The Patron Edge

Hosting a Web Server

Sean Long — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:57:36 GMT

Hey guys!

I'm always interested in hearing about how you tackle things in your organizations, so I thought I would try to start a thread on people's experiences on hosting a website (not limited to PEO).

Who out there hosts their own website? Did you contract a design firm to design the layout or tackle it yourselves? What are some technologies that helped you (or would have helped you starting out)?

Coupons

Farah Dunks — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:08:01 GMT

Does anyone know where I can find a report that will show a complete list of each coupon that a cashier used during their shift? The only thing that I can find is a report that adds all the discounts/coupons for the day. I know that the discount report is corrupt but we have a custom report that we use. If anyone can give me any direction it is greatly appreciated!!!

Processing cancellation fees in PE

Carolyn Kotlarski — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:04:41 GMT

We're a new/soon to convert to PE/O. How are current PE/O users processing cancellation fees - when the registrants wants to cancel and registration and receive a refund (including vouchers and gift certificates? For most of our events/classes, there is a variable cancellation fee and we aren't completely sure how to approach processing/tracking/reporting the cancellation fee.

Would you create an event for the cancellation fees and then refund the class/event fee to a voucher/client account and then register them for the fee and refund the remainder (class fee minus cancellation fee = amount returned)?

Automatic renewal of memberships?

Vicki Young — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:19:07 GMT

Does anyone have an autorenew program in place that wouldn't mind discussing it?

Obviously, PE just has a checkbox with no functionality, no reporting, etc. We would like to set up an auto renewal program and wanted to see how others were implementing it around the limitations of PE.

Call, email, post, whatever works for you!

TIA,

Vicki Young

vickiy@childrensmuseum.org

317-334-3210

Network/Virtual Machine BOCA Ticket Printing with PE

Bernie McCormick — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:49:54 GMT

Just so everyone has the information we recently discovered while trying to tackle the challenges of printing to a BOCA via network/Virtual Machines on PE 3.310.732:

Virtual Machine: Using VMware Workstation 6.5 and Windows Virtual Machine, we were only able to successfully print via Network(below) or mapped-through parallel. Printing via USB>Parallel adapter was not working, since you could not specify the port that the USB enumerator was using.

Network (JetDirect): Set the printer up, in Windows, as a local printer, using a local IP port, pointing at the IP address of the JetDirect card. Use the Boca drivers in Windows, verify you get a good test page.

In PE, under Administration>Print Setup>Printers, create a new "Generic Windows" printer - give it whatever description you want. For port, use the _exact_ name of the printer in the Windows Printers/Device UI. In our case, it was the default, which was "Boca FGL 24/44 200 DPI". We used no emumeration, and set all other settings to '0'.

Set your local TixPrintserver to point to the newly created printer. When printing through PE, you can still select printer type as "Boca" even though the device is defined in PE as a generic windows printer. The BOCA drivers in Windows seem to handle the BOCA commands. Even when the ticket format was created in "Boca" format, we were able to print normally.

Network (Windows Share): If you share a locally attached printer, or a printer mapped via IP port to JetDirect (see above), then you can print to that as well. To do so, add the printer in Windows, using Boca drivers, to the windows share. It will be added to your list of available printers as "PrinterDriverName on WindowsComputerName". In PE, create follow the steps above, and for the port, use "PrinterDriverName on WindowsComputerName". While this did work, it created a delay in ticket printing when the machine sharing the printer was on a different network from the machine mapping to the printer.

Considering switching to PE from another system

Alexis Pelletier — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:13:11 GMT

The Wish List Thread

Chip Cannon — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:53:35 GMT

What features would you like to see in PE & PEO? What are some of the things on your wish list? It seems that every few days I’ll be searching around in the Knowledge Base for a solution to a problem and come across an article that says:

“This request has been filed as a suggestion. While we may not implement it, we will review it for possible use in future product development. Add me to the list.”

Who knew? I wonder how many people have to be added to the list before the developers really sit up and take notice. And I wonder how many people are wanting the same features, but have never stumbled on the Knowledge Base article or told support about their wish list. And I wonder how many people would really get some good use out of a particular feature, but have never really thought about it. I propose that we use this forum to get the word out to all users and to Blackbaud about our own personal wish lists. If you have an idea of something you’d like to see added to PE/PEO, post it here. If you see an idea that would benefit your organization, reply back to the post. And if you know that this has already been filed as a suggestion, list the Knowledge Base article so others can add themselves to the list. Heck, we might even find out that another user or Blackbaud has already solved this problem.

So here’s two quick items from my wish list:

1) Set up a feature in PEO so we can hold seats for a specific group or organization. Only online users with a special code can gain access and select those seats. This way we can hold specific seats for Members or Radio partners and allow these users to utilize on-line ordering. (Go to Knowledge Base solution BB34149 and add yourself to the list if this interests you.)

