The Book Bag : Integration Insight

Integration Insight: Oh Records Where Art Thou?

Allison Davis — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:06:00 GMT

You open the linking grid and particular records are missing. Perhaps no Students appear in the linking grid or only records you linked previously appear in the linking grid. Why does this happen? There are a few factors that determine which records appear in the linking grid:

1. Integration Setup

In Set up Integration, let’s say you selected to include students with a particular status and/or grade level. You may need to cross-reference the student’s Education Edge record with your selection in the Students section of Set up Integration with The Raiser's Edge to see if the Student meets the criteria to be included in the linking grid. The same is true for Individuals who are relationships to students.

2. Filters in the Linking Grid

The Filters Button in the Linking grid is the most common culprit. Sometimes users will select particular record types to show only Faculty or only Students in the Linking Grid. When a different user looks at the linking grid, he may wonder why certain records are missing.

3. Drop-downs in the Linking Grid

Add As - In the Add As field, you can filter by Constituent or Nonconstituent if The Education Edge is the record source. If The Raiser's Edge is the record source, you can filter by Individual or Organization.

Matches - In the Matches field, you can select to show records in the grid based on matching status:

<All> - Shows all records regardless of matching status.
Any Match - Shows only records that are matched to a record in the target database based on your matching criteria.
All Unmatched Records - Shows only records that are not matched to a record in the target database based on your matching criteria.
All Unlinked Records - Shows only records not linked to a record in the target database.
Linked - Shows only records that are linked to a record in the target database.
Match - Shows only records that are matched to a single record in the target database based on your matching criteria.
Multiple Match - Shows only records that are matched to multiple records in the target database based on your matching criteria.
Academy Manager Match - Shows only records with an Academy ID that matches an Academy ID on a record in the target database.

Conflicts- In the Conflicts field, you can select to show records in the grid based on conflicts:

<All> - Shows all records regardless of conflicts.
Data Conflict - Shows only records with different values in mapped fields.
Multiple EE Match - Shows only records with more than one matching record in the Education Edge database.
Multiple RE Match - Shows only records with more than one matching record in the Raiser’s Edge database.
Multiple Address Matches - Shows only matching records with multiple address matches.
<None> - Shows only records without conflicts

Integration Insight: New Features Part 3

Allison Davis — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:12:00 GMT

You are working in the linking grid and see a record that does not belong, such as a withdrawn student. You right-click on the student’s row and open his Education Edge record, change his status to Withdrawn, and save and close the record. This ineligible record no longer meets the criteria based on your Integration setup, but he remains in the linking grid.

In version 7.78, you can click the Remove Ineligible Records button on the linking grid toolbar to remove these records. The Remove Ineligible Records option only refreshes the grid to remove previously eligible but no longer eligible records that are not matched. Clicking this button will not refresh the data displayed in each column and will not add rows to the grid.

If data changes on matched records to make the matches no longer valid based on the matching criteria, the user will need to manually remove the matches or click Match All Records to recalculate the matches.

Integration Insight: New Features Part 2

Allison Davis — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:37:00 GMT

Linking records through Integration can be a time-consuming task. It can be difficult to determine if matches are correct in the linking grid because sometimes students and parents happen to have the same names (i.e., Jr. and Sr.). Without opening their respective records, it is difficult to know which record is which. You may even see Multiple EE matches or Multiple RE matches in the Matching Records field because records have similar names.

In version 7.78, you can open and even edit records from the linking grid. In the linking grid in The Raiser's Edge, right-click on a match and open The Education Edge or The Raiser's Edge record.

Here's the open record lowdown:

Once you open the record, you can also edit information on the records such as addresses, relationships, biographical information, applications, enrollments, and history of changes.
If a particular row has multiple matches, the Open option displays the Multiple Matches so you can select the record to open.
You can only open Education Edge records from the linking grid in The Education Edge. We're working on adding functionality to open both Education Edge and Raiser's Edge records from The Education Edge linking grid in a future version.

Integration Insight: New Features Part 1

Allison Davis — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:19:00 GMT

Integration maps fields and relationships between two databases. The synchronization process looks at the database with the most recent update on these linked records. If the records in both programs were updated since the last synchronization, the most recently updated record wins and overwrites the other program's record.

To keep your data accurate, you should synchronize often. We recommend synchronizing, either manually or automatically, from a single workstation every 15 minutes. When your databases have not been synchronized in more than a day, you can experience issues such as overwritten data.

In version 7.78, you will notice some new prompts appearing when you manually synchronize data. This message informs you of the last time synchronization ran and our recommendations for synchronization. This will help to ensure data changes are accurately reflected in both databases.

The longer you wait to synchronize, the more likely you will lose record changes in one or both databases. Synchronization does not keep track of changes in the order in which they were made. The issue especially occurs with the sharing of address and phone data. For example:

Let's say you run synchronization twice a day, at 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. At 9:00 a.m. you change an address from 123 King St. to 123 King Street in The Raiser's Edge. At 2:00 p.m. the Registrar changes the Zip code from 29403 to 29402 on the King St. address in The Education Edge. At the 5:00 p.m. synchronization any changes will come from the database last updated; in this case, The Education Edge. This means the synchronized address will be 123 King St. with a Zip code of 29402.

Here are some important tips to keep synchronization running smoothly:

To manually synchronize data, click Synchronize Data on the Integration page.
To automatically synchronize data, you can establish settings in your Microsoft Scheduled Task Wizard application. For more information on setting up a scheduled task, see Knowledgebase solution BB211850.
We recommend that you automatically synchronize data every 15 minutes.
All of this is explained in Knowledgebase solution BB604658.

Stay tuned for the next post on new Integration features!