Importing your members takes four easy steps:

1. Choose your members’ settings. Do they all have the same group membership type, or are some new and some alumni? How long do their memberships last? Tell our system.

2. Pick an import plan. You can cut and paste a list members’ names and email addresses, or import a list of contacts. If you’re coming over from MSN groups, we’ve got some extra tips for you in our MSN Transition Guide.

3. Review your data and make any changes. Fix a typo, change a membership end date, that sort of thing.

4. Review the email that will go to your imported members. This email tells members they’ve been added to your BigTent group, how long their memberships last, and how often they will get group emails. Personalize it if you’d like.

Read more about this new feature in our help area, or create a group and give it a whirl. Happy importing!

To inform the new design, we met with group members and administrators to learn how BigTent could better meet their needs for a group networking app. We also dug through site analytics to see how members were using existing features and content, and combed through support logs to understand the site triumphs and pain points of our current users.

With your requests, feedback, and usage stats in mind, we unveiled our updated product last week. Here are some highlights of the new release:

Increased focus on you and your groups. The“my BigTent” page gives members a quick, personalized view of the newest activity in their groups. We also made it easier for members to access their personal calendars by pulling “my calendar” into the top-level navigation.

Improved navigation. We did a little Tent-cleaning by reorganizing and rewording the primary sections of BigTent. Our goal was to make touring the Tent more intuitive and easier to master.

Notably, we moved the classifieds feature into the group context. Now when members want to post a listing for something they have for sale or trade, there’s an easy-to-find tab to get them started.

New look and feel. Our updated visual design gives more prominence to your group’s branding and content. Your group name now sits atop a color-coded header, a change that lays the groundwork for enhanced group customization tools (coming soon!).

Improved group management tools and navigation. The new BigTent admin area sports an action-oriented navigation, making it easier for group leaders to quickly complete their administrative tasks and return to the group. We also revamped the group settings page to make building out your group and adding content even easier.

We hope you enjoy the new BigTent! Let us know if you have feedback, and stay tuned for more upgrades and additions.

–Jay and the BigTent team