2) Show the e-mail address on the main page of the Client Portal, just like is done with Phone and Addresses. Capturing and verifying e-mail addresses is extremely important for marketing and communications to our customers. But it wastes valuable time when PE users have to drill into the address edit field to even see if an e-mail address exists for a Client and if it is correct.

These are just a couple of things that I’d like to see implemented sooner rather than later. If these interest you, make your voice heard in this forum and with Blackbaud. And start tossing out your wish list items so we can all weigh in.

Membership sold from RE

Vicki Young — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:44:27 GMT

Hi,

We're a very large organization with a long RE history, and we've had PE about 3 years now. Donor memberships are housed in RE, Member memberships are sold from PE. Even before PE, these were separate because processing occurs in 2 different depts.

There is discussion about selling 'member' memberships out of RE now, and I've been tasked with determining why we Can't. Aside from losing POS items (coupon support, cash drawers, afterhours/weekend/holiday support), I've not found The Reason why we Can't.

Anyone?

Membership cards & membership scanning

Lisa Spivak — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:38:36 GMT

Hi all,

We recently purchased PE and will be working on implementing it over the next year or so. We are a membership-based organization and our members have cards which we print out of RE using the Membership Card function in mail. We have our cards set up to "Create custom data file" and then we merge this information into Microsoft Word and print the cards/letters from there. We hadn't been printing barcodes on our membership cards, but I wanted to start doing that so that once we are up and running with PE, we'll be able to start scanning membership cards without mailing new cards to all of our 9,000 members.

In asking some initial questions, my rep informed us that there is an issue with printing membership cards in Word 2007 -- the membership barcode can't be scanned in PE. I contacted support and they said there really isn't a workaround in the works, since the problem is with Microsoft and not with PE. They recommended buying Blackbaud's pre-printed forms, which don't present the same problem since they are printed directly from RE instead of being exported into Word first.

Has anyone encountered this problem, and does anyone have any advice about a workaround? I could buy the pre-printed forms, or even order from a different printer, but I don't like the format of the pre-printed cards, still have a year's worth of existing cards left with no money in the budget to order more, etc etc etc. I could use some advice, as this is my first stumbling block (though I know I will encounter more) and I'm a little frustrated.

Thanks!

.asp pages

Lis Sinniger — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:06:08 GMT

I am doing a graphic redo for a client website. The only things I need are: Website directory - Where .css, .asp and the images directory in which updated images go. How do I do this. DB, scripting and other functions controlling I/O will not be touched, just the graphics and CSS used to format and control how the page will display, nothing else. I have not seen any simple, clear information regarding this. Any help would be terrific. Bob Moran

Parking fees as an event

Ralph Welch — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:47:36 GMT

We charge a small fee for parking in our museum's lot. For a variety of reasons, we can't charge this at the lot's entry point, and instead sell them at the front desk as well as online. We've been selling them as a merchandise item, which works fine for onsite sales. However, it doesn't work well with online sales because there's no print-at-home capability with merchandise sales. I'm considering selling these as an event, does anyone have any experience with this?

Ticket Printers

Katharine Alexander — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:30:14 GMT

My institution is looking into buying some bulk ticket printers. Currently we just use paper receipts. Looking at what is out there, it seems that Boca printers are the most common, but there is also the Datamax S-series. Does anyone have experience with any one of these companies, any issues with Patron's Edge?

Packages

Virginia Carter — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:00:33 GMT

In the user guide, the directions for setting up packages show this:

" On the action bar, click Content and Benefits. The Content and Benefits screen appears " Great...but in the image, it shows:

"Merchandise Memberships Series Price Levels etc"

across the top -- I don't have that on mine, and I can't progress any farther without it. What step have I missed?

Address Lookup Software

Joseph Pelish — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:30:25 GMT

Does anyone use any third party address lookup and verification software? I am looking for one that will work well with PE.

Thanks,

Joe Pelish
Asolo Repertory Theatre

PE in Virtual Environment

Karen Wilburn — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:41:34 GMT

Does anyone have feedback and/or direct experiece with using PE on a virtual server? We are contemplating converting our existing servers to virtual, but want to make sure this will work. Thanks, Karen

PEO CSS background images

Ellen Slatter — Tue, 05 May 2009 11:20:34 GMT

Hi all,

Hopefully somebody can help me out - I can't work out why background images, for example on buttons, won't show after adding them into stylesheets.

I'm sure the path to the image is correct and that no-repeat tiling and fixed scrolling is what I need, but my jpeg images will not show on the PEO page.

Any ideas??

Thanks in advance!

Fundraising event sales - are they donations or tickets?

Catherine Arias — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:59:32 GMT

What advice do you have for how to set up ticket sales for a fundraising event where the ticket price should be recorded as a gift in RE? We have done this as regular ticket sales in PE and PEO, and are also experimenting with selling the tickets as donations in PE so that they synch easily with the gift records in RE. What are the advantages and pitfalls for either approach? Is there a better compromise so that you can sell flexibly through PE (online and over the phone) and get a clean list of event attendees whose RE constituent records all show their ticket purchases as gifts?

