February 2008 - Posts
Welcome to The User's Edge! As you can probably tell from the title, I like alliteration. I'm also a fan of shortcuts, so I will gladly keep you informed of any time-saving tips that can help lighten your load within RE.
To first give you a little background about myself, before starting my career at Blackbaud, I earned my living as a hand model. And yes, that's my hand holding the mouse at the top of this page. (Completely kidding!) I've never been a hand model, nor have I ever had a manicure. However, I have had my share of experience using mice, which brings me back to the topic of shortcuts . . .
If you'd like to ease the work of your pointer finger, you may want to consider changing your mouse settings so you can just single-click instead of always having to double-click. This may seem insignificant, but you'd be surprised how many clicks this will save you over the course of a year. I haven't actually come up with a figure, but I know it's a lot. 
To switch to single-clicks:
1. Go to Start, Control Panel, Folder Options
2. On the General tab, under "Click items as follows" select the Single-click to open an item (point to select) option
3. Click OK, and start single-clicking away!
Hi, I'm Chris Geady and I'd like to welcome you to The User's Edge blog! It is my hope that you will visit often and discuss/exchange ideas within the online community.
First, I'll introduce myself to everyone (please feel free to reply and introduce yourself). I work in Canada with all Canadian customers and prospective customers in the capacity of a Solutions Engineer (product specialist for most of Blackbaud's products). I am a former Raiser's Edge Software Instructor and grew up working/volunteering in the non-profit sector, specifically in the IT management, marketing and event planning areas. In my spare time (of which I seem to have none) I volunteer at a local Toronto charity, mess around with graphic design and cook.
My focus at Blackbaud has always been The Raiser's Edge (remember version 6...I was there too as a user!!!), but I also support Blackbaud NetCommunity (BBNC) and The Financial Edge. You may see a few posts from me that talk about product integration.
Welcome once again. Remember please do reply and introduce yourself.
Over the years at Blackbaud stories about interesting customer calls to Support circulate and become part of our collective consciousness. One of my favorite stories involves a customer who wanted to know why none of her gifts were showing up on constituent records. Had they all been deleted? Was some obscure filter set somewhere to hide them? After a lengthy troubleshooting session, the customer support analyst finally figured out someone had played a nasty joke on the customer. He or she had set the Color Legend to display gifts in white on the white background of the Gifts tab, rendering those gifts invisible. Now you know where step 4 in KB solution BB17966 came from. 
This story is a good reminder to make the most of the Color Legend, though perhaps not in the way the mischievous co-worker did. You can make it instantly obvious to any user what type of gifts are present on a constituent’s record, just by making them appear in different colors or by giving them suffixes, like “SC” for “Soft Credit.” I’m not sure I gave the Color Legend a thought until I heard the story behind this particular troubleshooting step.