Approve & Decline Group Members Automatically
Make sure that you have already followed this tutorial: How to Install and Setup Group Collector.
Group Collector Auto Approve & Decline Feature allows you to Approve and Decline New Group Members based on specific criteria automatically. This feature is entirely optional. Group Collector opens a new tab after specific intervals that you can set in Auto Approve Settings to auto approve & decline members. For this reason, auto approve will only work when the chrome where group collector chrome extension is installed is open.
Group Collector will send auto Approved Member answers to the Google Sheet and your selected email marketing software or CRM.
You can set up the Auto Approve feature to only approve new members that meet your criteria. To enable Group Member Auto Approval, Click on the Edit Button in the Auto Approve Column for your group.
You can enable/disable auto approve and configure all the options available on the Auto Approve Settings Page. Here's a quick description of all the Auto Approve Settings.
1. Enable Auto Approve
You can click on the toggle button to enable/disable auto-approval for your group. If you enable it, Group Collector will open new tabs after certain intervals to auto-approve members. If you disable it, the group collector will stop opening new tabs. You can continue to approve members manually.
2. Automatically Focus On Tab
If you have more than 15 pending member requests, Auto Approve will not work unless you manually click on the tab. If you enable this option, Group Collector would automatically focus on the tab and make it active. This could be disruptive to your work as it would change the tabs automatically.
3. Auto Approve New Members After Every (minutes)
You can enter the interval in minutes, after which the group collector would open a new tab to approve members. This interval will start once you open your chrome. You can enter any value between 15 and 2880.
If you enter 15, the group collector will open a new tab after 15 minutes have passed since you opened chrome. It would also continue to open a new tab after every 15 minutes to auto-approve members.
4. Facebook Group Member Requests Page URL with Filters Applied (required for public groups)
You can enter the Facebook Group Member Requests URL with the filters applied to only approve members that meet your specific criteria. These are all the filters currently available on Facebook.
After applying filters, copy the URL and paste it in the Facebook Group URL Field. Group Collector will only approve members that match the criteria.
It is important to note that this field is required for public groups. If your group is a public group, then you must fill this field. If you do not want to apply any filters, simply enter the group participant requests page URL. It would look like https://www.facebook.com/groups/GROUP_ID/participant_requests
5. Email must be entered in any of the Questions
You can enable this option to ensure that members are only auto-approved when one of their answers contains an email. Group Collector automatically detects if one of the member answers contains a valid email.
6. Agreed to Group Rules
You can enable this option to ensure that members are only auto-approved if they agreed to group rules. For groups where group rules are not set, this option will have no effect.
7. Minimum Number of Questions Answered
You can enter the minimum number of questions answered for a member to be approved automatically. You can enter any value between and including 0 and 3.
8. Joined Facebook before at least (months)
Enter the minimum number of months that must have passed after the user joined FB to be auto-approved. Facebook generally shows the date in formats like a year ago, 39 weeks ago, 7 years ago, etc. So, it is not 100% accurate.
9. City where User should be located
Enter the city name to only approve members that live in that city. Group Collector finds member city from the location that FB shows in member request details.
10. Minimum Number of friends already in the group
Enter the minimum number of friends that the requested member must have already in the group for him to be auto-approved.
11. Minimum Number of mutual friends with me
Enter the minimum number of mutual friends you must have in common with the requested member for him to be auto-approved.
12. Minimum Number of groups in common with me
Enter the minimum number of groups you must have in common with the requested member for him to be auto-approved.
13. Group Password
Enter the Group Password to only approve members if this value exactly matches one of the answers. You can use this feature for private FB Groups. You can send the group password to your members, and they would only be auto-approved if one of their answers exactly matches with the Group Password.
14. Preapproved Members
If you are running a private Facebook group only for your users and already have their emails, you can use the Preapproved members feature. It would allow you to auto-approve members whose email already exists in the list.
The first thing you need to do is to make sure that the Google Sheet is connected to your group in group collector.
Next, you have to add all your member emails in a google sheet column. Your Google Sheet Column must contain all the Emails of Preapproved Members. You have to make sure that this google sheet exists in the same google account where your group's google sheet exists.
Now, enter the google sheet id, tab name, and the column name where member emails exist. All three values must be separated by a comma. Once you Update Auto Approve Settings, Group Collector would create a new hidden tab in your google sheet with the name group_collector_process. You shouldn't remove this tab; otherwise, auto-approve would stop working. You can find the Google Sheet Id from the Google Sheet URL. Your google sheet URL would look like this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/GOOGLE_SHEET_ID/edit#gid=0
In the above case, google sheet id is GOOGLE_SHEET_ID
You can find the tab name in the bottom left of your google sheet. Enter the exact tab name where member emails exist. Column Name is the capital alphabet shown at the top of each column starting from A and goes all the way to Z. You can see the Google Sheet Id, Tab Name, and the Column Name in the image below.
Now Click on the Update Auto Approve Settings button to update your settings. If you configured everything correctly, you would see the notification Auto Approve Settings Updated Successfully.
15. Enable Auto Decline
You can toggle the button to enable/disable auto-decline for your group. If you enable it, Group Collector will auto decline members that were not auto approved and they match the auto decline criteria. If you only Enable Auto Decline while all other auto decline settings are disabled, none of the members will be auto declined.
16. Only Decline member requests after days have passed?
Set the minimum number of days that must have passed since the user requested to join the group for members to be considered for auto decline. Members will not be auto declined unless the request is days old.
17. Decline All Members that have blocked you or their Facebook accounts are suspended?
If this option is enabled, All Members that have blocked you or their accounts are suspended will be auto-declined. If this option is enabled, options below will have no effect on blocked or suspended accounts. Such members are not auto-approved and will only be declined if the option is enabled.
18. Decline All Members that do not meet the above auto approve criteria?
All Members that do not match the auto-approve criteria will be declined. If the option is enabled, all the options below will have no effect.
19. Decline If Email not entered in any of the Question Answers?
If this option is enabled, members will be declined if they did not enter a valid email in any membership question answer.
20. Decline If No Questions Answered?
If this option is enabled, members will be declined if they did not answer any membership question.
21. Decline If Members did not agree to Group Rules?
If this option is enabled, members will be declined if they did not agreed to group rules. For groups where group rules are not set, this option will have no effect.
22. Decline If Joined Facebook before less than (months)?
If you want to decline members that joined Facebook less than some months ago, you can enter the number of months in this field.
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Disable Auto Approve on multiple instances of Group Collector Chrome Extension
If you have installed Group Collector chrome extension on multiple chrome browsers, it is highly recommended that you disable auto approve on all other chrome browsers. Auto Approve should only be enabled on one chrome browser only.
To disable auto approve, click on the Group Collector Chrome Extension Icon in the Chrome Extension bar and disable Auto Approve & Decline. It is enabled by default.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact support@groupcollector.com
You can start 7 day free trial of Group Collector at groupcollector.com