The Raiser's Edge

Upgrading from MS Server 2000 to MS Server 2008 and RE 7.71-7.85

Franklin King — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:09:40 GMT

Are any of you Upgrading from MS Server 2000 to MS Server 2008 and RE 7.71-7.85? We are doing this at Wycliffe, and I actually built the server in the Summer, but due to issues with our Serenic NAV upgrade to NAV 5.02, RE was sent to the back burner.

We have reprioritized the RE upgrade now, and it is back at the top of the list...though NAV is still working through the bugs and issues.

Have any of you completed this upgrade, or are any of you doing this now, or are contemplating doing this soon?

I would like to touch base with you and see what you dealt with and maybe get some good tips. :-) Also, how did it all work with your existing Crystal Reports?

Thanks,

In His Service,Franklin KingApplications AdministratorWycliffe Bible Translators407-852-3623 (Office)407-883-8562 (Wireless)407-852-3601 (Fax)franklin_king@wycliffe.org

Knowledgebase Polls

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:18:43 GMT

How often does Knowledgebase provide you with the answers you need? Vote now!

If you can't find the answer to your question in Knowledgebase, do you use Case Central or do you call? Vote now!

Unable to run in Citrix after upgrade to 7.91

Matthew Daubert — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:12:42 GMT

After upgrading to RE 7.91, RE instances installed on our Citrix servers refuse to run. We get to the RE database selection screen, select the organization, and then get an error message "Access to The Raiser's Edge install directory and subdirectories has been denied. User rights should be checked." This happens when running as a domain admin. Locally installed clients are working perfectly fine. Anyone have any ideas? Our Citrix deployment is critical.

Bilingual salutations on mailouts

Mary Surette — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:34:15 GMT

We have a bilingual mailout: one side of our letter is English and one side is French. Would someone be able to tell me how (and where) you would post salutations in 2 different languages in Raisers Edge so that we could print both – one on one side of the letter and one on the other side of the letter.

(ie Mr. and Mrs. Smith

M. et Mme. Smith)

Greatly appreciate any assistance

Thank You

Changes in The Raiser's Edge 7.91

Douglas Clinton — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:39:21 GMT

There've been a lot of changes in The Raiser's Edge 7.91 and we know there are a lot of questions. Here are a few we've been hearing a lot.

One of the first changes you'll notice is that we've made changes to passwords. After you update to 7.91 or higher, you'll have to enter your password using all capital letters (e.g., ADMIN1 instead of admin1. After you log in using all capital letters, we recommend that you change your password by going to Edit, Change Password. If you don't change your password, you'll have to keep using all capital letters to log in. The password changes are a requirement of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Check out Knowledgebase solution BB608912 for more info.

Another big change is the 15 minute inactivity setting, which is another change made in accordance with PCI DSS, which requires users to re-enter passwords when a session has been idle for more than 15 minutes. When someone is locked out due to inactivity, processes like reports, mailings, exports, and queries will continue to run, and the user license will still be used. Knowledgebase solution BB620558 has more on this setting.

The most significant change is that The Raiser's Edge 7.91 now integrates with the Blackbaud Payment Service (BBPS) to store credit card numbers. Credit card numbers will be replaced with reference tokens and credit card information is kept in this secure, PCI DSS-compliant environment and only the last four credit card digits will display in The Raiser's Edge. When you process credit card transactions, your software will connect to the BBPS service. The reference token in your database will summon the stored credit card number to be used in the transaction.

Check out the Version 7.91 FAQs and post any questions you have here! I'll be answering questions all day

DONOR CATEGORY FOR THE ANNUAL REPORT

Rowenna De Jesus — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:15:57 GMT

If an employee pledged $3,000 through payroll deduction over 26 pay periods, which in most cases covers two fiscal years. On the donor honor roll, do you acknowledge him/her under the $3,000 gift category or for the total amount paid for the particular fiscal year?

