Hello, These forums don't seem to be very active, but despite that, I thought that I would post the following general questions to gauge peoples' experience: * What do you think of PE / PEO? Is it working as you had anticipated and/or hoped? Do the programs operate for you as purported and expected? Do you think that it was worth the money and effort that your organization spent to license and implement it? We have been using PE / PEO, integrated with RE, for the past several months. I'm curious what other organizations' experiences with these products have been. Comments and viewpoints welcomed. Craig

We have integrated RE and PE. This summer we hope (or at the end of summer) to integrate also w/PEO. The integration is a work in progress. PE is tough to navigate when you're used to the RE world - ESPECIALLY in the membership realm. We're a museum w/membership levels - and I think PE probably is ideal for symphonies and the like that sell subscriptions, etc. Our membership synchronization is on but isn't quite working right and the duplicate problem is a huge issue. You can put the same person in 15 times w/o PE ever recognizing that person as a dupe, where RE catches different fields - name, address and will alert you when there is a match. How do you like it? Regina Regina M. Holten Membership Manager Maryland Science Center [Email Removed]

OMG, I feel like someone crawling through the desert who finally spots an oasis! Are you real, Craig? Or was that pop-up window announcing and email from Patron Edge Forum just a figment of my imagination? I started working at the Florida West Coast Symphony in Sarasota at the end of May. So although I've used Raiser's Edge for 17 years I've only been exposed to Patron Edge for 38 days. We are having our issues with the integration with RE and FE. Today's issue is that for some reason if a donation is included with the subscription the donation will end up in the Spouse's record instead of the Group Leader/Head of Household record. I'm uploading my data to BB as I type. The PEOnline works fine as far as I know. I will take over the web part of that next month and I have to say that the person doing it now is way too eager to be rid of it. I hope there will be more activity in the forum. Michael Sherman Database Administrator Florida West Coast Symphony

BB has my data...has had it for over 48 hours over the membership synch issue. I can only imagine the problems if we synched ALSO w/FE! Do you sell memberships via PEO? Regina Regina M. Holten Membership Manager Maryland Science Center [Email Removed]

We will be selling subscriptions through PEO next week for the first time. Michael Sherman Database Administrator Florida West Coast Symphony [i]--- Edited at 8/7/2007 10:04:18 AM by Michael Sherman[/i]

I think selling subscriptions works much easier than memberships via PE. Let me know how it goes! Indeed, this forum could be an oasis! Regina Regina M. Holten Membership Manager Maryland Science Center [Email Removed]

Hello, We have been using PE & PEO for about a year now here at The Children's Theatre Company. We will be integrating with RE in the coming weeks. I would say that we've had mixed results with both of these products. While they have improved over the last year, there are some functions that are still very cumbersome and don't function as described when we purchased the product. We're working to adapt to the way that PE & PEO work, but it has been a challenge at times. There are some great things about these systems though. My Accounting dept is really happy, as it seems to balance properly. The Select-A-Seat functions in PEO have brought about increases in people purchasing tickets online. It is fairly easy to train users in PE. As far as value for the money, I'd have to say that I think it is overpriced, particularly if you figure in the cost of maintenance. As the product continues to improve, we will probably become happier with it, or will adjust better to its idiosyncracies. Dan Wozney Systems Administrator The Children's Theatre Company Minneapolis, MN

We have had issues with PE users adding gifts to the non-Head-of-Household record and softcrediting the HOH. With the integration comes a whole new Constituent Merge function. You can no longer merge just part of a record such as gifts. You must merge the whole record and it then deletes that record. You have no options! I hate this! Michael Sherman Database Administrator Florida West Coast Symphony

Good comments, all. And, note to Mike, yes, I actually do exist, or at least I did last time I checked! Seriously, it's good to have contact with other folks out there using this product. My impression of PE is that it shows great, great promise...but as the product currently stands today, I must admit that I am deeply disappointed in it, and am feeling a rather significant amount of "buyer's remorse". Our experiences at my organization seem to parallel what several posters have alluded to here, in that membership synchronization is problematic, PE never catches dupes as they're entered, etc. I suppose that our front-end sales staff likes the product well enough (provided that they never have to leave the touch-screen interface), but it has caused significant issues for our Development department. I guess my most significant issues with PE at this point would be the following: * Inconsistent synchronization b/w some aspects of RE and PE (for example, the gifts issue that was mentioned); * The cumbersome group sales process. Why oh why are deposits associated to the CRM record generally, rather than to a specific group tour booking, why can you not change or modify an existing deposit on a group tour, why can you not add multiple deposits to a tour, etc. * Canned reports that seem to provide everything that one could need...but never in a single report, which pretty much negates the value of any of the reports, if we have to combine the info ourselves. For example, we had an event that was cancelled, and I need to do a quick dump of the e-mail addresses of everyone who bought a ticket to that event, so we could inform them of the cancellation. If there was a way to that from within the native PE interface, I sure couldn't find it. Again, I think that this product could really be cool, eventually...but it sure ain't there yet. I realize that Blackbaud hasn't "owned" the product for very long (as I understand it, they don't actually own the code, but license it from TopTix, an Israeli software development shop, which probably complicates factors a bit), so I'm hoping that it will mature, and quickly...but yes, for now it is difficult to have to change our business processes to match the way PE works. How 'bout you all? What are the biggest "showstopper" issues that you've encountered with your PE deployments? No longer feeling like just a voice in the wilderness, Craig

