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Unique Emails...

Last post 07-20-2009 4:07 PM by Ray Mauder. 2 replies.
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  • 07-20-2009 2:35 PM

    • Ray Mauder
    • Top 50 Contributor
    • Posts 134
    • Organization: Animal Friends
    • Products:  The Raiser's Edge

    Unique Emails...

    Reply Contact
    Can anyone tell me the pros and cons of enforcing unique emails in NetCommunity (or any other such type software)?  We've been advised to not require unique emails but are unsure of the ramifications.  It appears to me and co-workers that to not require these would only muddy up the already muddy water.  Can anyone offer any guidance of at least what your organization has opted to do?

    We're new to this type of software and appreciate any and all feedback.

    Feel free to contact me offline at:
    datasystems@animal-friends.org

    Ray Mauder
    Animal Friends, Inc.

  • 07-20-2009 3:18 PM In reply to

    • Marsha Wayman
    • Top 500 Contributor
    • User Since: 2005
    • Posts 22
    • Organization: Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region
    • Products:  Blackbaud NetCommunity, The Raiser's Edge

    Re: Unique Emails...

    Reply Contact

    Hi Ray -

    Nice to see another animal shelter represented on the message boards.I see that you have a cat named 'Hines' on your website pet database, which also happens to be the name of my cat. They even look alike...

    If I am reading your post correctly - you are asking if you should require a unique email to register online vs general guest log in. Is that assumption correct?

    I can certainly give pros and cons of each scenerio, as both have been tried on our website (www.hsppr.org). It depends a lot on how the information captured would be used. Are you building a user database to use for e-blasts or other forms of solicitation? If so, it would be necessary to require unique emails and registration information. I can tell you that when we began with this form of registration as a REQUIREMENT to log on to our animal database - we received thousands and thousands of registrations! Some of these were not valid addresses, so a lot of time was spent "validating" addresses prior to being added to the database. If you go this route, be sure you have the means to do this - especially if anything is being mailed out using this information.

    If you aren't planning to use log in information for solicitation purposes - it is much simpler to just have a general guest log in.

    We have gone the route now of just having open access to the animal adoption database, but we give users the option to create a log in if they wish to have access to e-blasts and other forms of solicitation. They can opt out at any time if they wish. Consequently, the number of registrations has dramatically decreased, but less time is spent on cleaning up the database and validating information.

     Hopefully this information helps?

  • 07-20-2009 4:07 PM In reply to

    • Ray Mauder
    • Top 50 Contributor
    • Posts 134
    • Organization: Animal Friends
    • Products:  The Raiser's Edge

    Re: Unique Emails...

    Reply Contact
    Your assumption is correct only we don't have a guest login.

    We are using this to collect data for both online and offline solicitation.  Since the user can opt out of both mail and email, we assume it they did not opt out, it's OK to add them to our active db.  Either way, we end up adding them just because RE requires us to before we can record the transaction.

    As to our site, we are set up the same as you are.  You don't need to create a login to view the pages.  Just for more advanced things.  However, since we do have online event registration, ticket purchases, class registrations, etc., we have to be able to determine who is who.  To further complicate things, we have hundreds (if not thousands) of people already in the database for which there is nothing else but an email address.  (We imported our previous e-blasts lists so we wouldn't lose anybody.)  I've noticed that it can be quite complicated to track someone down when you have multiple people with the same email.  In this case, you have to go a whole lot deeper in to the database to ascertain the information.

    We have a lot of duplicate people already in this database (why is way too long of a story) and I'm trying to keep that number from growing as best I can.  We are already having difficulties tracking down the constituent based on the email address.  We thought it was best to require the uniqueness just so we could track things a little more easily.

    I hope that makes sense.
    Ray Mauder
    Animal Friends, Inc.
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