The User's Edge : address processing

Support Roundtable: The Raiser's Edge 7.91: What You Need to Know Q&A (Part 9)

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:27:00 GMT

Here's the last batch of questions generated in the Support Roundtable The Raiser’s Edge 7.91: What you need to know:

Q: Does the password policy enforce a complicated password?
A: Yes. New passwords require a strong, complex password. They must be at least 8 characters, a max of 33 characters, consist of letters and numbers, and must contain at least 1 capital letter. For more information, review BB608912.

Q: Do the features you've highlighted cover the new feature list for 7.91? If not, where can I find a more complete list?
A: Yes, the features covered in the 7.91 Support Roundtable cover all of the new features for 7.91.

Q: I looked in Config in the General tab but don't see where you enter the BBPS information. It just has address info, FY, Immediate destination and Company ID. Am I missing something?
A: In order to see the fields for BBPS information, you must be logged into RE as Supervisor.

Q: Does the use of a Citrix environment complicate the automatic log out process?
A: No.

Q: Passwords - When changing, can you just change one character or #?
A: Yes, but it also depends on what your password was before. Your password must meet the new password requirements, per BB608912.

Q: What is the deadline for the update on our side?
A: The deadline for the update is determined by the credit card companies, your bank, and your processing vendor. Blackbaud is not enforcing a deadline.

Q: If users are set up that they cannot change their settings, does this affect passwords too?
A: No. Changing user options does not impact users changing their own passwords.

Q: I have a recurring batch that contains credit card numbers that I manually process. I currently have these numbers stored in RE. How will I be able to process these after upgrading? Will I have access to the full number?
A: After updating to RE, if you select to use the BBPS, then those credit card numbers will be uploaded to BBPS so you can continue to use and process them from RE. The procedure for processing those cards will not change. You will not be able to see or access the full credit card number, but you will still be able to process those credit cards from your Recurring Batch.

Mail Musings: Address Processing

Katy McGinnis — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:19:00 GMT

Most people can be reached more than one address - that's why you can add multiple addresses to constituent records. To keep from oversaturation, address processing ensures that each constituent only gets each mailing once, and only to the address you specify

In most mailings (Quick Letters, Labels, Donor Acknowledgement Letters, etc.), there are two address tabs: Ind Address and Org Address. These tabs are used to determine which address will be used for each type of constituent record.

An individual may have a summer or winter house in addition to their preferred mailing address. Address Processing allows users to mail to a Seasonal address as of the date of the mailing to avoid sending mail to the beach bums during the winter. For individuals who have their own organization relationships, you can specify on the Ind Address tab to mail to the Business address for that constituent so that they're contacted at work - where they might be prompted to send a donation.

If there's no address found based on the settings, you can either remove the record from the mailing, print the constituent's name with no address, or to print a specific address, such as the Preferred Address.

When working with organization records, address processing enables users to mail to an actual person at an organization. This is useful for larger organizations where mailings with just the company name may be regarded as junk mail. If you have contacts for the organization and wish to mail to them, you can select specific contact types, such as all Primary Contacts.

When an organization has several contact types, a Contact record can be assigned an Attribute. For example, you could use a Contact Attribute Category of Special Mailing Info with a Description of Newsletter. This way, only those Contacts with the Newsletter attribute would be considered in your Newsletter mailing.

The same thing goes for the Address record. If you choose to only mail to a specific address a constituent or contact has, you can use Address Attributes step of the processing to designate the addresses to consider.

If you don't have contacts, you can just to mail to the organization. If some organizations have contacts and others don't, the mailing can be set up to mail to a specific address of that organization.

These options can save a lot of time and loads of money for your organization. Next time you have a mailing, ditch the query, set up the mailing, and never look back!

For a more in depth look on address processing, as well as other specific examples, refer to Knowledgebase solution BB518.

Constituent Corner: International Flavor

Douglas Clinton — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:44:00 GMT

In today's global environment, it's likely your organization will have constituents with international addresses. For instance, the other day, Debbie Data at Nice Things Are Good was entering a gift from Jean Claude Van Damme. This was the first time that The Muscles from Brussels had donated to Nice Things Are Good, so Debbie entered him as a new constituent. To her consternation, she did not have Belgium in the country table, but she was able to add it on the fly. Since she had rights to add table entries, she was able to do this by following these steps:

Type "Belgium" in the country field.
Press Tab to move to the next field.
Click Yes when prompted to add Belgium to the country table.
Add BE as the short table entry.
Click OK.

With JCVD's donation in hand, Debbie was very pleased. Not only was the man who brought Guile to life now a constituent, but Nice Things Are Good had a new geographical demographic to explore. That's why Debbie was devastated when she printed thank you letters and Jean Claude Van Damme's address did not print.

Oh, snap!

Debbie opened Jean Claude Van Damme's record. Send mail to this Address was marked on his Preferred address. The Address Type "Maison" was included on the Individual Address tab and on the constituent record. He was active, alive, and had a valid address. What could it be?

