Online Donation forms and JustGiving - suggested automations?

Ben Regier

Hello!

My org is taking its first baby steps towards using Blackbaud online donation forms and JustGiving campaigns. I know I've seen multiple posts here over the years of automations that people have set up to bring the gifts into RE and FE more smoothly. If you have an automation of that sort that is making your life easier, please let me know what you're doing!

For example, a few things we've already noticed is that you can't set a gift sub-type on an online donation form, and you can't set a campaign for the donor cover fees, so we're considering an automation to cover those gaps. I also remember people talking about how gift dates in JustGiving don't always match dates in Raiser's Edge, or something like that? But I wasn't able to find those threads.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

Alex Wong

@Ben Regier
I still do not use RE NXT donation forms due to its lack of configurability: Gift subtype, campaign, gift attribute/custom fields, etc. We use Luminate Online and through IOM and custom coded profile, gifts are coming in coded exactly how we wanted it, not planning to change in short time.

As for JustGiving, here's a few note:

• the RENXT integration does put JG gifts into batch, but they have not yet fix the “gift date” issue with UK timezone. Meaning, if a gift was made such that it is UK next day, the gift date will be that next date, while your BBMS will record the gift date as today (assuming you are in US)
• RENXT integration for “general” gift made allows for CFAP to be specified as default, and can be overwritten per JG campaign, however, this doesn't exist for JG Fundraising pages.
  • JG campaign is campaign created internally
  • JG fundraising page is donor initiated/created pages
  • meaning all JG fundraising pages donation will use the default CFAP, not good for us
• RE NXT JG gift is put into batches such that the gift “date added” is the actual date when the transaction was made, NOT when the gift batch is approved
  • meaning, if you have a daily gift report automation, you will either need to make sure you approve the gift batch BEFORE end of day or use automation to delete gift created by the approving of gift batch and recreated it in the automation so it is always the date gift batch is approved.

Alex Wong

@Ben Regier
Ops, did not mention what automation I have.

Due to even the integration of JG Campaign doesn't have gift attribute selection, and we need to be able to specify a specific gift attribute “Affinity” (i.e. Young Leadership, Real Estate, Financial Service, etc) I have 2 SP lists:

• JG Campaign Affinity SP list
  • record a reference table for JG Campaign (will need to be unique naming) and the gift attribute for Affinity
• JG Fundraising SP List
  • record reference table of JG fundraising URL and CFAP and Affinity (CFAP in system record id)

Automation:

• Webhook API setup for when gift created
  • check for if it is JustGiving gift (will have reference of JustGiving #########) - ######### is actually the Donation Ref in the JG donation report, this is good for matching back to JG donation report, so I use this same number as the Receipt #.
  • if yes
    • re-create a new gift record that has the gift subtype, CFAP (from SP list), and copy all gift attributes and add Affinity gift attribute and mark as receipted and with receipt # that is from the Reference, etc, etc

Ben Regier

@Alex Wong
Thanks Alex. From a quick test, it looks like the Gift Add webhook fires when the batch is approved, right? Have you found any way to trigger an automation when the donation actually comes in and is added to the batch, so an automation could make changes to the gifts in the batch before they are approved?

I'm also curious about how your automation deletes and then recreates the gift. Is there a reason you prefer to do it that way as opposed to editing the gift?

Alex Wong

@Ben Regier
there is no webhook event for when a gift is added to a batch (not yet approved) and there is no api supporting the editing of gift when it is in batch.

I delete and re-create b/c of the “flaw/bug" of the web batch process. When a gift is added to a webview batch, the “date added” property of the “eventual gift that get created when batch is approved" is already set. This is bad for daily gift report (either manual or automated).

Imagine:

1. donor make a donation today 9/17/2024. this donation is added to webview batch (not approved yet). gift is not truly created.
2. webview batch is separeted by each day (JustGiving is UK so unforunately it is cut off by UK next day). So meaning, it doesn't make sense for org to approve a webview batch that is dated today, so new donation of today can continue to be added to it, so logically, the webview batch will be approved tomorrow 9/18/2024
3. However when you approve the webview batch on 9/18/2024, the gift created (technically truly created on 9/18/2024) actually have a date added property of 9/17/2024.
4. If we are to run daily gift report on gift added yesterday, webview gift will never be in these reports.

So by using webhook to delete and recreate the gift, the gift approved on 9/18/2024 will have a 9/18/2024 date added property, instead of 9/17/2024.

Ben Regier

@Alex Wong
Makes sense, thanks.

I found this endpoint while exploring my options for automations - it looks like it could be used to update a batch gift, but I haven't tested it yet. Still in preview, though, and with the date issue you're working around, maybe not something you're interested in.

Alex Wong

@Ben Regier
Ahh.. thanks for the link. I forgot BB recently introduced a preview API for more gift batch support.

For me, the important thing is to ensure the date added is “correct”. So for now the endpoint to edit gift while in batch isn't useful. I do hope BB fix this issue sooner rather than later.

However, I wonder how well one would plan to use edit gift in batch. This endpoint require the batchgiftid, which cannot be obtained anywhere (at least I didn't find it). I can imagine a webhook for when gift is added to batch, and provides the batchgiftid. I can imagine having a “list batch gifts” endpoint that allows you to provide a batch id to get a list of all gift within the batch. (there is already a endpoint for list gift batches with parameter to get only batches not yet approved). So there really isn't a “automation path” to truly utilize the edit batch gift endpoint yet.