I am new to an organization that uses Kintera for event management.  Last year, they hired a consultant to help them import the Kintera donor data into RE.  This resulted in a ton of duplicates.  Is there anyone who has experience with integrating data between Kintera and Raiser's edge?  Is there any tool that can be used for importing donor data without creating duplicates?

Chris Parrish

Development Officer - Database

Colorado AIDS Project

I am not familiar with Kintera but for deduplicating data before importing you could use a product that I have developed called IDLookup. You enter supply an import file and enter criteria to match on (last name, first name, org name, title, gender, address lines, zip/post code, email or any combination of these) and IDLookup finds if there are any matches in RE for the import file.

You are able to download a fully working version of the plugin that is tied to the sample database. Check out the details on my site.

 Feel free to contact me you need any more information.

Hello Chris,

Our organization adopted Kintera and had an import built to bring in data (one-way) to RE.  This was prior to Blackbaud and Kintera joining forces.  I could linger on the challenges, but regarding the dups, no, these will be a continuing issue.  Our IT department has worked closely with Kintera and now Blackbaud to address this issue.  The primary problem is, of course, the same that any web-based registration has where you do not require the registrant to set-up a user ID and password, which we don't.  We didn't want to loose registrants due to drop-off when forced to input an ID and password.  We are taking another look at this for purposes of certain events because the dups are significant but the problem is one that will continue because people just don't remember that they have already registered.  As we have a huge volume and growing database, we have added an employee whose task involves eliminating dup records.

That said, we continue to work on this time consuming issue.

If you want to talk to one of our IT guys about this more specifically, let me know.  I'm sure they will be happy to share our experience using the appropriate IT language!

Rena