If your organization doesn't use NetCommunities, how are you "communicating" gifts from Online Gift Vendor X to R.E?

Rodrigo Guardado

Hi all,



For reasons outside this discussion, NetCommunities and Blackbaud Luminate is not being used to process online donations. Having stated this, the next option I'm thinking is to setup an Excel import batch for constituents and gifts in order to process these gifts. 



Has anyone else had a similar situation? What did you do? (geting NetCommunities or Luminate is not an option).



Does anyone by any chance happen to have a sample Excel file for a constituent batch import and gift import (excluding recurring gifts) or know where I can get one? I just need one for comparison and I plan to customize/edit it accordingly for our organization. 

I just created one using the Raiser’s Edge Import data columns but need to compare mine to others.

Thanks,

Rodrigo 

 

Sunshine Reinken Watson

What system are you using? There is a third party vendor that offers connectors to some systems: https://www.omaticsoftware.com/Solutions/RaisersEdge/ImportOmatic/Connectors.aspx



Otherwise, I would probably just manually enter the batches.

Tatyana Leifman

We also use a 3rd party online platform.  Attached are the headers for the import file that I use to import new donations.  I download the gifts from the platform and then have to manipulate the file and add information to fit it into the template.  As for new constituents, I think it depends what information you collect on the online platform and which items you want to import into RE when creating the new constituents.

Rodrigo Guardado

Tatyana Leifman:

We also use a 3rd party online platform.  Attached are the headers for the import file that I use to import new donations.  I download the gifts from the platform and then have to manipulate the file and add information to fit it into the template.  As for new constituents, I think it depends what information you collect on the online platform and which items you want to import into RE when creating the new constituents.

Tatyana,



Thank you soooo much for providing that!!! You're the best!!!

Chris Z

If you choose not to use import, could you make this work with Constituent Batch?



Without getting into the exact fields involved, it seems like there would be a few steps:

1.  Using the excel report, determine who is already in the database.  Note those IDs on your excel report.

2.  Create a Constituent batch to add the new people.  Check the box that allows you to create a query from the new constituents added.  Look at the query and put the name and ID in the output, sort, and then add these remaining IDs on your excel report.

3.  Now that you have all the IDs, create a gift batch to enter all the gifts/memberships.



With import, you still have several ID columns to create, and you still have to take the time to clean-up the data in the CSV file.

Tatyana Leifman

I think it all depends on which method one finds easier/quicker.  For me with a batch, I would sitll have to type or copy & paste a lot of information (first & last names, addresses, emails), whereas with an import file, I just had to figure out a method to quickly and smoothly create import ids.  So at least for me, the import file is easier as I only have to drop in the import IDs (my constituent import ids are in the format of WEB-mmddyyy-x, where the date=the day I'm importing the file and x=1 through number of last new donor. So then all I have to do is change the "WEB" to "ADD" for address import IDs and to "EM" for email import ids).