Forum Guidelines Overview

Welcome to the forums! These guidelines will give you the tools you need to maximize your forum experience.

The forums are a gathering place for everyone in the nonprofit community to exchange ideas. If you have a question about best practices, or have discovered a creative use for Blackbaud software, take advantage of this opportunity to share your knowledge and brainstorm with your peers.

The forums are organized into six broad categories, and then further divided by subforums. The categories are:

• Product Forums: Discuss Blackbaud software
• Technical Forums: For database administrators as well as VBA/API and RODBA users
• Nonprofit Industry Forums: Find people who share your goals
• Nonprofit Events Forums: Conferences, User Groups, and Trade Shows
• Blackbaud Community Forums: Job Postings, Feedback, and Web Resources
• Blackbaud Europe: Forums for the United Kingdom

Need help finding the posts that interest you the most? Read about searching the forums.

Have a question for your peers or an insight to share? Find all the ways you can contribute to the forums.

Do you want to make the most out of the networking opportunities through the forums? Learn how to personalize your forum experience!

Want to keep your finger on the pulse of the forum action? Subscribe to the forums!

Read our Acceptable Use Policy.

The forums are so full of ideas, inquiries, and insight that it's almost overwhelming. The key to finding the threads that interest you the most is mastering the search process.

The forums are accessible to everyone; you do not need to have a Blackbaud login to browse the forum threads you're interested in or search the forums. Before you post, search and review the other posts to determine if a discussion regarding this topic has already been posted. Someone may have already answered your question, or made the point that you were planning to make.

How do I search in forums? You can search in Forums by entering a key word in the search field and clicking the search button. If you are searching within a forum or subforum, you can choose to search that forum or subforum only, all forums of that type (e.g., Product Forums, Technical Forums), or the entire site.

How do I search for client documents in Forums? You can find Forum posts with client documents attached to them by clicking the client document tag in the Popular tags panel on the right in the main Forums screen.

What are the advanced search options? The advanced search options allow you to refine your search by using 'AND' and 'OR' to constrain the results of your keyword search, match tags, filter by date, and select a sort order

What are tags? Tags are key words used to search a post. They give the post relevance when displayed in the Popular Tags box on the main forums page. When listed in this box, tags appear in a variety of font sizes. The size of each tag is based on its occurance in the database. The larger a tag appears in this box, the more often it has been used.

What options do I have for sorting forum posts? You can choose to sort posts Oldest to Newest or Newest to Oldest.
To change the sort order, select the desired sort order from the Sort Posts dropdown
  
How do I navigate between Posts? You can navigate between forum threads using the Previous and Next buttons 
 
How can I use RSS?
1. Subscribe to an RSS Reader (such as Google Reader).
2. After you are subscribed, look for the RSS icon. Click it to get the address to use to subscribe to RSS feeds.
3. Log into your RSS reader and add the site to your list of RSS feed subscriptions.

To personalize your forum preferences and add favorites, you will need to login to the forums.

• If your organization has Blackbaud software, log in to post to the forums or create a profile.
• If your organization does not have Blackbaud software, click Join on the top right of the Forums page to register and post.

How can I personalize my forum search results? All forums are displayed to all users by default. To display only select forums, follow these steps:

1. Click Personalize at the top of the list of forums.
2. To hide a specific forum, click Yes in the Display column. The word Yes will automatically become No. Repeat this for each forum you do not want to display. To hide an entire section of forums (i.e. Product Forums, Nonprofit Event Forums), click Yes to the right of the forum section name in the blue bar.
3. To return the forums home page, click Return to Personalized View at the top of the lists of forums.

How do I mark threads, forums, or users as favorites so I can access them again? You can select favorite forum users, forum posts, and forums.  Here's how:

1. To add a forum post as a favorite, open the post and click Favorites. Select "Add this post as a Favorite" from the drop down list.
2. To add a forum as a favorite, open a post in the Forum and click Favorites. Select "Add this forum as a favorite" from the drop down list. 
3. To add a forum participant as a friend:

• Open their public profile page (to visit a user's public profile, click their name anywhere in the forums) and click the "Add username as a friend" hyperlink.

