Error downloading new email signup...

Danielle Allen 2

I am unable to download a new email signup because of the following error;


Data too long for field Max length = 255 for Description


The only information we have is their first name, last name and email address - no description or attribute field has been filled out.


I tried to connect with Blackbaud support but the person that responded did not seem to understand how OLX worked?

Jen Claudy

When you contacted Support, were you on OLX Support or RE Support?  Sometimes that can make a big difference.  BB has a lot of products, and no one can be highly knowledgeable about all of them!


If you don't get a response here from BB staff, I would try Chat Support for OLX.  Look in Case Central (or your email when the case was created) and note the name of the analyst you spoke with.  Make sure you talk with someone else next time.  And make sure you fill out the survey if you get one about that Support call/chat so that BB can continue improving Support.  (I have, more or less, been there, done that.)  Would rather an analyst say they aren't following what I'm saying and push the call to someone else than just reiterate unhelpful or already tried & failed suggestions...or say there's nothing to be done and that's it (which I've expereinced, thankfully only once or twice).

Danielle Allen 2

Jennifer Claudy:

When you contacted Support, were you on OLX Support or RE Support?  Sometimes that can make a big difference.  BB has a lot of products, and no one can be highly knowledgeable about all of them!


If you don't get a response here from BB staff, I would try Chat Support for OLX.  Look in Case Central (or your email when the case was created) and note the name of the analyst you spoke with.  Make sure you talk with someone else next time.  And make sure you fill out the survey if you get one about that Support call/chat so that BB can continue improving Support.  (I have, more or less, been there, done that.)  Would rather an analyst say they aren't following what I'm saying and push the call to someone else than just reiterate unhelpful or already tried & failed suggestions...or say there's nothing to be done and that's it (which I've expereinced, thankfully only once or twice).

Do you always get a survey after chat? I don't and couldn't figure out how to escalate the bad service. I was on OLX support and they are STILL trying to figure out the error. 

Jen Claudy

No, I think the survey is a random thing.  Were you able to try again and talk to someone else?

Kelsey Hilton

Hey Danielle!


Thanks for posting on Community! First, I apologize that your chat experience was not the best that it could have been I've reached out to touch base with the analyst and their manager to provide some coaching. In terms of surveys, we don't send them for every single case - and we only send them when the case is closed. Your case is currently open and being worked on by another senior analyst, so don't expect to see a survey until the case is actually closed.


In terms of the error you're receiving, we've filed this issue with our developers for review and resolution. So know that we're working on a permanent fix to prevent this from happening in the future.


I've also tested this further in my sample database and I was able to find another workaround that would be better for resolving this while we work on the case with our development team. Can you try the steps below and let me know how they treat you?

1. In Online Express, click on Email Marketing
2. Click on Download Signups
3. Find the problematic email sign up
4. Under actions, click on edit/preview new signup
5. In the Preview record window, under Biographical, you can actually manually edit the first or last name so that it is less than 50 characters and can be saved
6. Click Save
7. Mark the checkbox next to the email sign up
8. Click on Process selected signups

I noticed you said the error mentions a "Description" - we're able to duplicate this with Name fields, but there are obviously no Description fields in the email signups. Can you let me know if in Step 5 above you see anything odd?


Let me know if this helps, please! If not I will add some notes to your case to direct your analyst on next steps Please be sure to keep us updated via the case as well. Again, I apologize your experience was not what we wanted the first time around in chat! Let us know what else we can do for you!


- Kelsey


 

Danielle Allen 2

BB finally figured it out and I thought this might be of interest to others. The URL that the signup page is on, is added as an attribute in the signup and you can't edit that. We had our signup form on our Facebook page using a Woobox tab (https://woobox.com) which put it in an iFrame. That made the signup URL something like 400+ characters long. We'll have to revisit how we have our email signup on Facebook.

Jen Claudy

Does BB have plans to accommodate this type of situation or provide a direct solution from OLX?  I would think many orgs would like to provide the option of a sign up from FB without being redirected to another page.

Danielle Allen 2

Great question - I will have to follow up. It may be just the particular way we chose to implement it, which we've since removed. We did realize though through this error that only 1 person has ever used it so not sure if it's something we will work hard to replace?