Missing pledge reminders, and we can't figure out why

James Andrews

Anyone have any thoughts on this?  We ran pledge reminders in Mail, and a couple were missing.  We actually specifically tried to run them for one of the gifts that was missing, and it keeps returning "No records meet specified criteria" even though:


• The pledge is in the date range

• The reminder is after the run on date

• The pledges have 'send reminders' marked

• Addresses don't have a date to, and send mail is checked

• Both of these are foundation gifts soft credited to individuals. However, the foundations also aren't inactive, don't have a date to on their address, and have send mail checked

• The org address field option is send to contacts -- both of these have the donor as a contact

• There are no mitigating solicit codes 

• The campaign and fund aren't marked inactive (this shouldn't make a difference but you never know)


I mean, we can't find a single thing that differentiates these two pledges from all the others in the reminder list — everything seems to be perfectly normal. What are we missing? Anyone have any ideas?

Alan French

Something to do with the instalment? The instalment date could be different than the pledge date.

James Andrews

Sorry, I mistyped up there. Installment date for both of these is 4/30, run on date is 3/20, so everything should be fine -- and all the other pledge reminders due are pulling normally so it certainly seems that our reminders are set up OK. I think we're looking for something in the gifts that would make them get left out, but I can't figure out what.

JoAnn Strommen

Maybe I'm not thinking correctly but if I'm reading correctly...  doesn't the run on date selected for the reminders need to be after the installment date?  If installment date is 4/30 the run date would need to be 4/30 or 5/1 to pull payments due before that date.

James Andrews

I don't think so -- other pledges with the same installment date are pulling.

JoAnn Strommen

Are you doing reminders per installment or per pledge?  If it's per pledge, date needs to be on or after.


From https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/52883


In the Run date field, enter the date to use for calculating which installments are due. 

For example, a pledge is dated 10/1/00 with 4 monthly installments to be made on 3/31/01, 4/30/01, 5/30/01, and 6/31/01. In order for the donor to receive a pledge reminder in March, the Start and End dates must contain 10/1/00 (to capture the original pledge) and a Run date on or after 3/31/01 (to capture the installment and calculate the amount due). If the Run date was defined for 4/30/01 the March and April installments would be captured and the balance due would include the balance of both installments. The Run Date will affect the amount that appears in the Amount Due section in 3 Column reminders and in the Total Due section in 5 Column reminders. 

Note: The run date only affects the total Due if you are running reminders on a per pledge basis, not a per installment basis. Per installment will return the balance due on the installment, not the pledge as a whole.

 

James Andrews

OK so here's the situation, let me know if you see anything odd here.


Pledge:

• Date: 9/22/17

• Installment: 4/30/19

• Send reminders: on

• Per reminder history, was sent a reminder for his 4/30/18 installment in 2/2018 (considering that you can't manually edit the reminder history, this means that it went through the reminders process).


Reminders:

• per installment

• date range: 7/1/15 - 4/1/19

• run date 3/25/19


That should be caught right?  Other pledges with similar data are, and this was last year.  Such a mystery!

Alan French

If your run date is in March and the instalment's not due until April, doesn't that mean it won't be included?

Lynette Sowells

In reminders I would take the end date out to 4/30/19 if you want to include it. 

Beth Hayden 2

We have encountered pledge installment information not pulling in if a portion of the installment amount has been paid.  We never figured out why the remaining installment balance is eliminated, but it may be a clue to the missing data!

James Andrews

Thanks all, I'll update if we figure it out!