OR

• Open a forum post by the member you wish to add as a friend, click Favorites and select "Add username as a friend" from the drop down list.

The purpose of the forums is to facilitate the ongoing conversation held among the members of the nonprofit community. The forums are a place to pose questions, share solutions, or just post an idea and ask for feedback.

If your organization has Blackbaud software, log in to post to the forums; if your organization does not have Blackbaud software, click Join on the top right of the Forums page to register and post. Before you post, it is important to search the forums and review the other posts to determine if a discussion regarding this topic has already been posted. There may already be a thread discussing the theme you wish to explore.

How do I create a new forum post?
1. Open the Forum that pertains to your topic.
2. Click Write a New Post or open the thread to which you wish to reply and click either Reply or Quick Reply.
3. On the Compose tab, enter a subject and the text for your post. There are several options besides text:

• To insert emoticons in your message, click the smiley face on the toolbar, then click the emoticon you want to insert. It will be placed in the post where your cursor is positioned.
• To include an attachment, select the Options tab. Click Add/Update under File Attachment, browse to the location, and click Save.
• To include an image, click the image icon on the toolbar, enter the url and any other settings you want to specify, and click Insert.

4. To preview the message, click the Preview tab.
5. You may enter tags, which are key words, in the Tags field. They give the post relevance when displayed on the main forums page.
6. Click Post to post the message to the forums.
Note: You have 30 minutes after clicking Post to edit a post.

How do I edit a forum post?
1. Open the Forum post you want to edit.
2. Click Edit.
3. Modify your content
4. Add any Edit Notes, if needed.
5. Click Post
Note: You have 30 minutes after clicking Post to edit a post. 

How do I delete a forum post?
To delete a forum post, open the post and click Delete.
Note: You have 5 minutes after clicking Post to delete a post. 

How do I spell check my posts?
From the Compose tab, click the ABC icon on the toolbar.

If you use Internet Explorer: Internet Explorer does not include a built-in spell checking program, but one is available for download. When you click the ABC icon on the Compose tab, Internet Explorer will prompt you to download and install ieSpell. Click OK and then download the latest version. Once it completes downloading, browse to the file and double-click it. Click Run to start the installation. Click I Agree to accept the terms and then click Install. Click OK to complete the installation. After you have installed ieSpell, click the ABC icon to spell check before posting.

If you use Mozilla's Firefox 2.0: Spell check is built in to Firefox. When you misspell a word, it automatically inserts a red underline. You can right-click the word to see suggested corrections. Select the correct spelling to update the text.

How do I add attachments to posts?

1. On the Compose tab, enter a subject and text for your post.
2. On the Options tab, click Add/Update under File Attachment.
3. Browse to the location of the attachment and click Save.
4. Add the client document tag to the post
5. Click Post to post the message and your attachment.

How do I create a poll for my forum post?

1. Open the Forum where you wish to create a poll.
2. Click Write a New Post. You cannot add a poll to a forum thread by replying; you must create a new post.
3. On the Compose tab, enter a Subject.
4. Select the Poll tab and mark Include a poll in this post.
5. Enter the question and any description to accompany your question.
6. Under Add Answer, enter text for a choice that should appear in the poll. Click Add.
7. Repeat this until you have entered all possible answers you want to include. You may reorder or delete options you have entered.
8. Under Expires After, enter the number of days to leave the poll open to have the poll expire
9. Click Post to post the poll to the forum.

How do I quote other messages in my forum replies?

1. Open the post to which you want to reply.
2. On the Compose tab, click Quote to insert a quote displaying the message to which you are replying.
3. Enter the text of your response.
4. Click Post to post the response.

How do I rate forum posts I find helpful?

1. Open the post you want to rate.
2. Place the cursor over the rating stars box associated with the reply you found helpful.
3. Click and drag your mouse until the proper number of stars are lit.