Topics, community calendar, and 20+ improvements
April was yet another busy month for team Circle — perhaps one of our busiest ever.
Before I dive into updates, I have a small ask: we’d love your feedback on Circle.
Every 6 months or so, we run an in-depth product survey to learn about how you use Circle and ways we can make it better for you. My co-founders and I read every single response and try do our best to incorporate your feedback.
To participate, please look out for an email with the subject “Circle feedback?” and click on the unique survey link we’ve sent to you. If you didn’t receive the email, reach out to amala@circle.co and we’ll set you up with a new link.
P.S. Here’s a photo of some of our engineering leads from one of our offsites. You’ll be surprised by how many of our conversations inevitably come around to discussions about your feedback 😀
Thanks in advance! Now onto this month’s update…
Organize your spaces with topics
We’re thrilled to introduce topics, a new way to organize your spaces for better discovery and engagement.
With topics, you can now categorize your content in post spaces to make it more intuitive for your members to browse your community. When used intentionally, topics are a great way to simplify your sidebar so you don’t end up with too many spaces.
To add topics to the navigation bar of any space, go to Edit space, scroll to the Topic navigation section, and create new topics.
Alternatively, you can see all your topics by going to the Content → Topics tab in the admin area of your community. From here, you can also create a topic by clicking the New topic button, and enable the topic for multiple spaces in one place. You can add up to 10 topics per space.
Once topics are created, a new navigation bar will show up above the posts area in the space to allow your members to filter the space by topics. You can assign the newly created topic(s) to existing posts if you’d like, or simply wait for new topics to be categorized with them.
Now when you or a member create posts, a topic selection area will appear at the bottom of the new or edit post modal. As an admin, you can also create topics in a space by typing them out here.
Topics have to be created by an admin before your members can select them in a space. If you’d like to prevent members from being able to choose a topic, you can do so by turning on the Only admins and moderators can select this topic toggle from topic settings.
Ready to elevate your community with topics? Here are some ideas to help get the ball rolling:
-
Simplify your space structure: Since topics can be used as a filtering mechanism, you can restructure your spaces by combining multiple spaces into a single space, and allowing your members to filter content within a single space using the topic navigation bar instead.
-
Organize your resources: Consolidate all relevant resources and information within a single space for all your resources, and offer the ability to filter by types of resource content within the space by creating a topic for each one (i.e. “Videos”, “Tutorials”, “Testimonials”).
-
Organize your discussions: Keep discussions unified in a single space and create topics to offer the ability for your members to filter the space by themes (i.e. “Meditation”, “Yoga”, “Mindfulness”) or types (i.e. “Questions”, “Ask for Help”, “Share Tips”) .
-
Q&A spaces: Create topics for “Needs an Answer” and “Solved” in a Q&A space. When a question is answered by a member in the space, admins and moderators can now add the “Solved” topic to indicate that a question has been resolved.
Coming soon
We have more improvements to topics on their way! Here are some that you can expect:
-
Bulk actions for posts: In the next 2-3 weeks, you’ll be able to bulk assign topics to multiple posts with new bulk actions in the Content → Posts tab, making it even easier and faster to categorize your existing content. You’ll also be able to bulk move posts from one space to another, making it easier to restructure and combine your spaces. If you’re considering restructuring your spaces, you may want to wait it out for these updates.
-
Public API and Zapier integrations: We’ll extend topics to our API and Zapier integrations, allowing you to add or remove topics to posts from the API or Zapier.
-
Topics for event spaces and the course directory: Topics will be added into event spaces and the course directory, allowing you to make these areas filterable.
-
Ongoing design improvements: As always, we will listen to your feedback and continue to improve the UX to better meet your needs. If you have any feedback, please feel free to pass it along to support.
Redesigned mobile header
We’ve improved top navigation header for Circle’s iOS, Android, and Plus mobile apps. Now your members can easily switch between your Feed, Spaces or Members tabs from one convenient location, with the feed being the default tab when someone opens the app.
If you’d like to re-order these tabs or select a new default tab, you can do so by going to Settings → Mobile app in the admin area on web.
Learn more about our mobile apps →
Community calendar
We’ve added a new layout to the top-level Events tab: calendar view. This view gives your members a community calendar to browse all your upcoming events with ease, and RSVP to them without even leaving the page.
As an admin, you can also make this the default view so that your members see this instead of list or thumbnail views.
In the coming months, we’ll be bringing calendar view to event spaces, and the Events tab to our mobile apps.
Add a welcome banner to your event spaces
Similarly to the welcome banner on the Home feed, you can now set a welcome banner for event spaces by clicking on the Set banner link in the top-left header dropdown of your events space. This is a great way to welcome members into your event space and highlight upcoming event, or simply add a general introduction for your event space.
When you’re setting up the welcome banner, you can choose to display an image or video, a title, or a short description. You can choose to set different welcome banners for members and non-space members.
