Query/Export on Active Proposal Records only

Jacki Balon

I'm trying to run an export, based on a query to pull information from only active proposals.  Query works great but when I use that query in my export it is pulling all the proposal records - active & inactive even though I have not ticked the box to include inactive. Very frustrating.... has anyone else had this problem and found a solution.  Work around is to manipulate the date after I pull my export.  Wish they had a sub group of queries & exports for Proposals - as they do for Constituents, Actions,etc.

Stephanie Ulmer

I agree that this is very frustrating. I find some of the same frustrations with the events modules and exports. Did you try and use the purpose in proposal to export out only the records that you want? I find I'm creating more of those since that is what I can filter on in export.



Good luck.

Karen Diener 2

I haven't needed to do this for awhile, since my current employer doesn't use proposals very often.  But I did extensively in my former job.



Usually, we would run a query of the proposals and include consituent ID in the query output.  Export the query results to Excel.  Then we would export for whatever other information we needed, and again, the constituent ID was included in the output.  Used VLOOKUP (#BestExcelFunctionEver) to "append" the proposal information to the main export of data.  You can also use Access and inner joins / outer joins to "connect" the two sets of data.



It kind of depends on how often you need to do it, and how large each Excel file is.  I use VLOOKUP if I just need to pull 2-3 pieces of information into a main spreadsheet.



In reference to Stephanie's post . . . . I think we just hadn't set our proposals up to be able to export by purpose.  We usually just wanted to see open vs. closed proposals.  And completely agree that it is frustrating that you cannot filter by more proposal fields!!

Jacki Balon

Thanks for the suggestions for a work around people!    I do use purpose, but it really doesn't affect what I need to get from the Proposal records.  I just want active proposals and we have a lot of inactive ones.  I am looking for a report by specific Solicitors for their active proposals and querying on one other field in the proposal record that indicates this is a Top 20 prospect.  Purpose could be different for everyone of those that I am looking for.... the biggest headache I have - and its for a lot of my query/export work not just this one - is the Inactive proposals pulling in to the report - as I normally only have 1 active proposal per solicitor. I will give the VLOOKUP function a try but really I'm just needing to delete a lot of info off my spreadsheet, manipulate what's left by moving things around.  Hopefully BlackBaud will help us who use events & prospect module out a bit here....  Thanks again.

John Heizer

There are a couple of other threads here regarding problems with Proposal exports.  Unfortunately until Blackbaud makes some big changes in RE it requires exporting all the proposals on a Constituen record and then filtering for the Proposals you want outside of RE.



Add your votes to get attention from Blackbaud here:  http://rediscovery.uservoice.com/forums/137015-raiser-s-edge-discovery-topics/suggestions/2861856-make-proposals-a-record-like-gifts-that-can-be-exp

Lauren Burgess

We added an option in the Purpose menu called "Proposal Closed" to eliminate inactive Proposals. It isn't a perfect solution because you then lose the "true" Purpose of a Proposal, but it does make Exports work much better. Our Systems Team also developed an amazing tool that exports all Proposal data into a giant Excel spreadsheet that we access through SharePoint. I think it may use a combination of data from our data warehouse and possibly Blackbaud's Business Intelligence tool (whatever it's called these days). I can then filter by any field found on a Proposal to get what I need (e.g.) filter by Proposal Solicitor Name, by Inactive/Active, etc. It includes the constituent ID so if I need to pull in data not found on Proposals, it's simple to grab that information and append it to my filtered Proposal list.

Gina Gerhard

Sorry, hadn't seen John Heizer's reply with a link to an IdeaBank suggestion - thanks John!!



Perhaps it's time that we check the IdeaBank for suggestions for improving functionality related to proposals in Query and Export?

• Does anyone know if there are any ideas posted that already address this?
  • If there's already an idea, can you post the link so we can all vote on this?
  • If not, why don't we create one and request that people vote?