Hi folks,

   Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.  Up until this point, our foundation has not used the action tab much.  As we move forward, I'd like to incorporate the use of this tab into our operations more, so that we have a better idea of our contact points with donors.  My question is, is there a way to batch actions for things like mass mailings?  Obviously, phone calls/meetings with donors should be entered as actions on an individual basis, but if I sent out a mailing to 1000 donors, I was wondering if there was an option to have RE automatically insert an action for this into each of the constituent records?

Matthew,

The easiest way to batch actions is a global add. We use for our newsletter and annual reports that go out to over 8,000 constituants. We use them for event mailings and smaller mailings as well, our cut off being if you have to add the same action to more than five people, use a global add. All you need is a query of the folks for the action.

The event procedures I added late last week have the global add process. If you have the BB Sample Database loaded, try a global add there just to test. Or try on a very small number of constituants.

Feel free to contact me directly at khartt@mainecf.org with any questions.

Karen

Hi Matthew,

The easiest way to add the same action information to a large number of records would be to do the following:

1. From the Administration page, select Global Add, Action

2. Point to the query or group of records that were sent the mailing (or whatever action that you are adding), using the Include button

3. Using the Action Information button, enter the action details that should be included for each record

You can choose to get an Exception query and whether or not you would like a Control Report at the bottom of the window.

Also, when you are entering actions on an individual basis, many users find it more efficient to go to the Records, Actions page to add the actions one-by-one rather than doing so from the Records, Constituent page where they would first have to access the constituent to add the action.

I hope you find this information helpful,

Naomi

 Aside from globally adding the actions, you can also import the actions. This gives you much more flexibility as the actions do not neccessarily have to conform to one type of action.

Also when you are adding indiviual actions you can set up a default set to add common features to individual actions.

I have been asked previously about creating an action batch plug-in. This would give the ultimate flexibility. Just as with gift batch you would be able to set default values but at the same time enter any value into the batch.

David

 Thanks so much!