Additionally, you can allow members to close the welcome banner by toggling on the option. Non-members will not be able to close the banner.
Customize the email subject for weekly digests
To help drive higher engagement with your weekly digest emails, we’ve released the ability to customize the email subject with personalizable variables.
Using the variable selector {..}, you can now add the following dynamic variables to your subject line:
- {{member.first_name}}
- {{member.last_name}}
- {{community.name}}
- {{date_range}}
We’ve also added support for members who have their language set to Portuguese — these members will see the {{date_range}} variable displayed in Portuguese.
Learn more how to set up a weekly digest →
Workflows improvements
Member completed lesson: Trigger a workflow action when a member completes all lessons available in the community, all lessons in a space group, lessons in a specific course, or a lesson in a specific course.
Member completed section: Trigger a workflow action when a member completes all lesson sections available in the community, all lesson sections in a space group, all sections in a specific course, or a specific section in a specific course.
Cancel in-progress bulk action workflows: Admins now have the ability to cancel bulk action workflows once they’ve started running.
Redesigned member invitation flow
We’ve redesigned the member invitation flow a cleaner UI and added the ability to:
- Manually add multiple members at the same time
- Choose default spaces and space groups with a new intuitive Spaces module in the Access tab
- Modify your invitation email copy and add personalization with new dynamic variables, i.e. {first_name} or {community_name}, under the Email tab
We’ve also added validation measures to reduce errors from incorrect CSV file formats, missing invitation links, warnings for when members have no access to spaces or space groups, and limit warnings when approaching maximum admins or moderators.
Learn more about our improved member invitation flow →
🎉 Switch your payment provider to Circle with no extra work or cost to you 🎉
We’ve got some great news: all Circle plans (monthly and annual) now have access to our complimentary Concierge Payment Migrations Service 🥳
If you’re using another platform to manage your community subscriptions, our team will handle bringing them over to Circle with no hassle or extra cost to you.
Learn more about our Concierge Migrations Service →
Note: Some restrictions may apply depending on your current payment provider, our team will discuss all the details with you once we’ve reviewed your application. At this time, course migrations are still limited to our annual Business plans, Enterprise plans (monthly or annual), and Circle Plus plans.
Payments improvements
-
New completed status badge for fully paid installments: When there are no more installments outstanding on a paywall, the customer status will change to Completed. This status will be visible both to community admins and the customer.
-
Members can repurchase completed paywall installment plans: Once a paywall installment is completed, members have the option to repurchase the paywall.
-
Collect tax IDs for Brazilian paywalls: Brazilian communities who’ve connected their Stripe accounts with Circle can now collect relevant tax IDs (CPF or CNPJ) on their paywalls. For more information on Brazilian paywall support scroll down to “Paywalls support for Brazilian businesses and Pix integration” in our March update.
-
Resend affiliate invitation email: You can now resend invitation emails to affiliates from the Affiliate tab in your community’s admin area. To resend an invitation email, click on the ellipsis menu next to the appropriate affiliate and select Resend invitation.
Analytics improvements
We’ve made a few more improvements to Analytics 3.0.
On the Payments dashboard, you’ll now find:
-
Active subscriptions growth chart: This chart tracks your subscriptions performance over time by looking at new subscriptions, renewing subscriptions, and churned subscriptions, to give you your subscriptions growth count.
-
Net subscribers growth count: Your new subscriptions subtracted from your churned subscriptions over the selected time period.
-
Net monthly recurring revenue (MRR) count: The value of subscription growth in dollars during the selected time period.
-
Active trials count: The number of members currently on a paywall trial over the selected time period.
-
Trial conversions percentage: The percentage of trials that convert to active subscribers over the selected time period.
iOS improvements
We shipped a bunch of improvements to Circle’s iOS app:
- Support for new home tabs experience
- Ability to save photos to your device
- Improved course video playback and quality
- In line member tags display in posts and comments
- Support for Topics on image posts and editing
- Support for auto-advance to next course lesson and enforced video completion
- Performance, reliability, and UI/UX improvements
Android improvements
And a host of amazing improvements to Circle’s Android and Circle Plus branded apps:
- Support for new home tabs experience
- Support for Topics
- Improved video playback and quality
- In line member tags display in posts and comments
- Show community logo instead of community name for Circle Plus branded apps
- Performance, reliability, and UI/UX improvements
Other improvements
Improved video playback for courses on mobile: We’ve enhanced the performance of videos in courses on mobile apps to avoid a buffer delay and improve playback quality.
Content Co-pilot model upgrade: We’ve upgraded the AI model on our content co-pilot feature to improve the speed, quality, and accuracy of its responses.
Need help unpacking this month’s updates? RSVP for the next Product with Pedro
Pedro Hernandes will walk you through the latest features and improvements to the Circle platform. He’ll cover:
- This month’s top features
- Where to access them and how to set them up in your community
- Use case examples to better serve your needs
Plus, you’ll get a chance to ask any questions live!