I've disabled the add a gift function in RE Membership Business Rules to alleviate any problms associated w/the RE/PE ticket desk membership synch. We're not at touch screens yet and haven't added the PEO component. I'm operating on the recommendation that gifts should still be entered via RE Gift Batch Entry - this function will be my 'checks and balances'. I'm hoping to catch dupes and correct any data entry errors found in day to day work. BTW, the BB people still have my data (!) Not a peep yet about my synch problems regarding membership. I think also that the way we integrated probably wasn't ideal. We turned on PE, upgraded RE then integrated. Everything should probably have been done at the same time but we were trying to get our RE in the best possible shape - little did we know once integration happened we'd have an askew database anew! One filled w/dupes and incomplete records, etc. It truly will take time for BB to perfect this product. Seems already the touch screens will be a step in the right direction. We're going to soon look into barcodes. Does anyone operate an integrated RE/PE membership program w/barcodes yet? Regina Regina M. Holten Membership Manager Maryland Science Center [Email Removed]

Hi Regina, We're not actively using PE membership barcoding as yet, but I've played with it a bit, and we will be moving in that direction. We originally purchased PE because we had always been an open-admission facility, but needed to implement time-restricted ticketing for a big exhibit that is currently underway. Once the exhibit is over, we'll probably move towards scanning membership card barcodes and creating a ticket record for member admissions. Setting this up in PE, the little that I've played with it, doesn't seem that bad. Our main problem is that we print membership cards out onto cardstock paper from Raiser's Edge. When doing so, the barcode is tiny (and it can't be enlarged from within RE, either.) The barcode is so small, and because we print on non-laminated cardstock, the barcodes get damaged and are unreadable by our scanners. (We could export the membership card info and format the barcode to be larger, but our Development department says that that's too much work for them.) We've looked at various dedicated ID card printers, and may go that route eventually, with the idea that we'll issue a card and hope to get five or so years of life out of it, rather than re-issuing a paper-based card every year. Let me know if I can provide any other details or info for you. Craig

Michael, How is PEO doing with your subscriptions?? We're at least another year away from putting PEO in but interested in your experience. I'm also thrilled to finally see more people here!! We're also having our share of frustrations with Blackbaud, first with converting to PE and now with PE/RE integration. Is anyone else bothered by the fact that PE kids just blast over to RE without a relation to their parents? OR, do you just not capture kids in the PE group so this problem doesn't exist for you? We're getting different stories about whether or not they can or will resolve this but it's a deal-breaker for us, being a children's museum. I also agree that for the money, we're just not getting the satisfaction.

The lack of a relationship between parent and child when the data goes over to RE is going to be a problem for us here at The Children's Theatre Company. We have gotten no guidance from Blackbaud on good ways to manage this once integrated. It is going to be a mess. One of our Development staff last week asked if we had to integrate because she now believes it will create much more work and headache for them than living with two separate systems. Sadly, I'm beginning to agree with her assessment.

Hey, Vicki! We started selling subscriptions through PEO Today! Previously, they were only sold by phone, mail or in person. However, we don't think there will be any problems. Michael Sherman Database Administrator Florida West Coast Symphony

Wow, just stumbled upon the forums, here. I'm glad to know it's not just us having these problems. For the money we paid, we are so disappointed with PE. It does not do what we expected it to, or was told it would do. Group sales are so difficult. It expects the full amount to be paid at once, when the reservation is made. Who operates like that? And yes, the only workaround is to attach the money to the client record, not the sale record, so you don't know what the money was for, or, if a client booked multiple groups, which group the money is for. We were told our FlexPasses would work with the system (where clients can purchase a fixed number of admissions to use for any show). Well, after some finagling, we got them to work, but not the way they should. And there is no way for our patrons to take advantage of them online. When exchanging subscription tickets, if someone purchased 2 subscriptions, we have to go into each ticket and exchange it separately, you can't do them both at once. And if someone shows up at the window with a coupon, it takes 9 screens to take the money off. Our lines outside the window are longer than ever because of these two things. When we first got it, and would try to pull a mailing, it would pull every name, even if they were in the same group. There was no way to pull one name from each group. With the newer version, this is now possible, but it still doesn't choose the group leader.. it chooses a name at random. Invoicing.. there is no way to pull up all invoices due on a certain day. What's the point of invoicing or the box that asks when it's due, if you can't even pull up the invoices that are due? Reservations and Sales are always two separate items. We needed a report with both, and had to pay to have it custom made. Many reports don't show reservations at all. We've had to make some major changes to our policies in order to adapt to the software, which is not how it should be. Software should adapt to the user! Especially software as expensive as this. My one plus I have for the system, is that its support is outstanding. It's just sad that I've had the chance to get to know every support analyst so well. I hope in time the software does grow to meet all of our expectations. But I don't know how they can charge so much, with good conscience, when it doesn't yet perform the way any good ticketing software would. Rhonda Eash