Circles — Limitations & best practice

Design and manage Circles, segment matching and best‑practice guidelines

ID:

405

Things to keep in mind when running Circles, plus recommendations for designing a clean, reliable structure.

Limitations

Segment matching is overnight, not real-time. Segment criteria are evaluated by an automated nightly job. New Segments — and changes to existing Contact records, such as someone updating their state — are reflected the following morning after the sync completes, not immediately.
Some features are not yet fully Circle-compliant. At the time of writing, the SMS inbox shows the full account inbox regardless of Circle, and some campaign views may show campaigns from outside your current Circle. These are being progressively updated and the behaviour is expected in the meantime.
The Global Circle cannot be deleted. It is created automatically when Circles are enabled and always provides full visibility across the account.
Global People appear everywhere. Any Contact not assigned to a Circle is visible in every Circle by default until it is captured by a Segment.

Design Segments before Workspaces. Identify the core attribute that defines who belongs to which team — location, employer, membership type — and build Segments on that attribute first, then group them into Workspaces.
Keep Segment counts low. Each Segment adds processing to the overnight sync. Aim to keep each Contact in a single Segment. A well-designed national database might use only 10–20 Segments, with many Workspaces drawing on combinations of them.
Share resources from the highest applicable level. Create email templates, lists and forms in the Global Circle or the relevant Hub so they flow down automatically. Don't recreate the same resource in each Workspace.
Handle universal Contacts deliberately. If certain Contacts should appear in every Circle, either leave them without a Circle (they become Global People) or — for explicit, auditable control — create a Shared Segment whose criteria match those Contacts and add it to every Workspace.
Set up Circles early in onboarding. Circles are best configured before staff begin working in SwiftFox, so Contacts are assigned correctly from day one rather than retrofitted later.
Test automations after changes. Because automations are Circle-aware, confirm they scope correctly after you set up or restructure Circles.

How long until Contacts appear in a new Segment? After the next overnight sync — typically the following morning.
Can a Contact be in more than one Circle? Yes, if it belongs to Segments assigned to different Workspaces. Minimise this overlap where you can.
Can Hubs be nested? Yes, to mirror complex structures; resources created higher up flow down to everything beneath.
Can a user be assigned to a Circle without a user group? Yes — users can be assigned directly to a Circle.
What happens to existing Contacts when Circles are first enabled? They all remain in the database as Global People until you create Segments and assign them, so complete Segment setup during onboarding before going live.
Why can a user see a Contact they shouldn't? The Contact is almost certainly a Global Person (not in any Circle). Capture it in a Segment to remove it from Global visibility.