BBMS transaction ID on RENXT gift?

Nicole Holt

We are finally trying out the RENXT giving forms, and in testing I see that the BBMS transaction ID is present on the email notification I get for gifts but does not appear anywhere in the RENXT gift record.

We use these IDs for reconciliation, which is not uncommon. How are folks getting these IDs in the gift records? Please tell me it isn't copy/paste.

To add to my confusion, I looked in the Idea Bank and that site says this has not only already been requested, but shipped--which means it should be in the record somewhere, right?

Please help--I feel like I'm missing something really basic (and important).

Alex Wong

@Nicole Holt
we don't use RE NXT donation form, but we use JustGiving and its integration allows the “transactio id” to be included in the Reference field “JustGiving #########” and in my automation use that ####### as the receipt # for the gift.

Does RE NXT donation come in having ANY id in any of the field?

Lee Grisham

@Nicole Holt If you are looking for a way to reconcile BBMS information with RE NXT information, unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this. BB does not make the BBMS information exportable from RE NXT. I've requested this from support and they said it is not possible, even though the systems are “integrated.” ?

We moved to the 4 monthly disbursements because of this. It was ridiculous to try to track the disbursals daily where there was no easy way to reconcile them.

We also stopped using NXT forms for our main donations, which has also allowed us to control it more using Fundraise Up and Stripe. They are much better about giving you all the information you need to reconcile with a report that shows EXACTLY what you need.

Nicole Holt

@Alex Wong Strangely, there is nothing?! The transaction ID appears on the email receipt and our email notification, but nowhere in the NXT gift record. And looking at a Power Automate solution, I can get the transaction ID from the Payments API, but not the NXT gift ID, so no direct links there either. I'm lost.

This was our first real test of NXT donation forms, and I'm already ready to go back to OLX.

Alex Wong

@Nicole Holt
Wow, that's just wrong.

I think you should talk to your account rep about this. No way to work a donation form where gifts comes in having no way to “trace” back to merchant service transaction.

we have no plan to use RE NXT donation form (in near future), so doesn't really concerns us for now. However, definitely a problem

Nicole Holt

@Alex Wong I think I've run into the dealbreaker for our NXT giving form test. If this includes some copy/paste nonsense I'm out. Ridiculous.

Lee Grisham

@Alex Wong @Nicole Holt I was told that the tile in NXT that has this information is “pulling the information from BBMS” which means it actually doesn't exist in NXT. Just an API request from BBMS. That's why there is nothing in the NXT API, it doesn't actually exist there, just a pull through from BBMS.

It's so frustrating for us to see that information, but not be able to do anything with it!!

NXT Gift Record

Nicole Holt

@Lee Grisham This is so frustrating. If it can pull the info from BBMS, it should save the info from BBMS.

Alex Wong

@Lee Grisham
THAT IS interesting!

So there is DEFINITELY a way for the information to “connect” with the gift record, just may NOT be “visible”.

If you are familiar with browser developer tool for inspection, you can open that and reload the gift page, there will be a “call” made to the get this information, what to look out for is what is being passed to the “call” to get the info, which then potentially can be “mimic-ed” using power automate flow.

Nicole Holt

@Lee Grisham
I'm not sure if it's because i was lazy and used ApplePay for my test, but all I got was this:

Alex Wong

@Nicole Holt
I don't know how ApplyPay works, but doesn't that not go through BBMS?

Nicole Holt

@Alex Wong It does! My email notification even has a BBMS transaction ID.

I've never interacted with our customer success manager before, but I'm going to give her a try…

Daniel R. Snyder

@Nicole Holt This and the fact that date added is the same as the date of gift, NOT when you commit the batch are two big reasons we are on GiveCampus

The date issue has been something going on for years. Putting both ideas here if people want to vote.

BBMS ID Idea

Gift Date Added Idea

Alex Wong

@Dan Snyder
Yup, RE NXT Gift Management/Batching is terrible for us as well. As mentioned, we use JustGiving and it does the same thing with gift going into web gift batch, so we had to create an automation where we identify the JustGiving gift and “recreated” the gift using SKY API and delete the gift created by the batch approval using the webhook for when gift created.

Nicole Holt

@Dan Snyder I was inspired/excited by a bbcon session that talked about all the reasons to switch from OLX to NXT. And now I'm sort of committed to using NXT for a radio donation drive this month, but at least I will only have ~300 records to ‘fix’. No way we can move as is for Giving Tuesday or general giving. I'm so disappointed.

Lee Grisham

@Nicole Holt It's got a new, flashy cover, but once you open the book, the substance just isn't there.

@Alex Wong Did you post that on the API forum? May be over complicated for us to do, but definitely an interesting idea.

Alex Wong

@Lee Grisham
I think I have posted as reply somewhere before, but don't find it.

in a nutshell:

• create a webhook on gift created
• in the flow that is called on every gift creation:
  • look for JustGiving gift (all JustGiving gift is a Donation gift type with JustGiving ######## as the Reference field)
  • gather info:
    • from the JustGiving gift's custom field of JustGiving Campaign or JustGiving Fundraising Page URL, I have a Sharepoint list that pre-determines the campaign, fund, appeal, and package that should be coded on the gift (rather than generic same for all)
    • campaign, fund, appeal, package (if changed by the custom field with predetermined, use those, otherwise, use what was on the original gift)
  • create gift using SKY API
    • this also allows me to applies our org's gift entry process, including what the Reference/Gift Subtype field should be
  • using the gift system id returned by the SKY API POST to create gift call
    • add back all the original custom fields
    • add additional custom fields used/defined by our org (i.e. Online Origin=JustGiving)
    • Update the Receipt info, indicated gift has been receipted, and use the JustGiving transaction id (originally in the Reference field that's JustGiving ########) as the receipt # for future tracking and bank rec
  • delete the original gift (id given by the webhook)

Judy Spigarelli

@Nicole Holt - Hi Nicole, I hosted this session and I'm happy to chat about some of the challenges you're experiencing. As I said at bbcon, and when I presented to @Dan Snyder's group, I did make the change to web view, as have so many organizations. I wonder if the free webinar Raiser's Edge NXT: Your Guide for Reconciling Blackbaud Merchant Services and Raiser's Edge (on24.com) might help. I'm available for follow-up questions!

