Netcommunity Vs Online Express

Michelle Hespenhide

Hi Everyone,


I was wondering if anyone on here has used netcommunity and switched to or switched from Online Express. My organization is comparing the two programs and we are wondering what the overall experience has been with the two. 


Thanks

Aimee Snyder

Michelle,

We recently switched from Net Community to Online Express. Although I like the homepage display/format much better, it was actually a step down to go to online express in terms of functionality, so buyer beware. We have contacted Blackbaud about our concerns as our entire organization (not just the Foundation piece) is re-vamping their website and Online Express can't do some of the things we need to be able to do. 

Aimee

Mark Guncheon 2

This is why we stuck with NC. It does more than OLX.

Heather MacKenzie

NetCommunity is more robust than OLX.

Elizabeth Rich

We had NetCommunity and switched to Online Express. While NetCommunity can do more, it is more costly and we did not need it for the organization web page. OLX is easier to use. Are there changes I'd like to see? Certainly, but it works for our needs and is much less cumbersome.

Karen Stuhlfeier

We made sure that we understood what the differences were before we switched from NetCommunity to OLX. OLX cost less and is a good fit for our organization. Also, ending emails with it is easier. Almost everyone in our office can use it and it isn't up to me to do everything anymore. 

Michelle Hespenhide

What are some of the features that netcommunity has that online express does not? I am trying to figure out what I am missing that would make Netcommunity worth staying with right now only a consultant we work with understands the program and our web developer is reluctant to work with it at all.


Thank you everyone for the feedback it is very helpful. 

Karen Stuhlfeier

I haven't compared the two since we bought OLX in 2014, but at the time the difference for us was that we couldn't do an alumni online directory with OLX. We do that instead with our website company. I would think that a Blackbaud rep should be able to do a good job explaining the differences?

Denise Covington

After researching, we decided to stick with NetCommunity.  We have more control over unsubscribes with BBNC.  We can be sure parents don't unsubscribe from the school newsletter, but can unsubscribe from solicitations, events, etc.  We can ask parents if they truly want to unsubscribe from everything or everything except our parent newsletter.  Parents can edit subscriptions to various communications or internal staff can.


We don't think OLX has that level of subscription complexity that we like.  Please correct me if I'm wrong here! 


We also have some pretty complex events and we can edit the script with unformatted text parts in BBNC to make our portal pages do what we want them to do.

Crystal Bruce

Discussion moved to BBNC Community. Thanks!

Kristin White

We just purchased NetCommunity (haven't started using it yet).

Was using OLX but had to switch because our website is not PCI compliant. NetCommunity is BB hosted and they are compliant. 

Too bad because I liked OLX and it had/did what we needed. 

Maria Petulla 3

For processing gifts I'm finding NetCommunity to be archaic and extremely time consuming.  I worked at an organization once that even tho I had to export from Luminate, Run through a 3rd party connector and use Import-O-Matic - it was phenomenally less time consuming than Net Community. It's painful to have to match / find each and every donor. I miss Import-O-Matic because the processing is so fast. Any advice? BB is suggesting NXT & OLX but I'm not convinced. We too have an Alumni Directory and was wondering what other products are out there for that? 


Thanks,

Maria

 

Aimee Snyder

NXT is wonderful - OLX is not as functional as NetCommunity. Unfortunately right now, it's a trade-off. 

Candy Reichert

We have BBNC and we insert OLX gift forms onto BBNC pages. 


We use a combination of both BBNC and OLX forms in on NetCommunity pages.

BBNC regular donation forms are a bit cumbersome to work with.  However, they DO have eReceipt capability that is editable

BBNC Donation 2.0 (mini) donation forms are progressing.  I like these, they are a little better than the regular forms, with a more modern look. They do Not have instant eReceipt capability. I would use these more if they had eReceipts.

OLX donation forms can be added to any BBNC page. You have to create a Formated Text part and add in the java script from the giving form. There are instructions on how to do this. There are instant eReceipts but you cannot change any information on them.

NXT forms????   STILL waiting on those!!.  Hopefully they will be a good combination of both BBNC and OLX.


Hope this is helpful