For those of you who have been following along in my series on Facebook integration, we have discussed why you should use Facebook integration and how to configure Facebook to work with Blackbaud NetCommunity (BBNC). Now it's time to talk about Facebook functionality in BBNC and allowing users to integrate their BBNC and Facebook accounts.
What do I need to get started?
- A Facebook account (Join Facebook)
- A BBNC User Account with Rights to create Pages and Parts within Blackbaud NetCommunity
How do I integrate BBNC user accounts with Facebook accounts?
To integrate accounts between systems, you need to create a Facebook Profile Link part so users can link up their accounts. To do this, follow the steps below:
- Navigate to the page you wish to add the link part to.
- Click on the placeholder where you wish to insert the part, and then click New Part.
- From the part type selector, choose Facebook Profile Link.
Note: If the part is not visible, your configuration may not have completed. Review this article and double check your settings. If that doesn't help, create a case and an analyst will be happy to assist.
- Enter a name for your part and click next.
- Type any changes to the default prompt text.
- In the Generate Profile Update drop-down, select the The Raiser's Edge phone type to add the users Facebook profile link to. Once a user links their account, a profile update will download to the BBNC Plug-in in RE with the link for the phone type you selected.
- Define the redirect text and link so when users link their accounts, it will point them to a page.
- Click Save.
Now that the part is added to the website, you can test it by previewing the page and linking your own user account to Facebook. If you didn't change the text the default part, it will look like this:
So now that my account is linked, what options do I have available in BBNC?
This depends on what you have setup in BBNC. If you have Team Fundraiser, Personal Pages, User Networking, or any other part that allows users to add photos, users will be able to add them directly from their Facebook accounts. The screenshot of this functionality is below:
The other option you have available is in the User Networking Manager. If you have the Friends tab enabled, users linked to Facebook will see an option to view their friends list and click through to their profiles.
Is that it?
For now that is the only out of the box functionality offered in BBNC. You can use custom parts and other solutions to further utilize the integration. Our next post will cover these topics and provide some examples.
More Information:
We talked about User Networking parts but we didn't really get into how they are configured or what they do. For more information, check out the User Networking Guide in our User Guides section.
Posts in this series:
Facebook and Blackbaud NetCommunity Part 1
Facebook and Blackbaud NetCommunity Part 2
Facebook and Blackbaud NetCommunity Part 3
Constituent records in The Raiser’s Edge (RE) are the entry point of individual information for constituents that interact with your organization. The records include phone numbers, giving history, and relationships with other constituents and organizations. But for constituents that interact with your Blackbaud NetCommunity (BBNC) website, it can offer so much more.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll discuss the features and capabilities of the NetCommunity tab on a constituent's record and how you can use this data to gain a better understanding of how your users interact with your BBNC website. We’ll begin with an overview of the tab and information displayed in the General section.
After RE is integrated with BBNC, you’ll notice a new NetCommunity tab on every individual record. In order for data to display on this tab, you must link the record to a sign-up request from the Blackbaud NetCommunity Plug-in or you must send an email to the constituent. This record linking provides the connection between the user’s constituent record and their Blackbaud NetCommunity login. Information is automatically updated on this tab using the Blackbaud NetCommunity Service once the BBNC and RE record link has been established.
On the General page, you’ll get an overview of the constituent’s login information. This section provides the user's BBNC login, the last time they logged in, and the date they registered for the BBNC account.
In addition to user's information, the General page provides information and links to the user's personal and fundraiser pages so you can access them directly from the constituent record. Additionally you can see the number of page views and the page visit dates.
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So when can this information be useful?
Often times in BBNC, users will register for an account and then forget their login after months of inactivity on your website. Instead of getting their password emailed to them, they will register for the site again. This becomes a problem when you link the second sign up request to their constituent record because it is already linked an account.
So how can we get more information about what is going on without having to contact the constituent?
The constituent’s NetCommunity tab reveals when the original account was created and when was the last time this user signed in using this account. If the last login was a long time ago, chances are they forgot their password or forgot that they had a BBNC account set up in the first place.
You can also see what personal pages they already set up on the original account. If they have a fundraiser page, chances are they were a solicitor for a fundraiser in the past and are coming back to the website to become a solicitor for a new fundraiser.
You'll most likely want to keep the original account linked to their constituent record for historical purposes and delete the new sign up request. You can use this information to explain to the user why they should request their original password instead of creating a new account. |
For even more information on this tab, check out the Blackbaud NetCommunity & The Raiser’s Edge Integration Guide.
In our next blog, we will be continuing this series with details about the Email/Newsletter sections of the NetCommunity tab.