ImportOmatic

Bernadette Sabesh

Hi

We are UK based charity and thinking of getting ImportOmatic. I would like to hear from actual users about using Omatic.. Currently we use RE import to import gifts and constituent


Thanks

 

Alan French

We've had ImportOmatic for 3 years and I use it on a weekly basis to import constituent information from our student record system, and also during our telephone appeals for gifts, Gift Aid declarations, appeal responses, updates to contact information and more. Unlike RE Import, ImportOmatic lets us update the phone DNC field which is very useful!


The dictionary and virtual field functionality is great and saves a lot of time faffing about with preparing the file for import, as incoming values can be changed/inserted on the fly. I also like not having to have import IDs to update existing information - for example I can update constituents' appeal responses using just the appeal ID rather than having to get the unique constituent appeal import IDs out of Export. We've just upgraded to ImportOmatic 3 and there seems to be quite a bit of new functionality that I've barely had time to scratch the surface of yet.


Happy to answer any questions you might have on importing specific items!

Bernadette Sabesh

Alan French:

We've had ImportOmatic for 3 years and I use it on a weekly basis to import constituent information from our student record system, and also during our telephone appeals for gifts, Gift Aid declarations, appeal responses, updates to contact information and more. Unlike RE Import, ImportOmatic lets us update the phone DNC field which is very useful!


The dictionary and virtual field functionality is great and saves a lot of time faffing about with preparing the file for import, as incoming values can be changed/inserted on the fly. I also like not having to have import IDs to update existing information - for example I can update constituents' appeal responses using just the appeal ID rather than having to get the unique constituent appeal import IDs out of Export. We've just upgraded to ImportOmatic 3 and there seems to be quite a bit of new functionality that I've barely had time to scratch the surface of yet.


Happy to answer any questions you might have on importing specific items!

Thanks Alan, When I import event registration via RE import I need to make two files in order to import constituent import and event import. How this works in Omatic? is it possible import all the information(constituent and event) together?     For each import do I have to build a profile


Thanks



 

 

Alan French

Yes you can import new constituents and their participant information in the same file. Once you build a profile, you can save the template and re-use it for future imports, just as you can with RE import. Building the profiles is quite easy now, as you can start typing the field name and ImportOmatic will offer a list of matching fields rather than you having to keep expanding/collapsing sections to hunt through a huge list of all available fields.

Bernadette Sabesh

 Oh that's good. Thank you!

Therese Morris

We use ImportOmatic to import current parents with child relationships, new alumni with degree relationship, Community division child with registrations, and events along with odds and ends of things. It looks to match based on a specific ID or a customizable duplicate search criteria.  Profiles are easy to set up and the Omatic forums and knowledge base are great resources. Support is also quick to respond.

Bernadette Sabesh

Thanks Therese

Alan French

I'm also loving FindOmatic which I've just discovered today (comes bundled with ImportOmatic but needs enabling). No more wasting time searching through our many, many folders of queries trying to find a needle in a haystack, yay! Of course, I could just clean up our query folders...

Rachel Buller

Alan French:

We've had ImportOmatic for 3 years and I use it on a weekly basis to import constituent information from our student record system, and also during our telephone appeals for gifts, Gift Aid declarations, appeal responses, updates to contact information and more. Unlike RE Import, ImportOmatic lets us update the phone DNC field which is very useful!


The dictionary and virtual field functionality is great and saves a lot of time faffing about with preparing the file for import, as incoming values can be changed/inserted on the fly. I also like not having to have import IDs to update existing information - for example I can update constituents' appeal responses using just the appeal ID rather than having to get the unique constituent appeal import IDs out of Export. We've just upgraded to ImportOmatic 3 and there seems to be quite a bit of new functionality that I've barely had time to scratch the surface of yet.


Happy to answer any questions you might have on importing specific items!

My organization receives gifts primarily through our bank and through Convio/Luminate Online. I would love to find a way to speed up the import process, which takes a long time since our current system requires me to input each gift into a batch before committing it. We use created batches to generate acknowledgment letters for all of the gifts. Our bank sends a .cv file which includes the person's name, gift amount, check number, and date of gift, but does not include RE constituent or appeal IDs. Is this potentially something ImportOmatic could help with? Thanks for your help!



 

Alan French

Rachel Buller:

My organization receives gifts primarily through our bank and through Convio/Luminate Online. I would love to find a way to speed up the import process, which takes a long time since our current system requires me to input each gift into a batch before committing it. We use created batches to generate acknowledgment letters for all of the gifts. Our bank sends a .cv file which includes the person's name, gift amount, check number, and date of gift, but does not include RE constituent or appeal IDs. Is this potentially something ImportOmatic could help with? Thanks for your help!

I'll preface this by saying that I've never imported gifts without a constituent ID, but it can be done. ImportOmatic lets you set up duplicate matching criteria using name, address and birth date so it's possible to import gifts to existing constituent records without having their constituent ID in the file, although if you haven't got address or DOB in the file then you'd be matching on name alone. There is the option to either review all potential matches and select the correct record by hand (if any, or add as a new constituent), or to automatically pick the matching record to use if it meets certain criteria.


You can also select a query to exclude certain constituents from being auto-picked as a match, so you could create a query of everyone who did not receive the appeal and exclude those to reduce the chance of selecting the wrong John Smith, for example.