Sharing my Power Automate Flow: Sponsorship Pledge Request

Alex Wong

Hi all,

This automation is for setting up a fundraising business process automation on one of our most popular program. The main benefits of automation is to make the business process standardize and consistently recorded in RE NXT.

Key technology we will touching on:

• Microsoft Form for collecting signed agreement document and information for the sponsorship
• Approval process conditioning on how submitted information
• Power Automate that utilize beta API (hopefully soon to release), Giftv2, for creating Pledge gift in RE NXT
• Use other gift API calls to attach signed agreement document to the gift record and add gift custom fields to the gift relating to specific sponsorship information submitted

What you will need:

• Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT Power Automate connector
• Access to beta Giftv2 SKY API (as of posting, still in beta)
• Other supporting Power Automate connectors:
  • SharePoint
  • HTTP
  • Approvals
  • Outlook

Skill level: Intermediate to Advanced

Configuration Needed:

• Microsoft Form to intake pledge request and upload signed agreement
  Sponsorship Pledge Request Form.pdf
• SharePoint location that host agreement template for downloading and uploading signed agreement from the Form above
• Power Automate flow that automates the business process
  IMPACT! Pledge Request Automation.pdf
  SponsorshipPledgeRequest_20220525200822.zip

Area Used:

• Automation
• Integration

Comment: While this particular business automation may not specifically applies to anyone other than my organization, what is good to pick up on is the details steps taken to use a MS Form for business information collection, Power Automate to process the details and approval of the request, and finally using SKY API and Blackbaud RE NXT Power Automate connector to complete the RE NXT data side of the business process. This allows for standardizing of business process from request to data entered into RE, while saving manual entry time and human errors.

Ben Regier

Nice flow, @Alex Wong! I like that you accounted for the possibility that approvals might time out - so many people don't think about that when building flows.

I want to plug an idea I have in the Idea Bank right now that would make your HTTP calls a lot easier - I'm hoping that Blackbaud could add a “Send an HTTP Request to Blackbaud” action to their connectors - similar to the HTTP action that SharePoint has.

This would allow you to call SKY API endpoints that aren't otherwise covered in the connector without having to go through the rigmarole of keeping track of your authorization and subscription key separately.

Please vote if you like.

Alex Wong

What you had suggested in the Idea Bank would be handy to have. What I did is a workaround the limitation of OAuth2 and diffinitely has its drawback, if Blackbaud can figure out a better way for admin to issue API calls in Power Automate (or any custom program for that matter) while still be able to properly authenticate, that would be best.