Poll regarding pruning old forum posts - Please vote!

Nicholai Burton — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:57:15 GMT

To make searching the forums more efficient, we are considering deleting unanswered forum posts that are more than six months old. Take the poll in our Feedback Forum.

Tips and feedback needed! About to integrate PE into RE!

Melissa Walker — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:35:32 GMT

Hello! My organization is a children's museum (we are new and plan to open this summer). We have had RE and FE for awhile now and are preparing to integrate PE and PEO. We have a blackbaud rep coming to meet with us next week. I wasn't involved in the process of deciding to go with PE, so I am not very familiar with it. And now I am expected to be the database administrator for it (I am currently the RE database manager by default). I would really appreciate any tips or feedback of things we need to think about now as we set up PE and begin integrating it with RE. I'd also like to hear other people’s experiences with using RE, PE and PEO so that I am more prepared for what to expect. We are a museum so we'll be selling tickets, memberships, school field trips, birthday parties, and taking donations through PE and PEO. Thanks in advance for any help you can give me! Melissa

Order Type Details

John Bobnick — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:29:46 GMT

I am going to start using Order Type Details to capture e-mail address' at our Admissions Booth. We are a General Admission museum, so we do not associate an order with a client. There is no canned report to get get this information. I know it is being stored in the Orders table in SQL. Does anyone know how I can pull this information out from the backend? I would like to pull by date and the specific Order Type Detail that I create. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

John

PE Job Description

Paul Laurenz — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:40:45 GMT

We have been a RE/FE organization for many years, and those are working swimmingly, and I have been the guru over these systems. I am about to take on PE administration for our org as well. I need some language for "Patron Edge Administrator" to put into my position description. I would like to receive any language that you might have that describes your position in regards to PE Administrator.

Many thanks,

Paul Laurenz
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Foundation
paul.laurenz@vmfa.museum

Setting up year/Getting started

Virginia Carter — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:54:32 GMT

I'm hoping someone can help me, as I don't really want to contact my rep (yet!). We are very new to Blackbaud and, in fact, are just now in the process of setting up the year for the first time. This is my homework, and I don't want to "cave in" and send an email to my rep just yet. Besides, I figured this was a good opportunity to see how helpful the boards are! :)

I am working on setting up all of our Series. I have one that includes 9 events out of 21 possible. It doesn't matter which 9 out of those 21, and they all have the same dollar value when this package is purchased.

However -- everytime I set the prices for each individual program (under Series Price List > Choose Series > Click Prices > Click Shows > Set prices) the "OK" button doesn't light up so that I can exit out. I know it's because the total for all of the 21 events is $525, and the price of the package is only $225, so I'm assuming because there's a discrepancy, it won't let me "save" it.

I've gone back and looked to make sure that this particular Series designates only 9 events (out of the possible 21)

Anyone able to tell me where I've gone wrong? Thanks!

Create Membership Cards from PE?

Craig Power — Fri, 23 May 2008 20:28:52 GMT

Hi all,

Is anyone out there creating membership cards directly from Patron Edge, and if so, how are you going about doing it? We are trying to find some way in which we could create membership cards immediately at our box office as members join or renew.

We're currently running Patron Edge integrated with Raiser's Edge. Right now we collect the membership information on a paper form, which is sent to a separate off-site office where a membership staff person verifies the data and generates membership cards through Raiser's Edge, which are then sent to the member via US Mail.

My ideal would be that when a member comes to our admission desk to buy or renew a membership, we would enter / verify the data into PE, complete the sale, and immediately print out a barcoded membership card through PE that could be given to the customer right on the spot. Right now, due to latency in the PE - RE synchronization process, and because an RE membership number for new memberships isn't available until the sync process completes, we can't do something like this.

Has anyone else been down this road, and if so, what'd you find?

Thanks,

Craig

Password Protected Event

Greg Hyska — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:32:18 GMT

Is there any means by which to restrict the purchase of tickets to an event on PEO to individuals who recieve an password, or special invitation?

Perhaps something as simple as a hidden event that you can only get to if you know the url to go to?

subscriptions: place holder areas or wait lists

R.J. McComish — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:53:04 GMT

Does anyone have any experience using place holder areas or wait list for subscriptions?

When we were taking new subscription orders for our upcoming season we placed new subscribers in a “placeholder” area, basically an area that was added to the layout just so we could take payment for the order and then seat people later. I’m wondering if anyone has had any experience with using this placeholder option and if it worked well for you. Did it effect rollover into the next season at all?

Blackbaud support has given us diffent answers regarding how this should work. For example, we were told that we would be able to delete the place holder area once all of the subsribers had been moved from it but that is not the case. Also, we were first told we shouldn’t use the wait list option as it wasn’t flexible in terms of seating multiple people or upgrading to higher price ranges but later another support person recomended using the wait list. Does anyone have experience with actually using these options in real life situations.

- R.J. McComish PortTix Box Office