The User's Edge : Outlook integration

9/16 Forums Roundup

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:40:00 GMT

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9/2 Forums Roundup

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:42:00 GMT

Here are last week's most popular Forums posts as well as unanswered posts:

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Mail Musings: Mass (Email) Hysteria!

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:41:00 GMT

Email has made it easier to reach out and touch someone. In The Raiser's Edge, emails are stored as phone numbers on constituent records. You can mark a phone type as an email address and email constituents from their individual records. You can also use these email addresses to send emails to groups of records.

Inside The Raiser's Edge, use Globally Add Records in Administration to send mass emails. This requires a MAPI- (Messaging Application Program Interface) compliant email program, such as Microsoft Outlook. If you're using something other than Outlook, review the system recommendations for information about supported email clients. Outside The Raiser's Edge, use Microsoft Outlook with an exported data file or Microsoft Word using a mail merge.

You can also send emails to groups using NetMail. Because NetSolutions is an optional module, I'll just cover the options that require only The Raiser's Edge and MS Office.

To use Globally Add Records in Administration to send mass emails, go to Administration, Globally Add Records.

The screenshot above shows the Global Add screen. Your first step will be to select Email from the Add drop-down. You can then choose to include specific records from a query or to email every record with an email address in your database.

The option to send an email to each constituent or to group does not affect who receives the message. The email will still be sent to every record who is included in the global add. When selecting the to each constituent option, an individual email message is created for each recipient. Each constituent will see only his own name in the To line. The to group option sends one email message to the whole group and allows each recipient to see the names of all the other recipients in the To line.

In the Preference field, select the email type you wish to send the message to. The email phone type is not written in stone, and constituents can have multiple email types, such as Email, E-Mail, Work Email or anything else you can dream up.

Click Enter Email Now to compose your message. You may receive the prompt "Are you sure you want to add this email to all of the selected records?" This prompt is to warn you that you will send an email to each record selected under the Include button. Click Yes to proceed.

At this point, enter the subject and your message, and click Send Now to send your message. You may receive the following message from Outlook: "A program is trying to access email addresses you have stored in Outlook. Do you want to allow this? If this is unexpected, it may be a virus and you should choose No." Either click Yes until all messages are sent, or use the ClickYes utility to bypass the prompt.

An advantage of sending emails to constituents using an export file is the ability to use multiple email addresses from each constituent, including those not stored on the Bio 1 tab. After exporting the constituents' email addresses in Excel, open the export file and select a column containing email addresses. Copy the email addresses into the To or BCC line of the email message. As with the to each constituent/to group options in Global Add, the To line allows each recipient to view other recipients' email addresses and the BCC (blind carbon copy) line prevents recipients from viewing other recipients' email addresses. In Outlook, press Alt + K to automatically format the email addresses and separate them with a semicolon.

To use a mail merge in Microsoft Word, you would also start by exporting the constituents' email addresses and any additional fields such as addressee or salutation. Select Microsoft Word Merge File format and mark the Include Header Record checkbox.

In your Word document, select Tools, Mail Merge from the menu bar. Follow the steps for creating a form letter mail merge document. You do not need to include the email address itself as a merge field. When you have composed the letter, select Tools, Mail Merge from the menu bar, and click Merge. Select Electronic Mail from the Merge To selection list, and click Setup to identify the field in your data file that contains the email addresses. In the Data field with Mail/Fax address selection list, select the email address field name from the data file. Enter the subject of your email in the Mail message subject line.

These steps can also be found in Knowledgebase solution BB34424.

Constituent Corner: Making the Most of Moves Management

Katy McGinnis — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:26:00 GMT

In the nonprofit world it is imperative to maintain your donor base. Even from the Support side, we understand the importance of donors - especially recurring donors! RE has a very valuable tool that will provide you automated options with regards to Moves Management.

RE Action Tracks allow you to establish an ongoing process of donor contacts - whether these are phone calls, emails, meetings, or others. Essentially, you use Actions but let RE work for you in terms of establishing the next contact with the Constituent based on specific criteria established in a query.

The following situations are perfect examples of when Action Tracks will work for you:

- You send a mailing to all of your donors for your Garden Fund. If they respond with a donation to this Fund, you wish to call them to thank them for their donation.

- Your organization sent a mass email to your Constituents informing them of your upcoming Silent Auction. Some of your donors respond and request to be Volunteers for the event. Because they are volunteering, you will need to send them a mailing to inform them of their task.

- You would like your Solicitors to personally call all of the donors from the 2007 Annual Fund who gave over $1000. Once they call the donors, you wish to send a mailing to your constituents.

With a combination of queries and assigning action tracks, you will be able to perform all of these actions without thinking twice! This can also be tied into RE/Outlook Integration! See my other blog for more information on this piece!

Tips and Tricks: Outlook Integeration

Katy McGinnis — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:44:00 GMT

In the spirit of technology and blogging, I just want to introduce my ‘cyberself.’ My name is Katy and I’m an RE support analyst. As most of you who have ever contacted support know, email is a very common form of communication. I typically receive around 100 emails a day and embrace it! While my daily email income consists of coworkers’ and RE users’ emails, I welcome the idea that two major tools in my daily routine, The Raiser’s Edge and Microsoft Outlook, can collaborate on their own to keep my mind at ease.

In this blog, I hope to make you familiar and comfortable with RE/Outlook integration so you can use it in your daily practice – to your benefit!

From a fundraising standpoint, this is a nearly priceless tool that is key in maintaining a donor base. RE/Outlook integration allows you to keep a record of your constituents, actions, and organization contacts in both programs. Also, it is an integral part in Moves Management.

Let’s consider a few examples:

You’re scheduled to make an upcoming phone contact with one of your top donors as part of an Action track, but you don’t typically work directly within The Raiser’s Edge. The integration piece allows you to synchronize the RE action ‘reminder’ for the phone call with Outlook appointments without having to access the action record in RE.
You are going to send an email to one of your solicitors. You can create an email in Outlook, link the email to an action in RE, and even store the email so that you can view it later.
A Board member or CEO contacts your top constituent. In this conversation, the constituent indicates he moved and provides updated address information. This information is entered into Outlook and can then be transferred into RE even though your colleague doesn’t work in The Raiser’s Edge.

All of the above examples are perfect reasons to use integration! One of the first steps to setting it up is to configure RE to work with Outlook. Once this is complete, you should see a Raiser’s Edge toolbar in Outlook.

Keep in mind:
- This is a workstation specific setting.
- Certain Raiser’s Edge security rights are required to work with Outlook integration (BB80024)

Once integration is established, you can synchronize your Outlook contacts with RE constituent and contact records (all records or a query). Further, you can synchronize your Outlook Calendar events or tasks with RE actions, appeals, and events. Note: The Event module is required to synchronize with Events. For more information, check the The Raiser's Edge and Microsoft Office Integration Guide in User Guides.

After the records are linked, you can view the information in Outlook’s Contacts. You can even go to the corresponding constituent record directly from Outlook if you’re working between both programs on a standard basis. You can also store emails for your integrated RE constituents in your action records (BB106844).

Hopefully these tips will ready you for the Integration! I welcome any comments or questions you might have on this piece as it will really help you build your donor base!