Connie Configuration was able to solve Debbie's problem. Because Belgium was added on the record instead of the International tab in Configuration, Debbie never defined an address block. Since no address block was defined, the mailing had no field to merge. Here's are the steps Connie and Debbie followed to resolve the issue:

In Configuration, click International
Open Belgium
In the Display available fields for this country drop-down, select the appropriate country.

Note: If the country is not listed, select a country with a similar format and adjust the address block using the arrows and buttons at the bottom of the screen.

Highlight the appropriate fields in the Available fields frame and click the right arrow button to select them.
Note: If you insert the wrong field or need to remove a field from the address block, highlight the field and click the left arrow button.
Under the Available fields frame are additional characters that may be needed to format the address: colon, comma, dash, period, forward slash, new line, and space
In order for the formatted address block to take effect, enter the country in the Country field on the Bio 1 tab of the constituent.
Click Save and close

To ensure the proper format of the address, they referred to the Universal Postal Union Web site which provides address processing information and sample addresses.

While it was convenient for Debbie to add a new Country on the fly, it would have saved her a headache if she had set everything up in Configuration. Once she defined the Address Block on Belgium's record in Configuration, she was able rerun her letters. A few days later, Jean Claude Van Damme received a letter thanking him for his Gift-in-kind of fifty-seven copies of Double Team.

As usual, this is all in Knowledgebase. It's BB55941

Mail Musings: Address Processing, Part II: Organizations and Contacts

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:22:00 GMT

In an earlier blog post, I discussed how Address Processing works for Individual records. In this follow-up segment, we will look at how Organization and Contact records are processed in Mail.

For Organization Address Processing, if you have marked the option Mail Only to the Organization in Step 1, you will have the same steps as you followed on the Individual Address tab, minus the Seasonal Address. If you choose to mail to contacts, the process is defined by three steps, which consider contacts, contact address attributes, and specific address types.

When you are mailing to contacts, click the Contact Information button to select the contact types to include. The Contacts to Receive Mail screen appears.
You can include all or selected contact types. To select specific contact types, mark the Include Selected Contact Types Only checkbox and highlight the contact type or types to include. Click the right arrow to add it to your list. If you are including multiple contact types, use the up and down arrows to organize them by importance. If an organization has multiple contacts, the first valid contact is included, based on this hierarchy. If you want to send a mailing to each of the contacts at an organization, mark the Print one for each contact found checkbox. If a contact is also a constituent who is included in the mailing, you can select one of three mailing options: Mail to the individual address only, Mail to the contact address only, or Mail to both addresses separately. Additionally, you can filter on Contact Attributes and Contact Address Attributes to further refine your contact selection.
For Contacts, you will also have the option to indicate which rule to follow if there is no valid address in Steps 1 and 2. The options are to Print the Organization name with no address, Remove record from run, or Print specific organization address. The same rules apply as on the Individual Address tab.

All of the information in both of these posts, including additional screenshots and examples, is in Knowledgebase; it's BB518.

Mail Musings: Address Processing, Part I: Individuals

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:29:00 GMT

In a better world, every Individual, Organization, and Contact record would have one all-purpose address. Because the world isn't that perfect, The Raiser's Edge accomodates multiple addresses on each record. When it's time to send a mailing, Address Processing shuffles through those addresses to your specifications.

Although Address Processing only takes moments, it is a production worthy of David Lean. There are at most four steps involved, but a cornucopia of distinctions is being made.

On the Individual Address tab, there are four steps involved in Address Processing. The first three steps use seasonal addresses, address attributes, and specific address types. The final step gives you the option of selecting an address to use if a valid address is not found.

Address Processing considers each of these steps in order. If the Consider addresses with seasonal dates as of checkbox is marked, seasonal addresses will be considered first. If the date you select on this step falls within the range of the dates on a seasonal address record, it will be selected. If there are multiple seasonal addresses with a valid date on a record, the first address listed is used. If there is no valid seasonal address, the program moves on to Step 2.
In the second step, the Preferred Address defaults as the Address to use. If you wish to consider another address type or types, highlight the address type in the Addresses list and click the right arrow to move it to the Addresses to use list. If you want to consider more than one, list them in order of preference. Use the arrow buttons to move addresses up or down in the list.
If you use address attributes and wish to include them in the process, select the address attributes to consider in Step 3. For address attributes, both the category and description must be present on the address record for it to be considered. Before an address is considered, it must also be included in the Addresses to use list in Step 2. If you choose to use address attributes,, Address Processing checks the address record for the attribute’s presence before Step 1 and then proceeds with Steps 1 and 2.
In the event that a constituent does not have a valid address that meets the criteria in Steps 1-3, you have the option of choosing to Print with no address, Remove record from run, or Print Specific Address. Selecting print specific address opens up the option to choose from a list of address types to use. Even if the address is invalid, if that type is present on the record, it will print in the mailing.

That does it for the Individual Address tab. Keep your eyes peeled for Part 2 of this epic, where we tackle the Organization Address tab.