Donor Acknowledgement letters (after the loss of Microsoft integration)

Lyngblomsten Foundation

Is it possible to save all one's letters and the conditional merge document (for between 12-15 different letters) on the BB server in Files - and have the merge actually work correctly?

I've had it on a personal computer drive - but that computer was just replaced (and IT gave it a different "name") so now I have to create the merge document from scratch. (Ugh!) I'm looking forward to another person, using yet another computer merging thank you letters down the road a bit - and I don't want/need the aggravation of having to re-create the conditional merge over and over again.

Karen Stuhlfeier

@Lyngblomsten Foundation Good question and I think that Blackbaud should help figure out this issue. Also, adding or deleting letters to the conditional merge is a pain. I too hope to have another person processing letters soon and also need to figure this out.

Blackbaud - do you read these? You now offer the most basic Word and Excel classes, but we need real solutions and help with complex conditional merges.

Lyngblomsten Foundation

@Karen Stuhlfeier Karen - I've created a case. I'll let you know what kind of reply I get. (Jeanne working at Lyngblomsten)

Karen Stuhlfeier

@Lyngblomsten Foundation Hi Jeanne, the merge document that you shared in our user group was the best information that I ever got and really helped me build my own conditional merge. Thanks!

Barbara Kunkel

@Lyngblomsten Foundation - we also have about 10 different letters in one main letter document, so I feel your pain. I don't have the answer to your BB server question. We have these letters in a corporate shared folder on our servers. Plus, I kept a copy in my personal server folder. We have backup team members who need access to these letters. Do you have a shared location instead of personal computers where the letters can be housed?

Lyngblomsten Foundation

@Barbara Kunkel In the merge doc, doe the Path to the letters in the inserted text use the shared folder? Doesn't the export still go to the local drive? (To add to my frustration, while I'm trying to sort this out, the IT guy took away the Microsoft license to my “old” computer so Microsoft keeps shutting me down before I can get the completed merge saved to the shared network drive. Good thing it's Friday afternoon! Grrr).

Tatyana Leifman

@Lyngblomsten Foundation we use a shared drive. The individual templates and the main merge document are saved on the shared drive so the paths of all the letters is the shared drive. The first export of the info to be merged into the letters got saved there too though the users can choose where to save the subsequent data exports (I've recommended the same location). And you can set the default location through the User Options.

Karen Stuhlfeier

@Tatyana Leifman This doesn't work if you're using a shared drive in the cloud like Google. Our organization no longer has a local shared drive.

Tatyana Leifman

@Karen Stuhlfeier we actually use Google drive but our IT did have to create a special shared folder with a static address where I saved the templates and the master merge document (and the addresses in the master merge document point to the templates there). Also, the first time the user had to open and close (just open & close) the templates from their computer before using the master merge document. And I saved the documents there through MS Word and Windows Explorer (not uploading them via a browser).

Karen Stuhlfeier

@Tatyana Leifman Great information. Thanks!

Dana Burton

@Lyngblomsten Foundation, I agree with Barbara and Tatyana. We also save letter files and the master conditional letter on a shared drive. If you do not have access to a shared drive, Google Drive (for where you work) would be perfect. Below is a snippet of our conditional letter (the master), then there are individual letters for each.

Dariel Dixon 2

This is a great post. I think everyone needs to take this as a warning sign (I know I am) and make a backup of these folders where the merge fields and the master merge document reside. Cloud services like OneDrive or Google Drive would be ideal if your organization has access to those, but this does create quite a conundrum if your storage ever fails.

Christopher Blitz

@Lyngblomsten Foundation
I can't speak to Blackbauds server capabilities, but I can tell you that I house our conditional merge doc on our network drive, along with all of the letters. That way they're in one spot, and easy to access, plus they don't change with my or other PC's. That's just my 2 cents

Lyngblomsten Foundation

@Karen Stuhlfeier Thankfully, others here have come up with a better answer than did Blackbaud - and I'll work this week on recreating everything in a shared drive. I did hear back from BB - and here is the entire answer provided: “Currently you would have to export the information to your local machine, to be able to perform the word merge, maybe that will change in the future, but as of now you wont be able to do this without a local export.”

Note, Blackbaud support doesn't even suggest that using a shared drive is an option. I believe they've completely washed their hands of anything, even assistance, that has to do with Microsoft.

Lyngblomsten Foundation

For those of you who replied that you're saving your letters to a shared drive: 1.) Is your export from RE going to your C drive and then you're moving it to the shared drive? or 2) are you actually exporting directly to your own local shared network drive? If the answer is 2. - did your own IT staff set that up?

I found a Knowledgebase article (#67240) that says I can save files to a network drive, but that I have to ask BB for permission to do this. I've done that, they've responded that they've given me the permission, and still - I only see their hosted drive and my local C drive when I want to export my letters csv from Mail.

Tatyana Leifman

@Lyngblomsten Foundation I save the Export to the same shared drive location where the templates reside (when we all were scrambling to recreate our acknowledgements in anticipation of the end of integration with MS Office, there was mention in the community that saving the data file in a different location may create issues). I am able to save anything I pull from RE either to my local C drive or our shared drive. We are on Azure, if that makes any difference. We have always been able to do this since we migrated to NXT. I don't believe our IT had to do anything and I don't recall this coming up in the prep to migration but perhaps it was mentioned somewhere… This is the dialog box that I get when I export anything from RE (C is my laptop and G is our shared drive where I save almost exclusively).

Dariel Dixon 2

@Lyngblomsten Foundation:

For those of you who replied that you're saving your letters to a shared drive: 1.) Is your export from RE going to your C drive and then you're moving it to the shared drive? or 2) are you actually exporting directly to your own local shared network drive? If the answer is 2. - did your own IT staff set that up?

In our case, we can export directly to the shared drive. Our IT staff has worked to set some of it up, but it's not very hard at all. Depending on how the shared drive is set up, there may be some difficulty in finding the drive, but if it is mapped correctly (ie. if you PC sees it just as it is a local drive), you shouldn't have any problems. Citrix does not always play well with the network mappings, so that may be a problem if you are hosted.

Kriste Buck

@Tatyana Leifman
I need to look into this. I didn't think the conditional merge and letters would work in a shared document. Thanks for this info.

Veronica Williams 2

@Tatyana Leifman Thanks. STILL trying to connect with a live person at BB to make this happen!