import dialog — “This will write the imported rows to your member database. You can undo within 48 hours.” Select Commit import.
Watch the progress screen. It shows a moving bar and “Importing {N} rows. This page updates every few seconds.” — the rows are saved together when the import finishes, so there’s no running count and no time estimate. If it hasn’t finished after 15 minutes, see Your large import seems stuck or slow.

You should now see the summary screen, headed Import complete (or Partial import if some rows failed), with the number of members imported and rows failed.

Step 4 — Handle any errors

If the summary shows rows that need attention:

Select Download error report to get a CSV with a plain-English explanation of each failure.
Fix those rows, save them in a file of their own (the error report already holds only the rows that didn’t import — delete its ImportError column), and import that file as a new import. Rows already imported are matched by email and not duplicated. See Your import has errors or skipped rows.

Step 5 — Send your members their welcome email

Tip: For better inbox delivery, set up your organization’s sending domain before this step. See Set up your sending domain — it takes about 20 minutes but significantly improves deliverability. You can also send from the generic MapleGather address now and set up your domain later, but emails sent without a custom domain are more likely to land in spam.

Select Set up the broadcast on the import summary page. The broadcast configurator opens. The broadcast goes to all the members from your import.
Read the banner at the top: “Invite your imported members to claim their accounts” — nothing sends until you review and click Send.
Write the subject and the email, or select Draft with AI to have a draft written for you — review it before sending. The email must include the {{claim_account_link}} merge tag, which becomes each member’s personal claim link; if you leave the body empty, MapleGather sends its standard claim-account email.
When the email looks right, select Send now.

You should now see the Transition dashboard showing the broadcast status as Queued or Sending.

What you’ve set up

You now have your members in MapleGather and a welcome email on its way to them. Each member’s email contains a personal link they use to confirm their profile and set a password. The link lasts 30 days by default; you can shorten it under Claim link valid for on the broadcast page. You can track who has claimed their account on the transition dashboard.

Next, you might want to:

Monitor the admin transition dashboard — see who has claimed their account
Import historical data and reconcile financial totals — not available yet: bringing across past payments, membership history, and event records is planned, not built
Undo a committed import — reverse the import within 48 hours if something went wrong

What your members should expect: After claiming their account, members sign in with a link sent to their email — not with the password they set during the claim flow. Share Sign in to MapleGather with members who ask how to sign in after claiming their account.