Migration Dashboard

Once you have brought people across with the Migration Wizard, the show’s Migration tab stops opening on the wizard and opens on the migration dashboard instead: how the move is going, and where each person has got to.

Where to find it: Benecaster → Shows, open the show, then Settings → Migration. To run another import from there — a second export, or a group you held back — use Start another import at the bottom of the dashboard.

If the show has run more than one migration, choose which one you are looking at under Which migration. Each import is reported on its own.

Watching the Welcome Emails Go Out

While a migration’s welcome emails are sending, a progress panel sits above the figures (and on the wizard’s last step): how many have gone out of how many, and roughly how long the rest will take — “At the current pace, about 3 more hours.” It counts the welcome only, the one email that goes to everybody at once; the reminder and final notice are written nearer each person’s deadline and are not part of it.

You do not need to keep the page open. Sending carries on without it, and the panel shows where it has got to whenever you come back to the Migration tab. Benecaster’s own sending banner also appears at the top of its other screens from the moment the send starts, with a View status → link back here.

When the send finishes, the panel says so. If some could not be sent, it gives the number and points you to Emails That Did Not Send below.

If you switched the migration email sequence off, there is nothing to watch and no panel appears.

Emails That Did Not Send

If any migration email to anyone has failed, an Emails that did not send panel appears above the figures. It covers all five emails, not just the welcome. For each one it shows who it was for, which email it was (Welcome, Reminder, Final notice, Signed-up confirmation or Access ended), the date it was queued, and what the mail server said when it was refused. When nothing has failed, the panel does not appear.

A failed email does not change where someone is in the migration. They keep their place in the table below, and the rest of the migration carries on as normal.

Only a failed welcome can be sent again, and only to someone who is still mid-move. Those rows have a Send again button. The other rows explain why there is nothing to send:

• A reminder, final notice, signed-up confirmation or access-ended email was written for one particular day. If it went out now, it would show a deadline that has passed, and might chase someone who has since paid. The next one due is written fresh, so there is nothing to resend.
• A welcome to someone who has since signed up, or whose deadline has passed, would tell them their access is live when it no longer applies. This is the same rule as Resend.
• A welcome to someone whose WordPress account has since been deleted has no address left to go to. The row says so.

There is no “send all again” button. Each welcome is checked against where that person stands right now, so you send them one at a time.

Send again is not the same as Resend. Send again delivers the welcome that never arrived, so it does not count as chasing anyone: the person’s next reminder still goes out on schedule, and their resend count does not change. Resend (below) writes a new welcome, and can take the place of that day’s reminder.

The list shows up to 100 of each email type at once. If more failed than that, it shows Showing X of Y. As you send the ones listed, the rest appear in their place.

The Four Figures

Across the top, four numbers for the migration you are looking at:

Signed up rather than paying, because someone who finishes the move onto a free tier is counted there too — they have done everything you asked, they just were never asked for money.

Free members you brought across have no deadline and nothing to pay, so they stay in Still to finish unless they choose to sign up. Keep that in mind before reading a large Still to finish figure as people falling behind.

Lapsed people keep their account and still get your public episodes; only the private ones stop. If one of them signs up later they get their original feed link back, so their podcast app picks up where it left off.

Everyone in the Migration

Below the figures is a table of everyone in the migration, 25 to a page:

• Who — their name and email address
• Was on — the tier they had on the platform you left
• Where they are — see below
• Supporting since — the join date from your export, so you can see how long they have backed you
• Your notes — see Keeping Notes

Use Show only to narrow the list to one group, and Refresh to reload it.

Where they are reads one of these:

Emailed and Opened their link are steps a person passes through, not separate figures, so they appear in the Show only filter rather than across the top.

Resending the Welcome Email

The Resend button on a person’s row sends them their migration welcome email again. Use it when someone tells you they never got it, or when you want to nudge somebody who has gone quiet.

It resends the welcome because that is the email with everything in it: their private feed link, the buttons that add it to their podcast app, and the link to finish setting up payment (or, for a free member, to set a password). A reminder would only point them back at it.

Things to know before you click:

• It is only offered to people still mid-move. There is no Resend for someone who has signed up, or whose deadline has passed. The welcome tells people their access is active now, and for a lapsed person that is no longer true — their access-ended email already carries a link that restarts their subscription.
• It can take the place of a reminder. A migration never sends one person more than one email a day, and the automated reminder and final notice skip anyone who was emailed in their window. So if you resend to someone during the last few days before their deadline, they will not also get the final notice.
• It needs an address that someone still logs in with. If the person’s WordPress account was deleted, or they changed the email address they log in with, the row says No account holds this address any more, so there is nowhere to send. in place of the button. Ask them which address they use now, and correct it on their WordPress account; Resend comes back.
• It can disagree with Send again, and both are right. Someone who changed their login email loses Resend but can still have Send again on an older failed welcome. That older email was addressed to their account when it was queued, so it goes to whatever address the account has now. Resend writes a new email to the address you imported, which nobody holds any more.
• It works with the migration email sequence switched off. Clicking Resend is you choosing to write to that person, so it sends whatever you chose at the email step.
• It goes at your usual sending pace. The row says Queued; the email itself may leave a few minutes later.

The row shows how many times you have resent to someone (Resent once, Resent 3 times), so you can see you have already chased them before you chase them again.

Keeping Notes

The Your notes box on each row is yours to keep track of your own outreach — “Messaged on Discord, moving this week”, “Chased twice, going quiet”.

• Type in the box and click Save note. The button appears only once you have changed something.
• A note replaces the one before it. If you want a running history, edit the existing note rather than starting over.
• A note can be up to 2,000 characters.
• A note you have not saved survives changing the filter or turning the page. The bottom of the table tells you how many are still unsaved, so none gets lost when its row scrolls out of view.

Notes are yours. Only people who can manage your site ever see them, and they are left out of a subscriber’s own data export. Write what is useful to you; the person it is about will never read it.