There are two ways to bring memberships into PassPlay outside of the regular sync schedule: a one-time lookup that requests the information from your underlying membership system live, and a bulk CSV upload for batch work.
LookUp: on-demand membership import
Integration-specific: The LookUp feature is not available with all integrations. When it is available you will see a “LookUp” button in the upper right-hand corner on the memberships view.
Use LookUp when a member calls or emails about a membership that doesn’t show up in your roster yet (a new membership that hasn’t made it through the next scheduled sync yet, for example) or when you have a small batch of membership IDs that you want to sync with PassPlay right away.
How it works
Enter the Membership ID(s).
Click LookUp.
PassPlay queries your membership system in realtime for the provided ID(s).
For a single ID, if the membership was found it will be created/updated and you’ll be redirected to its details page. If not found, you’ll see a “Membership not found” message - verify the ID and try again.
For multiple IDs, PassPlay will output a list with query results for each provided membership ID.
Bulk import: upload a CSV
Integration-specific: The CSV import feature is available with SFTP-based integrations, with Local Only organizations that have CSV uploads turned on, and with sync-managed integrations that have the SFTP membership import enabled. When it is available you will see an “Upload” button in the upper right-hand corner on the memberships view.
See also Uploading a CSV yourself below.
When you need to load or refresh many memberships at once (historical backfill, a batch exported from your CRM, a list of new signups, etc.) use the CSV upload screen.
Preparing the CSV
The expected columns are documented on the upload screen itself. At minimum each row needs:
A unique membership identifier.
Primary member contact details.
A membership type that exists in your org.
An expiration date.
Other columns (additional members, address, phone, level) are optional but recommended where you have the data.
While it will be easier if they do, your column names do not have to match the sample exactly. When they differ the upload screen will allow you to match each PassPlay field to a column in your file (see Matching your columns).
Uploading
Click Choose file and select your CSV.
If the Match columns to the PassPlay fields dialog opens, select the column for each field and click Apply. Then check the preview.
Click Upload.
PassPlay automatically validates each row and the result page shows:
How many rows were imported successfully.
Which rows failed and why (missing required field, unknown membership type, duplicate ID, etc.).
Fix any failed rows in the source CSV and re-upload — successful rows from the previous attempt are idempotent (the same ID won’t be duplicated).
Matching your columns
When a column name in your file is not the same as a PassPlay field name, a dialog opens with a list of the PassPlay fields. Each field has a dropdown list containing the column names identified from your file. PassPlay will attempt to pre-select the columns where it can (for example, “First Name” or “E-mail”).
Fields marked required must have a column. The Upload button will be disabled until all fields pass validation.
For the other fields, select Not present when your CSV does not provide that data.
You can select the same column for more than one field, if necessary.
Optional fields, such as Address and Notes, are under Optional fields.
Click Apply to use your selections. Apply is available when each required field has a column. Cancel discards your changes.
To open the dialog again, click Update column mapping below the file name.
Tips
Run a small test batch first (5–10 rows) to confirm the column mapping before uploading thousands of rows.
The upload is a one-time operation. Once the import has started you will be shown progress updates so that you can keep track of when the import has finished.
Local Only organizations
If PassPlay is your membership system (a Local Only organization), the CSV upload lets you add and update memberships in bulk. We turn this on for you.
It creates and updates. A row whose SystemID PassPlay doesn’t know creates a new membership. A row whose SystemID matches an existing membership updates it.
By default, it never removes. A membership that is not in your file is left exactly as it is, so members who registered themselves or were added in the admin are not affected by an upload.
Optionally, it removes memberships that are not in your file. When Remove memberships not present in the uploaded CSV is enabled, your CSV file is treated as the full list of your memberships. Each upload then will mark any membership that is not in the file as inactive.
To update a membership that was created in PassPlay, use its membership ID (for example
MBS0001) as the SystemID in your file.
SFTP membership import (sync-managed integrations)
Integration-specific: Available for Tessitura, Centaman, and Gateway Galaxy.
These integrations don’t support retrieving bulk lists of updated memberships - PassPlay learns about a membership the first time someone looks it up. For day-to-day functionality, that’s not a problem - but it is a limitation when you want to automate the process of adding large numbers of memberships to PassPlay.
This feature closes that gap: drop a CSV of your memberships on an SFTP server and PassPlay will import the ones it doesn’t already know about. Once a membership has been imported from a CSV, PassPlay will take over and sync it directly from your membership system going forwards.
What it will and won’t do
It only creates. A membership PassPlay already holds is never modified or removed by this import, whether it’s active or lapsed. Your membership system remains the source of truth for all memberships we already know about.
It only reads new files. PassPlay records the modification time of each file it imports and ignores anything older on the next run. Re-uploading the same file changes nothing.
It never interferes with your normal sync. If the SFTP server is unreachable or a file is malformed, the import fails on its own and your regular sync continues untouched.
Imported memberships get their welcome guest passes and benefits straight away. Any guest pass or benefit grant set to trigger on First Sync with PassPlay is applied as each membership is created, exactly as it would be for a membership added via LookUp. Grants with other triggers (renewal, monthly, annual) are unaffected and run on their normal schedule. A membership that imports already expired receives nothing, matching how the scheduled grant job treats lapsed memberships.
Preparing the CSV
Use the same columns as the bulk CSV upload described above, with one requirement specific to this import:
SystemID must match your membership system: The SystemID column is required and must contain the same identifier your membership system uses. This is how PassPlay recognizes a membership it already has, and how your integration finds it again on the next sync.
For Tessitura that is the constituent ID; for Centaman, the member number; for Gateway Galaxy, the PassAcct.
If SystemID doesn’t match, PassPlay falls back to matching on MembershipID. If neither matches an existing record, you’ll get duplicate memberships. After your first import, check the sync results. PassPlay records a sample of the IDs it imported so you can confirm they line up before loading a full roster.
Setting it up
We will normally set this up for you as part of the onboarding process. If your setup predates this feature and you are interested in having this feature enabled, contact us for more information.
Running an import
PassPlay checks for a new file once a day. To run one immediately, either use the CSV upload or contact support to request a manual sync.
After a successful import, PassPlay queues a normal sync so the newly created memberships begin refreshing from your membership system on the usual schedule.