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HowTo: Merge Subscriber Growth Graph From MailChimp

edited August 2013 in Using Sendy

Here's a quick way we've been able to merge the original subscriber growth graph from MailChimp lists into Sendy.
Thought it would be very helpful for others as well:

STEP 1: Getting Your Data

Go to MailChimp, and download your list as a CSV file.

STEP 2: Reformatting for Sendy

Open your CSV file in a spreadsheet editor (I'm using Numbers on Mac).

Sendy wants only one name, not first and last, so we need to merge columns:
Create a new column after "first name" and "last name"
Select the top cell in the column you just created (column D).

Type:
=(B&" "&C)

Press enter to confirm
Drag the cell out to the bottom to copy the formula down for the whole column
Now, create a column E.
Copy all the data from column D.
Choose EDIT -> PASTE DATA (pastes the contents only, not the formula).
You can now delete column B,C, and D. Keep E which has the merged names.
Move this column to be the first one (becoming A).
Move the "confirm time" column to be the third.

We will turn this into the time-stamp that Sendy recognizes as time of subscribing. This NEEDS to be the 3rd column, otherwise our query later on won't work.
I deleted all the other columns, but if you want them, you can make custom fields in Sendy for those as well.

Delete the first top-row with the heading, since Sendy doesn't like it formatted that way.
Save as CSV file (in Numbers choose SHARE -> CSV).

STEP 3: Preparing & Importing in Sendy

In Sendy, go to your list.
Create custom fields for the list, the FIRST custom fields needs to be 'timestamp' (Date).
You can create any other fields after that of data you wish to bring over from MailChimp.

Import the CSV file and let Sendy take care of the import.
Now the data is in there, but the 'timestamp' is a custom field, not the 'timestamp' field in the MySQL database. That's what we want, so we need to do a little bit more work.

STEP 4: Edit your database to fill in the correct timestamp

Go to your MySQL database that Sendy uses, open the subscriber table (I'm using PHPMyAdmin).

Run the following query on the database:
UPDATE subscribers SET TIMESTAMP = LEFT( custom_fields, INSTR( custom_fields, '%s%' ) -1 )

Now go back to Sendy, check out your subscriber growth-graph. It's magic!
Enjoy.

TornadoTwins

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