The User's Edge : user options

The Raiser's Edge 7 For Beginners: Top 10 Tips

Douglas Clinton — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:30:00 GMT

Here's more from The Raiser's Edge 7 for Beginners. This Top 10 list is right at the front of the user guide and provides solid tips for everyone.

Save your parameter files so you don’t have to recreate reports and mailings each time.
Use Favorites so you can focus on just the parts of The Raiser’s Edge you use everyday.
Customize your workspace by using Home Page.
Use Dashboard to create reports and get a glimpse of how your fundraising efforts are going.
See only the fields and information you want by using Custom View.
Speed up your data entry by using Batch to enter data in spreadsheet format.
Press F1 anywhere in The Raiser’s Edge. The program knows where you are and offers help on the area you’re in.
Set User Options, or rules, to make The Raiser’s Edge behave the way you want on the workstation you are logged into.
Add system-wide Business Rules to help you work more efficiently in The Raiser’s Edge.
Back up your data!

The Raiser's Edge 7 for Beginners: User Options

Douglas Clinton — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:46:00 GMT

Last year, we introduced The Raiser's Edge 7 for Beginners, a User Guide which teaches users about The Raiser’s Edge in a lighthearted and straightforward style. The guide, as its title implies, is a great place for new users to start. From time to time, I'll post tips from the guide here on The User's Edge blog.

User options let you adjust settings in The Raiser’s Edge to suit your needs. To access them, select Tools, User Options from the menu bar. The Raiser's Edge 7 for Beginners has a few suggestions for users:

On the General tab, leave the Show tooltips checkbox marked.
On the General tab, leave the Automatically complete table entries checkbox marked
On the Home tab, leave the Show Favorites checkbox marked.
On the Home tab, add “Open individual” and “Open organization” as favorites.

You can check out the guide for yourself by going to Support, User Guides, Getting Started. Check back here often for more features on the guide.

Gift Gab: Suffixticated Gifts

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:39:00 GMT

Suffixes are often treated as afterthoughts, but occasionally a suffix can provide very important distinctions. For instance, there's a difference between Frank Sinatra and Frank Sinatra, as Jason Seaver discovered in The Breakfast Club (no, not that Breakfast Club).

Cal Ripken, Sr. was a great baseball man, but Cal Ripken, Jr. was a Hall of Famer; Richard I is in all the Robin Hood movies, Richard II was give the short end of the Henriad; James Bond is a pop culture icon, James Bond, Jr. is a pop culture footnote.

In other words, suffixes matter.

When you are looking at the Gifts tab on a Constituent record, a gift suffix can help you distinguish between hard credit and soft credit gifts with a glance. To add a suffix for soft credit gifts, follow these steps:

Select Tools, User Options from the menu bar.
Select the Color tab and highlight Legends.
Click View Gift Legend.
Highlight Soft on the left and make the appropriate selections, mark Suffix checkboxes and enter -sc.
Click OK.

Now, whenever a soft credit gift is entered, the suffix -sc will appear after the gift type. For example, a Cash gift that has been soft credited to a constituent will read "Cash-sc", distinguishing it from hard credit Cash gifts.

For more information, check out Knowledgebase solution BB520488.

The answer to the Brain Buster in this month's edition of The User's Edge is that Gaston's substitute teacher was also the football coach.

If a team was on its own 48 yard line and gained 5 yards, they would be on the opposing team’s 47 yard line.
If they gained an additional 3 yards, they’d be on the 44 yard line.
If they then lost 7 yards, they’d be back on their own 49 yard line.
If they lost an additional 6 yards, they’d be on the 43 yard line.
If they then had a big 15 yard gain, that would get them to the opposing team’s 42 yard line.

So:

48 + 5 = 47
47 + 3 = 44
44 - 7 = 49
49 - 6 = 43
43 + 15 = 42

Bringing Up Batch: Saved!

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:43:00 GMT

When it comes to saving batches while you're working in them, you could be Francisco Rodriguez or you could be Manuel Corpas. If your network goes down or your power goes out while you're working in Batch, you could lose loads of data entry. To protect yourself from the frustration of data loss, use the option to save your batches automatically.

In your batch, select Tools, User Options from the menu bar and select the Batch tab. Highlight General on the left and mark the Automatically save batches every [number] minutes checkbox. Enter a number, click Apply, and then click OK. You can also choose to mark the Automatically save batches on close option. Settings are user name-specific, so share this tip with any users at your organization who enter data in Batch.

This information is also in Knowledgebase; it's BB47773.

The answer to the Brain Buster from this month's edition of The User's Edge is zero. It is impossible for Robert to get exactly four of the packages labeled correctly, as the fifth one would also be labeled correctly.

Sarah's Shortcuts: You say "tomato", I say "tomahto"

Sarah McBride — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:52:00 GMT

The little differences between us keep life interesting and can often inspire us to break into roller-dancing. Okay, maybe the latter part's not true, but they do keep our minds alert by presenting us with fun communication challenges.

I recently befriended a German who decided to come States' side for the summer. His English is definitely strong, but I find about a third of our communication is accomplished through hand gestures. It's like a mini game of charades each time we get together...probably amusing to outside observers, and we enjoy the moments when we finally understand what the other is trying to say.

Unfortunately, differences in communication are rarely welcomed when it comes to reporting. If I'm trying to figure out how much we raised from our "tomahto" sale, and you keep talking about tomatoes, our "ah ha" moment may not come about, leaving us both frustrated and wondering why we didn't just stick with green beans instead.

The same communication chasm can happen in The Raiser's Edge if your reports display fund IDs, but you (or members of your organization) know them only by their full descriptions. You might as well be looking at them in a foreign language, but, sadly, the reports are unable to bridge the gap with hand gestures--that may be a new feature in version 8.

So what's the solution? It varies a bit depending on which report you're running, but in either case, you can easily clear up potential confusion (BB452882):

If the report has a Columns tab, move Fund Description (or Fund ID, if you prefer) to the Selected Columns frame. Problem solved.

In reports that do not have a Columns tab (or in versions prior to 7.70):

Select Tools, User Options.
On the Records tab, select Funds in the left frame.
In the Fund format drop-down, select Fund Description in place of Fund ID (or vice versa).

The same steps apply for campaigns and appeals if you want to choose a format that matches your communication style. Likewise, if you modify the format in User Options, the change will take effect in other parts of the program like Batch, Export, and Quick Find (BB33116).

Periodically, you may want to mix it up just to keep people on their toes. Besides, a little game of charades is always fun.

Report Roundup: How does the Currency Filter affect Reports?

Kevin Brunson — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:49:00 GMT

Good afternoon - welcome to my first post. It's my goal to post here occasionally with tips, tricks, and insights into The Raiser's Edge. In this post I'd like to talk about a common Support question concerning numbers that appear on Reports. Often times we hear from organizations that see 'unusual' numbers on their reports. For example, a donation is listed as $375.09 on a report but you know the donor actually gave $50. This is often caused by the Currency Filter field.

We recommend setting the Currency Filter field to 'None (recommended)' unless you want to only view donations that were given in a specific currency.

To set the Currency Filter to 'None (recommended)' go to Tools, User Options, and select the Reports tab. Highlight Gift Preferences, in the Currency Filter table select 'None (recommended)'. Note this field is user specific so make sure other users know. For more information on this you can review Knowledgebase solution BB88646.