Blackbaud Award and Stewardship Management Manual

Jackie Berke

Does anyone else think having a comprehensive reference manual for the Blackbaud Award and Stewardship Management program would be helpful?


There is so much information in the trainings that is hard to retain everything presented plus the notes are not in any logical order for later reference. Having an indexed reference manual would make administering easier and would allow us to better use all the features the program has to offer. PLEASE consider producing a manual at least in a pdf version for download. Thanks! 

Anne Parker Hayworth

A comprehensive reference manual for the Blackbaud Award and Stewardship Management program would be extremely helpful. My team would love it if Blackbaud would create one!! I agree - there is some training information for this program but having it all in 1 document/pdf in the correct order would be extremely useful!

Marilee Abramshe

I 100% agree, especially considering the training may take place well in advance of actually "doing" some of the work and what was pretty clear during training is now completely lost to me after 9 months.  I find I have to reteach myself everything I was taught and searching for that information in the knowledge guide hoping I'm using the right keyword.   I know a quick reference might just be exactly what I needed, especially if I had one to start and was able to take notes in that guide to help me remember.  Yes, please create a guide.

Melanie Grello

YES!!!  That would be fantastic and VERY helpful.

Catherine Terrones

Agree!  Lack of a manual has made it more difficult to implement.  Training was great, having the additional resource of a manual would make it much easier to use the system to its fullest capabilities.  It shouldn't be hard to do, an online manual would work; and no, the help screen is not a manual.  Lack of information/instructions is a problem.

 

Linda Wright

Agreed, especially for those of us who received no training.

Kody Jackson

Howdy all,


If you haven't seen me before, I'm the Technical Writer for Award/Stewardship Mgmt. This is a longer response, so I'm breaking it into separate sections.

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Documentation resources

As several of y'all are asking for a manual, just wanted to check whether you've seen our role-based task guides:

• Award and Stewardship Management
• Standalone Stewardship Management

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Other Blackbaud Resources

If you prefer videos and visual walkthroughs, I'd direct you towards our existing eLearning courses:

• Basics of Award Management
• Basics of Questions and Qualifications
• Basics of Reviews

If you have trouble accessing ^^^, reach out to TrainingHelp@blackbaud.com.

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Feedback

Going back to the request for a "Product Manual," do those resources (the role-based guides & eLearning courses) meet your needs? If not, do you have any specific comments/suggestions?

 

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A note about PDFs

Though I understand the desire for a good hard copy (I read physical books myself!), it tends not to be a good, long-term documentation strategy. 


PDFs are meant to be printed. And that means that--when we add new help info or correct mistakes--you won't have the most up-to-date information. Even worse, you probably won't know that you have outdated information. It's a double whammy.


That's why we publish our help documentation online and don't format it into PDFs... though you could always print our web pages if you really needed that hard copy.

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Hopefully that's not too much info, just trying to point y'all in the right direction and get a better sense of the problems you're encountering.


- Kody

Marilee Abramshe

One thing I have found that makes a physical manual more appealing than online resources is the ability to find what you need.  When searching for answers online you are limited to the topics that are shown on a given page and/or your ability to know the right keyword.  Often, if it isn't a straight up answer, you may read through a ton of text and select a dozen links moving from page to page without actually finding what you need.  Or, should you find it, your path there might not be clear to help you find it again and unless you save that information, and hope it doesn't change, you'll need to go through the whole process again.  A physical manual, in contrast, allows you to flip and skim, mark pages with a post it for easy reference, You can take notes and leave yourself a trail of breadcrumbs to help you in the next cycle.  An example:  I want to edit an individual recipient report - I want more information in one specific report, for one specific donor than in all others.  I can find the information I need on how to edit/create/generate reports.  I can't easily find the information on editing a specific report so it is different than all the others.  Likewise in awarding, I might want more information on renewal awards, it's easy to find the general information available but not necessarily the minutia - and keywords for minutia are tricky.  The keyword search would be similar for both with the exception of a few words.  I understand a PDF manual might not be fluid for the changing needs of the software.  I would suggest a different form of reference then - something like a digital notebook where you are still able to change the information you wish to present but your readers have clear "chapters" places to take notes and mark commentary.  The process of using this software is cyclical with a span of 6 months to 1 year in some instances.  You learn tasks by doing them repeatedly, you gain knowledge and understanding of them from the repetition and discovery .  What I learned last year during a month's work is not always available in my brain a year later.  

Deidre Johnson

I agree. This is my first year both implementing and using the platform and a manual would have been extremely helpful. I was fortunate to have a fantastic implementation specialist who answered lots of questions and I took advantage of the training and in-system help feature as well. But a pdf would have been great. That's easily updated. We can print if we choose.