I was just curious to know if anyone out there has worked with Convio (An online marketing software)? The nonprofit I work for has just recently purchased the software and I will be helping with the data sync/data maintenance aspect of the transition. I want to know if you have any suggestions or any best practices models that I can follow. We are going to be working with consultants, however I would love to get some feedback from anyone that’s actually gone through the entire process. Thank you, Jennifer

I have many many many stories about Raisers Edge and Convio Data sync. You may contact me offline with you specific questions. Scott Scott A. Crow Director of Data Services Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization [Email Removed]

Hi Jennifer, We're at the tail end of a very rocky deployment. Short version: In my judgment, Convio's probably great if you're using it out of the box and don’t already have a robust website, but they’re not very good at customizing what they do to fit existing systems. Either way, they require a lot of management (and pushing) as vendors to keep timelines and to make sure issues don’t fall through the cracks. Happy to share more offline, if it's helpful! Bran Scott [Email Removed] Database Administrator Second Harvest Food Bank

I have had plenty of headaches trying to integrate our online gifts from Convio into RE. It in no way is meant to map to RE and the reports and so restrictive. At the worst of times we have actually had to print off reports from Convio and use gift batch to enter the gifts into RE. But the most frustrating thing about Convio is that you can never ever delete anything. if you make up a campaign just to test how its done, it's there forever - this goes for everything. And when the system is upgraded, and all the campaigns and forms can be designed differently, those created in the old system remain in their old format, sticking out like some annoying relic. Steven Best Finance Officer BC Cancer Foundation [Email Removed] www.bccancerfoundation.com

I started here at SOS less than two years ago.  I inherited Convio, which was half way through implementation.  I have been using RE for years and helped implement Convio once before from the marketing, not data management, side of things.

 Needless to say, this has been a disasterous experience for me.  The Convio Connector is a joke, and most clean-up is going to fall on me.  I would be interested in talking to someone else about there experiences.  Is anyone willing to share?

Tony Lee
DBA, SOS Children's Villages-USA
tlee@sos-usa.org
(202) 470-5174

 

If you are interested in more details and war stories (learn from others!) go to: http://www.blackbus.org/forum/netcommunity-bbnc/3564-convio-drupal-civicrm-citysoft.html#post19384

 

 

Scott,

I hope you don’t mind me contacting you.  I know it's been a while since your post on the forum.  I've been looking at the various posts regarding the DataSync and am in need of a little guidance.  We are drawing near to the end of the configuration and have a few issues I'm not sure how to address.

One of them is Sustaining Gifts.  We have pledges which are being paid off via monthly donations on Convio's end.  I don't know of a way to import them, at least not an easy way, and can't seem to figure out a way to do it that isn't manual.  Did you come up with one?  I looked at Blackbaud's KB regarding the posting of pledge payments and it is a VERY involved process.  I managed to get Convio to download the sustaining Gifts into a separate file.  But, I then have to go into RE and manually apply them to a pledge

Also, Teamraiser.  I'm trying to account for registrations, donations and monies given in support of a participant.  Convio says it can do this but not from what I'm seeing in the 'live' data files I'm seeing.  I get the idea it is all going to get mixed up; that won't make my Accounting department happy.

Also, did you come up with a way to generate a report which would detail the gifts you just imported?  I would LOVE to be able to generate a report which has the same information on it as the Batch Control report but am not sure how.  The Accounting department will have to deal with whatever I come up with.  I know they will want the fund breakdown so they know where to apply the monies.

Finally, do you deal with Tributes at all?  We have the RE tribute module and have adapted it to work for us.  However, I don't see how we can possible integrate it with Convio.  We use the RE module so we can give the trib acknowledgees a total for the monies given toward the tribute.

I don't mean to both you with so many questions but the rep wants us to sign off on the project and we still have several outstanding issues.

I appreciate any direction you can give me.

Thanks and have a great day!

Sincerely,
Ray Mauder
**********************************
Development Assistant

Animal Friends, Inc.
Caryl Gates Gluck Resource Center
562 Camp Horne Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15237
(412) 847-7053
rmauder@thinkingoutsidethecage.org