New to Raiser's Edge: Duplicates, Best Practices, Newsletters, etc.

Kellie BurnsFranco

Hello! Thank you to everyone who has been so helpful and taken the time to answer some of the questions I have posted this past week. As you may notice I am very new to this system and our database is undergoing a pretty significant clean up!

As I have looked through old posts I have been able to find answers, however some of them are posted from a few years back and I am not sure if they are still applicable to the items I am working on now.

1. When a donor enters a gift by credit card there is often a duplicate account created. Is there a way to avoid this or have it happen less frequently? I saw a post from 2015 that mentioned Online Express (OLX), ImportOMATIC, BBMS and the Net Community add ins that can help make this issue more managable. Are these still the best resolutions?
2. When we host events and manage registrations through Raiser's Edge there is often a profile created and again it tends to lead to duplicate entries. Would the above systems recommended assist with this issue, or is there a way to not have these individuals listed as constituents in RE? Many of them do not have the potential of being a donor, but attend our events through out the year (ie: grant writing courses, nonprofit support, etc.)
3. If a donor makes a donation and includes a tribute there is a profile made that contains the name of the tribute in the constituent name area, is there a way to resolve this?
4. I have attempted to download a best practice manual from another forum, however it is not opening.. .does anyone have access to this? If so, would you mind sharing it with me?
5. I have merged all of our duplicates in the Web Based View of Raiser's Edge, but have not begun deleting the duplicates in our Database view for fear of deleting really critical information. Is there any guidance as to how to ensure I am not deleting anything that will disrupt a profile?

Lastly, if there is anyone who works at a Community Foundation who is willing to connect I would really appreciate the help. Our team is very small and currently in addition to my outreach and communication role, I am over the management of RE when it comes to processes, fundraising, maintenance of donor profiles, newsletters, mailers, and identifying best practices.

Thank you to anyone who can provide insight to any of the above mentioned questions.

-Kellie

Jess Moxsky

Hi Kellie!

I have some insight to question #5

If you are merging records, you should be able to select which record will be the “original” and which record will be merged into that original record. I always like to open up both records side-by-side and make sure any information on the non-original record is added automatically by the merge, or manually by me. It's good to know that gifts will always merge, and you do not need to manually add gifts from the duplicate to the original. You can always export data from both records if you need to be able to compare on a more granular level.

Whether you are merging the records in web view or in database view, however, you are always “deleting” the non-original record. The biggest difference between running the duplicate constituent tool in database view vs web view is that NXT-specific data will NOT merge into the new record when the action is performed in database view. This, in my opinion, would mean you'd want to ensure you are always performing constituent record merges in web view unless you are certain that you are not adding NXT-specific data to constituent records.

TL;DR - Both merge tools work the same way and neither is less permanent than the other with respect to deleting merged records. BUT, merging in database view will necessarily remove NXT-specific data, so merging in web view is likely ideal.

JoAnn Strommen

Welcome to the community.

Re #1 and 2 - what process are you using to bring payments/registrations into RE? OLX and NetC have a review process. Web view/NXT side is weak on this side. If your experience is similar to ours, you will consistently be dealing with duplicate records. BB is reportedly working to improve algorithms to prevent. If you get records with 3-4 match points, contact support. At one point they asked for my examples so they could analyze. Doing the merges and the manual deletes is a real pain IMO.

They will all get records and it requires some unique coding if payments come in thru webview and you do not want them to count down the road in donation totals/life time giving.

#3 - tributes can cause more issues - other than loading on one “Tribute” record, I don't have a good solution for this.

#4 Don't know what best practice manual you are referencing but keep in mind, each org uses RE based on their needs and what is a solid practice for one may not work at all for another.

#5 If you've merged them (I tend to click any relevant category including gifts), go to db and open both records for an individual. You will see one is marked as inactive and contains essentially only bio data. If you see, gift or attribute data that you need you will need to merge again. This can show you that all is merged.

It looks like you are quite busy with a variety of responsibilities. I would strongly recommend taking some of the BB training classes to learn more about the software.

Austen Brown

Hi @Kellie BurnsFranco - It would be helpful to know what platform you are looking at to process donations and event registrations - I am going to presume that you are looking at OLX and NXT.

1. When using OLX you will have the option to manually review constituent information before it is processed into your system. With NXT, the system will automatically match provided donor information to a record in your system, it is conservative in its matches meaning duplicates are likely.

2. There is a certain way to set this up within RE prior to launching an event form on either OLX or NXT. Check out this recent thread for additional information between the two options: https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/213/55364

3. As NXT does not currently have the ability to include a tribute option on its donation forms, OLX will be the one referenced here. If you do not want to create a tribute as a new constituent, match it to an ‘Anonymous’ record instead during the manual review process.

4. If you found the document on a forum within BB Community, reach out to original poster and see if they would be willing to send the file to you directly.

5. When merging constituents in web view you will also need to review them within database, and possibility merge them again. If your org stores data in an area that does not currently ‘live’ in web view, it cannot be merged from that view. After review, and the additional merge via database view, you can mark the ‘empty’ record as inactive or delete it - I prefer the latter. I would also recommend you record the constituent id from the ‘empty’ record under the current record's alias section.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions. I am more than happy to help.

Amelia Ketzle

Also, in case you haven't come across this yet, if you're merging data from one record to another in db view and both records contain data in that field, the data in the “to be merged” record will be left behind - it will not overwrite what is in that field in the “keep” record. I experienced this when we had a full middle name in one record and just an initial in the other. Without thinking, I was expecting it to overwrite with the more complete info, but it doesn't do that. You have to make sure in cases like that that the data you want kept makes it over to the “keep” record.

Kellie BurnsFranco

Thank you! I did not realize that.

Kellie BurnsFranco

Thank you! #5 is definitely where I am nervous. I have merged in the web based side of NXT but have not done this in the database version yet.