Does anyone have advice on how to best track activity for a separate campus? We are in the process of acquiring/merging with another school and want to be able to track all activity associated with campus #2 in a manner separate and distinct from campus #1. Should we use attributes or is there a better way? Thank you. Gerald O'Keeffe

Gerald: If you are using the Project Module, you could set up a project attribute called "location" and identify the projects that belong to each campus by that attribute.

Gerald - I would add a new segment to my account number that represents the campus. Since you are merging with another school, you might end up with duplications in departments as well as campuses, for example, having a science department on both campuses. If you want to report on the science department as a whole, you would report on the one department segment value. Or you could report on the campus segment value and the department segment if you wanted to compare the 2 science departments. Your account number could have segments for the fund, account code, campus, school and department. I wouldn't generally use a project for an item that is pretty much permanent to the organization. Hope this helps. - George Envision For Non-Profits Consultant for Blackbaud products [Email Removed] 727/442-1996 www.EnvisionFNP.com

George and Alex-thanks for the ideas. One more question: this situation will last for no longer than two years, at the end of which time, the students from campus #2 will physically move over to campus #1. We will then no longer have a need to track campus #2. Does using a project attribute make more sense given the relatively short time-frame for this? Gerald O'Keeffe

Gerald: I would definitely use the Project Attribute if it is a shortime deal. Then you could either close the projects related to that campus and transfer the balances to your original campus projects, or you could also retain those projects and change or eliminate the Location attribute. Jim Jim Buchheister Financial Edge Consultant

Jim, Thanks for this advice. Gerald O'Keeffe