Lee Grisham

@Judy Spigarelli This really explains the problem! There isn't a way currently to work in one system to reconcile, it must be done on both sides, BBMS and RE NXT.

Nicole Holt

@Judy Spigarelli Thanks Judy. It is just so helpful to have a unique identifier in both systems--yes, for easier recon, but also to post PDFs of email receipts to records.

I could find a way live with it as-is if it didn't list gifts made with ApplePay as payment type ‘other.’ Including ‘other’ in our recon query will pull in every EFT from every 3rd party payer--benevity, fidelity, REN, cybergrants, etc, etc. I'm just not convinced this will save time.

Nicole Holt

@Judy Spigarelli: It's early going, but I might be a convert to the NXT form. THANK YOU for your BBcon presentation--I would not have considered trying it out if I had not attended!

Our larger reconciliation problem was Paypal, which we may just solve by creating a disbursement after each Paypal batch is committed, instead of our current weekly schedule.

@Nicole Holt - Hi Nicole, I hosted this session and I'm happy to chat about some of the challenges you're experiencing. As I said at bbcon, and when I presented to @Dan Snyder's group, I did make the change to web view, as have so many organizations. I wonder if the free webinar Raiser's Edge NXT: Your Guide for Reconciling Blackbaud Merchant Services and Raiser's Edge (on24.com) might help. I'm available for follow-up questions!

Alex Wong

@Nicole Holt
While trying to answer another post's question, i was looking for some info on payment API that I replied before, and found this post:

so the important thing relevent for this discussion is bbps_configuration_id and bb_transaction_id in the payments object of the JSON returned by Get Gift and Get Gift List. I don't use RE NXT donation form, so can't test, can someone do a Get Gift on a gift that is from RE NXT Donation form and see if you have the bb_transaction_id returned, if yes, use that bb_transaction_id to lookup in BBMS if the transaction is matching the gift info. If yes, that's the common ID that serve to reconcile the transactions.

Ashley Gelderblom 2

@Nicole Holt in terms of recon for non Apple pay gifts, I have built a key from Accholder|Amount|Date|Authcode from a Raisers Edge export and have been matching it to a key built from the same fields from the Merchant Services transaction lists export - in this way I can get the settled date from Merchant services and add it to Raisers Edge to aid recon. Apple pay I am still having to do manually.

Nicole Holt

@Alex Wong, Yes! I found that after our big event. It only works for credit and direct debit, but that is a start (and I used that to build out a Sharepoint list to help isolate the other gifts that need matching).

@Ashley Gelderblom – that is a great solution! Now for those pesky Apple Pay/Paypal/Venmos… (actually, we decided to just change our schedule for PayPal disbursements so one batch = one disbursement, so theoretically we won't need to do more for Venmo/Paypal. We had been disbursing weekly, but now we'll just disburse when we finish a batch so the two match).

Nicole Holt

I just wanted to let anyone who has been following this saga know that I found where BBMS ID for all gifts (including Apple Pay) are stored!

In PowerAutomate, using the ‘get a gift’ action, one of the returns is an array called ‘Origin.’ In this field, there is an item called ‘key_identifier.’ THIS IS THE BBMS ID!! If you parse the JSON, you can get that and put it someplace searchable in database view (I'm using a custom field).

Alex Wong

@Nicole Holt
Looking at the developer documentation:

origin seems to be just a “string” not an object with additional properties (i.e. key_identifier).

I went to one of my PA flow that use get a gift and also see Origin as only a dynamic content, no dynamic content for key_identifier.

I can't imagine we are using a different “get a gift” action that produce different dynamic content. Can you screenshot to show?

Nicole Holt

@Alex Wong:

@Nicole Holt
Looking at the developer documentation:

origin seems to be just a “string” not an object with additional properties (i.e. key_identifier).

I went to one of my PA flow that use get a gift and also see Origin as only a dynamic content, no dynamic content for key_identifier.

I can't imagine we are using a different “get a gift” action that produce different dynamic content. Can you screenshot to show?

Yes, in our ‘get a gift’ output, there is this item:

– here is the full output:
"origin": "{\\"name\\":\\"ONLINE\\",\\"key_identifier\\":\\"002e0e23-ed82-4010-afeb-e146980cedbf\\",\\"display_name\\":\\"Donation forms\\",\\"extended_info\\":{\\"donation_form_mode\\":\\"NONE\\",\\"locale\\":\\"en-US\\",\\"autoreceipting\\":null,\\"platform_name\\":\\"Online Giving_RENXT_Standard Donation Form\\",\\"donation_form_id\\":\\"2bbe5f00-894e-4d8e-bd06-8d9aecb48f57\\"}}",

using Parse JSON, I was able to extract the key_identifier:

Here is a little template of just this process: GettingBBMSIDfromGiftOrigin_20231204221427.zip

Nicole Holt

@Alex Wong, it does look like the Origin item might be null for gifts that are not through NXT forms.

Alex Wong

@Nicole Holt
Thanks for the screenshot, now I understand what was done.

Blackbaud basically got “lazy” and did not actually put Origin as an object, rather, it just put a “string” of json into origin and expect you to parse it yourselves.

Lee Grisham

@Nicole Holt A thousand “Claps” for you! Very impressed you could find that needle in a hayfield!