Moves Management

Kate Lynch — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:52:46 GMT

Hi All,

We've used actions to record all prospect contacts for years. With our campaign on the horizon my office would like to track around 30 specific prospects in detail and assign multiple solicitors with multiple tasks spread over time. So for example for one prospect the HOS should call for lunch in a month, the Pres of Board should call in few weeks to see how trip went, and the DOD will write a personal note inviting to event in Spring, etc. But for the next prospect on the list there are completely different moves, dates, solicitors assigned. I looked into Action Tracks but realized that they are intended to be set up for more generic steps to be taken at the same time for different prospects. So that doesn't appear to be a solution unless I set up 30 individualized action tracks for each prospect on the list. Plus when I tested the reporting of an action track with two actions, the 2nd dependant on the 1st happening, the action report didn't show the 2nd action at all. Can anyone suggest how they deal with similar moves management and what reports work best so each solicitor can see all completed as well as scheduled actions (even within an action track). Any feedback and adivce would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Kate

Online Alumni Directory

Kathie Flatley — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:53:23 GMT

We are adding a secure, password-protected alumni directory to our website and I'm curious about how others have gone about it. We have the option of uploading home and business contact information and leaving it to the alumni to hide all or some of the data at their discretion, to upload the same data in a hidden state and allow the alumni to release the data at their discretion or to upload minimal data - name,class year, etc., and rely on the alumni to complete their contact information if they wish. In all cases, we would notify the alumni by mail in advance and offer them the opportunity to opt out. If you have such a directory and would be willing to provide some insight, I'd appreciate it! Thanks

Kathie Flatley

St.John's Preparatory School, Danvers, MA

receipting multiple batches

Rose Orr — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:29:49 GMT

I just attempted to post the following question in the "Export/Mail/Reports" section and I got a message about how the question needed to be approved by a moderator. I have never gotten that message before. Anyhow, I'm hoping that posting this question generally, rather than specifically, I may get a prompt response. I attempted to run receipts using multiple batch numbers, that is, I ran the receipts using the following criteria: type ABC receipts from all batches with a batch number greater than 1900. I was expecting about 75 receipts and instead I got 110 The additional receipts were from back more than 5 years ago and weren't even of the letter type I was asking for. I have no idea what caused me to get those extra receipts and it turned out to be quite a job to get rid of the unwanted ones. Any idea what I may have done wrong, or what step I may have missed that caused this to happen?

Action Records

Diana Bradley — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:09:10 GMT

If a solicitor has contact with someone who is not currently a donor, how do you track that in Action Records? Do you add the contact to the donor database, knowing that they are not a donor? I don't like to put people in the database simply to track a contact in Action Records. How should this be handled?

Anyone have any insights on Papersave/Raiser's Edge?

Travis Vowles — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 19:23:10 GMT

Hello!

We are looking to possibly implement Papersave to store correspondence with donors, gift agreeements, etc. within the Raiser's Edge rather than continuing to maintain hard files. Are there any current Papersave/RE users out there who would be willing to share some of their insights/likes/dislikes/etc regarding the software itself and the integration between Papersave and RE?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Advertising as Gift in Kind

Ali Faisal — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:34:44 GMT

I have a situation where we had media partners that have given university free advertising on a local business digest- Can it be recorded as GIK?

and I am curious to know if anyone has a system of coding this type of situation in RE7. It is a squishy sort of GIK -

Thank you for your help.

Gift Cards during the holidays

Aldervan Daly — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:50:40 GMT

Hello,

We receive thousands of dollars in gift cards each year during the holidays. I am wondering how other people credit donors and what gift type(S), payment type(S) and such that they use.

Thanks,

Aldervan

Forum Post Moderation

Douglas Clinton — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:10:48 GMT

As some of you already know, Forum posts are currently not publishing right away and are being moderated instead. We are working to address this issue because it is not our intention to moderate every post on the Forums. Sorry for the inconvenience and we'll be back to business as usual as soon as possible.

transferring to a letter the info found in a donor category report (for donor recognition wall)

Latrelle Burk — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:12:28 GMT

I am trying to send out letters to all of our donors to our last capital campaign asking them to verify how they want their information listed on the new donor wall. I used a Donor Category Report to get all the names in the different categories and the total amount that each donor gave. The letter, to begin with, is set up in the traditional way of date, address block, salutation. The body of the letter is generic, thanking them again for their donation and asking them to verify the info at the bottom of the letter by a certain date. Now this is where I'm having trouble: at the bottom of the letter, I want to list the category they are in (i.e., $500 - $999) and then a secondary salutation set up specifically for this campaign.

