Add alumni year to parent/grandparent's name

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Mary Cummings
Mary Cummings ✭
Second Anniversary Facilitator 1 Name Dropper February 2025 Monthly Challenge
in Ask an All Star (Austen Brown)

Does anyone append the alumni/student year to the parent? Example Mary Cummings P'18,20

If so, any tips on how to configure the name field to autograb that information.

Thanks,

Comments

  • Austen Brown
    Austen Brown ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    @Mary Cummings - I'm conferring with friends that work with RE in a school setting, and I'll have an response to you soon.

  • Austen Brown
    Austen Brown ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    @Mary Cummings - This is a great question! First off, a big thanks to @Dan Snyder, @Carlene Johnson, @Hallie Guiseppe, and @Jeremy Bontrager for helping me understand the process and the typical challenges that come with it.

    The consensus is that there are a few ways to manage this process within RE, typically involving a mix of attributes, relationships, and addressee/salutation fields. Every method is tedious and labor-intensive, often requiring frequent data exports, manipulation in Excel, and re-importing data. Some store the entire parent addressee with student/alumni years in an additional addressee field, while others store just the year in an attribute, which can later be concatenated for specific mailings or honor rolls post-export in Excel. I recommend you use a method where it is easy to extract the data you need and best supports your org.

    A key takeaway from my discussions was the importance of maintaining this process regularly – either daily, weekly, or at least semi-annually, usually after graduations. If you don’t already have a standard data entry document, I highly recommend creating one. This will help you document your current process and requirements, promoting data accuracy and consistency, while ensuring you have everything you need for whatever list you're pulling.

    The good news is that this process can be automated with Power Automate! If you’re interested in learning more about this low-code/no-code solution, check out this blog: https://community.blackbaud.com/blogs/13/8292. Alternatively, if you want to leverage automation without learning it yourself, Blackbaud Partners like AutomateGenius can help.

    Dan, Carlene, Hallie and Jeremy - if there's anything you'd like to add, feel free to do so!

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