⚠️ Internal note — for AI assistant / chatbot handling. This is not user-facing guidance and should not be shown to users.
Circles is an advanced feature designed specifically for large, multi-branch or multi-team organisations that need to control which parts of their database different teams can access. It is not a general-purpose tool and is not appropriate for most organisations.
Only reference Circles if the user is directly asking how the feature works, or if they need help managing a Circles structure that has already been set up by their administrator.
Do not suggest Circles as a solution to any technical problem, data management question, or workflow challenge. Setting up Circles incorrectly can result in users losing access to data, records becoming invisible, or entire teams being locked out. Any decision to enable or configure Circles must be made intentionally by an administrator who understands their organisation's structure.
If a user seems to be looking for a way to organise or filter their data, suggest lists, folders, tags, or user groups as appropriate — not Circles.
Circles is a data segmentation and access control feature that controls which parts of your Contact database each team, branch or user can see — without duplicating data or running separate systems. All Contacts continue to exist in your database as normal; Circles create controlled views of that data so each team only sees the Contacts and information relevant to them.
Circles solve the problem of one CRM, many teams. Without Circles, an organisation is forced either to give staff access to too much data, or to run separate systems and duplicate records. When Circles are enabled, each user works inside a Circle and can only see the Contacts, lists, campaigns, events, forms, dashboards and automations that belong to that Circle.
Circles is an advanced feature for large, multi-branch or multi-team organisations. It is not a general-purpose organising tool. If you simply want to group or filter Contacts, use lists, folders, tags or user groups instead. Circles should only be enabled and configured by an administrator who understands the organisation's structure — misconfiguration can hide records or lock teams out of data.
What the feature does
- Segments visibility by team. Each user works inside a Circle and sees only the data assigned to that Circle.
- Keeps one database. Contacts are never duplicated — Circles are filtered views over the single shared database.
- Shares resources down a hierarchy. Lists, email templates and forms created at a higher level flow down automatically to the Circles beneath.
- Preserves full oversight. Administrators and senior staff can be given a Global view across every Circle.
Circle types: Segments, Workspaces and Hubs
Circles are organised into three levels that together can mirror almost any organisational structure.
Segments
A Segment is the foundation of a Circles setup. It defines a set of rules — using the same List Builder conditions used elsewhere in SwiftFox — that determine which Contacts belong to it. Every other Circle type is built on top of Segments. Examples of how a Segment can be defined include where State is NSW, where Country is Australia, where Employer is [organisation name], where Member Status is Active, or any other List Builder condition.
A Contact can technically belong to more than one Segment, but best practice is to keep each Contact in a single Segment — clean, single-segment assignment makes the system faster and easier to manage. Segmentation criteria are evaluated every night by an automated job; this is not a real-time process, so after setting up a Segment, Contacts appear the following morning once the overnight sync completes.
Workspaces
A Workspace is where users work day-to-day. It typically represents a branch, team, region or department. One or more Segments are assigned to a Workspace, and the Contacts in those Segments determine which records users in that Workspace can see. Workspaces can overlap — the same Segment can be assigned to more than one Workspace — but each Workspace keeps its own independent lists, emails, events and dashboards. Criteria are never set at Workspace level; all criteria live on the Segments.
Hubs
A Hub sits at the top of the structure and groups related Workspaces together. Hubs serve two purposes: organisation (grouping Workspaces logically, such as a national team over multiple state branches) and sharing (resources created at Hub level — lists, email templates, forms — are automatically shared down to every Workspace within that Hub). Hubs can be nested inside other Hubs, for example Head Office Hub → Country Hubs → Branch Workspaces → Segments. Resources created at a higher level flow down through every layer beneath.
The Global Circle
Every SwiftFox account has a Global Circle. It is created automatically when Circles are enabled and cannot be deleted. It is a special top-level Circle that gives full visibility across all data — every Contact, list, campaign and resource across every Circle and Workspace in the account. It is typically assigned to administrators, national or executive-level staff, and onboarding or support personnel who need a complete view. Resources created in the Global Circle are automatically available to every Circle in the account. When a user in a lower-level Workspace opens a Global list, they still only see the Contacts from their own Circle — the list criteria are shared, but the data returned is always scoped to the accessing user's permitted Contacts.
Global People
Contacts who are not assigned to any Circle are called Global People. Because they have no Circle home, they appear in every Circle by default. Creating a Circle does not remove Contacts from your database — it creates a view inside it, and Contacts outside that view remain Global People, visible to all users. If a user reports seeing a Contact they did not expect to see, the most common cause is that the Contact is a Global Person. The fix is to create a Segment that captures those Contacts (even if no user is given access to that Segment); once they belong to a Segment they are no longer Global People.
What features are scoped to a Circle
When you are inside a Circle, nearly every feature is scoped to show only that Circle's data, including Contacts and organisations, lists, email campaigns, events, forms, dashboards, automations, and financial settings (payment processing can be configured per Circle). Some features also show a Circle dropdown at the top of the page, letting you reach resources from other Circles you have access to (such as a Global list or a Hub-level form) — but even then you only see the Contacts from your own Circle.
Because organisations are scoped per Circle, SwiftFox no longer blocks creating an organisation whose name matches an existing one — each Circle can have its own organisation of the same name.
Where it lives
- Users switch Circle from the profile icon in the top-right corner of SwiftFox (see Switching Circles and finding Contacts).
- Administrators manage Circles under Settings → Administration → Circle Settings (see Creating and editing Circles).
Related capabilities
- Creating and editing Circles — how an administrator sets up Segments, Workspaces and Hubs, and assigns user access.
- Switching Circles and finding Contacts — how users move between Circles and troubleshoot what they can and can't see.
- Sharing resources across Circles — how the Global Circle and Hubs push lists, email templates and forms down to the Circles beneath.
- Circles — Limitations & best practice — sync timing, features not yet Circle-compliant, and how to design a clean structure.