I've tried using quick letters but am unable to use a 2nd salutation. And I have yet to find anything where I can pull their specific category.

Any ideas?

Thanks for everyone's input and help. Without it, I'm looking at doing this manually for several hundred letters!

Auction using only the Raiser's Edge

Brandon Ferris — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:25:09 GMT

I work at an independent school that runs an annual auction. We have been using AuctionMaestro Pro for two years, and have found that we use very little of its overall functionality.

We are exploring whether or not we can run the auction without AMP, using just Raiser's Edge (we have the events module). Does anyone have any experience with this? Any insights?

Thank you.

Changes to the Downloads page

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:47:08 GMT

We have streamlined The Raiser's Edge downloads page to make it easier to find the information you need. Check out the redesigned page and let us know what you think by replying to this thread.

Monitoring Number of Users

Rebekah Grote — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:34:24 GMT

Hi all,

Is there a way for me to monitor how many people are logged in to RE at one time? I have a large number of new users and am worried that people will not be able to get onto the system because all of our user licenses are being used. I'd like to monitor the numbers of people on before making the decision to increase our user license.

Thanks!

Rebekah Grote, WCS

Relationships - Organizational Contacts

Colleen Maglone — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:37:40 GMT

My mailings have many duplicates in them because I have someone who has their own record, they are also a contact on an organization that we mail to, and they are also on another organization reocord as a contact because they sit on their board. I have a variety of mailings that I send out that are more than just fundraising, like our school magazine, invitations to school events, etc.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to handle this?

Thanks,

Colleen

Papersave

Colleen Maglone — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:45:59 GMT

Can I contact anyone and discuss this product over the phone?

Thanks,

Colleen

Billing

Joanna Benton — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:03:57 GMT

I am a little stumped as to how I create an invoice/billing letter for capital pledge installments which are due before the end of the year.

Membership Reports

Cindy Britz — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:38:15 GMT

I am testing out some membership reports and of course things don't seem to match up. Can anyone give some insight on which ones they find most useful? Also, when you run them do you choose to only include active members or do you include ALL members (active, lapsed, dropped)? No one else in our organization uses RE so, if I run the report and share the information I want to be able to explain what they are looking at.

I have been looking at Membership Dues Report and the Comparative Statistics Report.

How long do you let a membership lapse before you drop that membership?

Thanks,
Cindy Britz

Enter event donations when checks are going to other non-profit

Julianne Fonseca — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:38:45 GMT

Hi,

We have a yearly event that is under another non-profit (in fact there are many non-profits that participate in this event). Checks/donations come to us first and then go directly to this other non-profit to deposit, and they in turn send us a few large checks to cover the donations they received on our behalf. Currently we enter the the checks as pledges and then when the bigger checks come we will pay off the smaller pledge. Which I think is going to be a nightmare - I came after they set up this procedure. Does anyone else deal with a situation like this - if so how do you handle it? I've spoken to other non-profits that participate in this event, and some enter the gifts as Other.

Any help will be greatly appreciate.

Thanks

Julianne

julianne@crossroads4kids.org

Constituent Codes in a batch

Rose Orr — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:50:49 GMT

I have set up a batch template to input pledges from an annual event at our organization. The problem I am having is that I have to manually add the constituent code and it is very time consuming. We have had a student go through all the pledge forms and add the constituent numbers for all the pledges (which number in the thousands) and I have pre-populated most of the batch report. Essentially I can now whip through the data entry with the exception of this one field. I did an import to add all the new constituents, and I made the constituent code part of that import so, for NEW constituents, I don't have to add the code, just for the thousands of constituents who are already in the database. Any suggestions, or thoughts as to why I can't pre-populate the constituent code field?

Knowledgebase Videos

Douglas Clinton — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:18:03 GMT

We are adding short videos to some of our most popular Knowledgebase solutions to illustrate all or some of the steps in the solution. Here are some solutions for The Raiser's Edge that have videos:

We'd like to know what you think of them, so after you've checked out the videos, let us know what you think on the Knowledgebase Feedback Forum.