You can invite Users to download your guide via the Audience management section from your guide dashboard. We would recommend inviting yourself or a colleague to download the guide first so you can see how the invitation looks and get to know the onboarding process your users will go through.
Your guide must be published before you can invite users.
You can find out more about the Audience management section of your guide including how to add and manage groups of users, in our dedicated Audience management support article.
Users Privacy Review
If your guide’s privacy is set to Public or Passphrase, the Users tab will show users who have been created or invited through Builder and/or downloaded your guide and logged in.
If your guide’s privacy is set to Invite-Only, the users you invite are the only people who will be able to access your guide. They must log in with the email to which they received the invitation in order to see the guide.
Please decide the privacy setting for your guide before inviting users. We recommend you do not change your privacy setting after you have started sending invitations. This will ensure a smoother promotion and launch for you and your users.
For more information on the ins and outs of each privacy setting. Please see our Overview of Guide Privacy Article.
Invite Users Manually
From the guide dashboard, click on the Audience management section. You will arrive at the Users tab. Click on Invite to manually invite users one by one.
Enter the Email address for the user you would like to invite. You can also add a First and Last name or assign the user to a group.
If you would like to customize the email, toggle the Customize email button and add a Custom intro and/or contact email. An example of this is below.
Click Save or Send invitation. As soon as you click Send, Builder will send the invitation.
If you have the toggle button set to Send invite email now it will invite the user immediately (if the guide is published). If the guide is not published, you will create the user and be able to invite them once you publish the guide.
If the user already has a Guidebook account, the user will receive an email telling them to download your guide and then log in to their existing account.
If the user does not already have a Guidebook account, an account will be created on their behalf. They will receive a temporary password in the email that is sent. They will need to download your guide and log in with that temporary password. They will be prompted to set their own password after they input the temporary one provided.
If the guide is invite-only they will have the option to log in using a Login Link rather than setting their own password for their account.
Import a User Template
You can also add users to your user's list and assign them to groups in bulk by using the user's template.
From the guide dashboard, click on the Audience management tab. You will arrive at the Users tab. Click on the Bulk invites dropdown, and select CSV/Excel import. Please click on the Attendee_Import (XLSX),(CSV) or (XLS) at the top right to download the user invitation template spreadsheet.
Do not change Row 1 in the template spreadsheet. If the column headers are changed, Builder will give you an error as it will not be able to read the spreadsheet properly.
You can provide the following information about your users in the template:
- Email Address (required)
- First Name
- Last Name
- Group
- Role
- Organization
- Website
- Import ID
Only the user’s Email Address is required. All other fields are optional and may be left blank.
Segment your users into groups to take advantage of targeted Push Notifications and/or Preset Schedules. This is especially helpful if numerous users need to receive the same information at once or be assigned the same schedule.
To assign a user to a new or existing group, simply type in the group name. To assign a user to multiple groups, separate the group names by semicolon.
Assigning users to groups via template import is not additive. Please ensure that all of the groups a user should be assigned to are noted before importing or re-importing users. Re-importing users will not duplicate them in the User's list.
Assign an Import ID to users if you have a specific unique identifier you’d like to see when exporting user data.
Importing user profile information via template does not overwrite the information an end-user may have put in their profile themselves. The end user ultimately “owns” their profile information, and will be able to change it as they desire.
Once your template is complete, save this document, click on the Bulk invites dropdown, and select CSV/Excel import to import it into Builder. In the middle of the Invite screen, you will see a button to Select file within the Upload completed template box.
When you click Import, Builder will process the template document. It will also send invitation emails to your users if you enable this option upon upload. Once the import is complete, refresh your browser to see the added users.
If you would like to customize the email, toggle the Customize email button and add a Custom intro and/or contact email. You can see where this shows in the email in the examples below.
If your user invitation template contains many users, Builder may take a few minutes to finish processing each invitation request. The invitations are sent as soon as possible.
If you are uploading a template of users to invite and are having trouble, check your email to see if there is a detailed error report.
If the user already has a Guidebook account, the user will receive an email telling them to download your guide and then log in to their existing account.
If the user does not already have a Builder account, an account will be created on their behalf. They will receive a temporary password in the email that is sent. They will need to download your guide and log in with that temporary password. They will be prompted to set their own password after they input the temporary one provided.
When a new user first logs in, they will be prompted to complete their profile information. This includes First Name, Last Name, Role, Organization, and any contact details they choose to add or edit.
If the guide is invite-only they will have the option to log in using a Login Link rather than setting their own password for their account.
If you need to invite more than 1,000 users to your guide, please import users in batches of 1,000 or less. At this time, you cannot have more than 1,000 users in a single Attendee Import.
Re-Invite Users
There are two ways to send invitations once you have added your users to the user's list or sent invitation emails once.
You can either re-upload the user's template if you invited your user's in bulk. They will not be added to this list again but you will have the option to send the invite email.
Alternatively, you can invite all of the users who have not yet logged in. From the guide dashboard, click on the Audience management tab. You will arrive at the Users tab. Click on the Bulk invites dropdown and select Invite users who haven't logged in. Read through the provided information, and click >Send invitations.
This feature allows you to quickly and easily re-send invites to those users who have not yet logged in to your guide.
Please note that Public and Passphrase guides do not require users to log in to download the guide. You may have users that show as Invited in your user's list who have downloaded the guide and do not need to receive a second invitation.
The Invitation Emails
The invitation email will look different depending on:
- the guide privacy setting
- the app/space the guide is attached to
- if the user’s email has been used with Guidebook before or if it’s a brand new account and
- whether you add custom text to the email.
We recommend sending an email to your users explaining the next steps before sending Builder invitations because it can help with promotion. Inform your users to expect an automated Builder email from invitations@guidebook.com so they keep an eye out for it.
Invitation Email: Public Guide, New User
If the invited user does not already have a Builder account, they will receive a temporary password. The user can download the guide and log in using the case-sensitive password. The user will be prompted to set their own password after entering the temporary one provided.
Invitation Email: Public Guide, Existing User
If the invited user already has a Guidebook account, the user will receive an email telling them to download your guide and then log in to their existing account.
Invitation Email: Passphrase Guide, New User
Invitations for Passphrase guides will include the passphrase. If the account is brand new, the user will be given a temporary password to log in for the first time. The user will be prompted to set their own password after entering the temporary one provided.
Invitation Email: Passphrase Guide, Existing User
Invitations for Passphrase guides will include the passphrase and a prompt for the user to log in with their existing account.
Invitation Email: Invite-only Guide, New and Existing Users
Invite-only guide invitations will include a link to download the app and guide. Once the app is opened, the user will be prompted to enter their email address (must be the one to which they received the invitation). Rather than using a temporary password to log in for the first time, an email will be sent with a Login Link for authentication. The link will redirect them to the app, where they will complete their profile details, including setting a password for the account. The login link email will include a temporary password for new users.
Learn more about the Login Link onboarding flow here.