Share your ideas: bbcon 2025 Call for Speakers

Crystal Bruce

Get excited! Call for Speakers is now open for bbcon 2025 in Philadelphia, PA. I wanted to start this thread to discuss ideas for speaker sessions or to just be a sounding board! What is a session you'd like to see at bbcon 2025?

Rachel Cavalier

@Crystal Bruce I'd like to see tips and tricks for data entry (particularly batch data entry) for RE NXT web view

Hannah McKinney

@Crystal Bruce I think it would be nice to have a session on how to effectively standardize usage of RE across your team.

Karen Stuhlfeier

@Crystal Bruce I'd like to hear more from actual RENXT daily users and less sales pitches for third party software. Let's learn how to use what we already have instead of hearing about the bright, shiny thing they want us to buy.

Kimberly Pierce

@Crystal Bruce I would like to hear more about the transition from database view to web view, and how soon all functionalities will be available. It is tiresome to move back and forth between applications.

Stacey Henley

@Crystal Bruce As an FE user primarily - I’d love to see more in-depth sessions focused on accounting functionality and best practices.

Specifically, it would be helpful to have deep dives into using Cash Management, an in-depth session on Accounts Payable covering everything from expense management to utilizing the (coming?) OCR invoice capability and how the built-in EFT processing works (not Payment Assistant). Custom reporting in FE, effectively using the dashboard builder, and posting from RE to FE.

A session with a deep dive into Tuition Management - setting up the new school year, the shopping cart, imports, reporting and custom reporting and reconciling TM data to the JE's pushed to FE.

Less emphasis on sales pitches for third-party software would also be appreciated, as I’m more interested in maximizing the system’s built-in capabilities.

Kate Clayton

@Crystal Bruce
I would love to see streams of who a session was designed for. Last year I attended a fair few sessions that seemed aimed at the beginner RE user that I may have chosen another session if I'd known, and I know a few of my fellow attendees felt the same.

Also more from Blackbaud and less for third party add-ons, it was sometimes frustrating to attend a session on a topic only to realise that it was for an additional purchase.

Lastly, I'd love to see more on data extraction and analytics. This is a heavy focus for a lot of organisations at the minute, and while there is a heavy emphasis on using AI for this I think it would also be interesting to see what kind of internal analytics blackbaud prioritises

Rachel Cavalier

@Karen Stuhlfeier:

@Crystal Bruce I'd like to hear more from actual RENXT daily users and less sales pitches for third party software. Let's learn how to use what we already have instead of hearing about the bright, shiny thing they want us to buy.

Absolutely this one - sometimes looking at the sessions and seeing that so many are from third party software providers, I get the feeling that the vibe from Blackbaud is that RENXT doesn't work on a basic level without outsider help.

Mary Cummings

@Crystal Bruce I would like to have more sessions geared towards academics including scheduling, reporting, end of year procedures and transcripts/report cards.

I would like less 3rd party sessions.

Thanks

Jordyn Kieft

@Crystal Bruce I would love to have a panel on the conversion over from database view into web view and what that is going to look like!

Reuben Schmitz 2

@Crystal Bruce as others have noted, many of the sessions are geared toward beginning users. It is great to have sessions that dig in to advanced functionality and really help the experienced user.

Amy Babcox

@Crystal Bruce We have a very small advancement team, which I understand is the norm for many schools. I would love to hear from other small teams about how they maximize the use of RENXT. I feel like there are so many features we aren't utilizing fully - either because we're not aware of them or simply don't have the time. A session focused on the most important aspects of the system and how to use them efficiently would be incredibly helpful. Tips, shortcuts, and best practices for making the most of our time - especially with tools like power automate to streamline stewardship - would be a game-changer.

Allison Reville

I second that @Amy Babcox

Allison Reville

@Crystal Bruce
I'm new to the Events module and would really appreciate an events track, or events day. I'd love to hear from someone who used RE7 with work-arounds for events and then learned to use and maximize NXT - without 3rd party assistance. I agree with some of the sentiments behind being able to use what we have.

Vincent Catapano 3

@Crystal Bruce
would love to see a session on events and how to accurately manage all of the moving parts of some of our major events all within the module.

Mark Guncheon 2

@Crystal Bruce Here's an idea and I've already got a title for the session:
Insight into Insights: Turn your dash-boreds into useful dashboards.
I'm always hoping for a session on tricks and tips to create dashboards you didn't know could be created in NXT. Maybe have a contest months before where dashboarders submit their favorite creation and give the top ten submitters five minutes each to talk about their work. Include shareable screenshots.

Karen Stuhlfeier

@Mark Guncheon Sign me up to submit mine! This sounds like a great idea.

Lena Lieb

@Crystal Bruce I would like to see a full Altru track for fundraisers - from events, grants, major gifts, and annual fund. A lot of the previous Altru tracks are a balance of membership, marketing, and fundraising but I'd like to see these topics stand more comprehensively on their own.

Lauren Henderson 3

@Crystal Bruce
I would like the K-12 schools track/presenters to be scheduled more thoughtfully- there were several session times last year that had multiple competing offerings that I thought would be extremely valuable to me, and unfortunately I could only be in one place at a time! For example, a Power Automate presentation conflicting with a data management session.

Anuradha Parihar

@Crystal Bruce, I would like to hear more about the transition from database view to web view, and how soon all functionalities will be available. More flexibility with insight customizations.

Joe Killian

As @Lena Lieb mentioned, an actual Altru session would be fantastic, particularly one that focuses on real scenarios. A session on best practice setups would be incredibly useful, including:

• Pros/Cons to each of the membership program types
• How to setup events to work around Altru's limitations (see summer camp webinar)
• How to make the most of online shopping and digital tickets given Altru's limitations
• Admin power session: Deep system settings to make your life easier
• Automation within Altru - using Alerts and KPIs
• Query Power Session
• Open Q&A Sessions

The last two BBcons have largely ignored Altru, offering only one real session for Altru (like Online Giving), and third party vendor ads disguised as sessions (How to get Digital Membership Cards - surprise! You need to pay a third party).

KAS Shannon Knight

I proposed two talks for Altru:

• Altru Reporting: More than Just Reports
• Who Are You? Describing Constituents in Altru

Hope there's interest!

Ken Neff

I agree with others, that Altru seems mostly ignored at bbcon. We'd love to see more Altru configuration and power user sessions. An entire track for Altru! There always seems to be Altru limitations that require work arounds and it's usually 3rd parties advertising work arounds with no solutions from Blackbaud.

Crystal Bruce

Thanks everyone! These are great. Keep them coming!

Crystal Bruce

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Marie Stark

@Crystal Bruce I would like to see sessions on insight designer and prospect insights.

Alex Wong

@Crystal Bruce
I put in a few session for bbdevday, not sure if maybe do one of them for bbcon. wondering what's the interest out there:

1. AIAC - Demo Gift Tile - eInvoice; Demo Constituent Tile - eStatement
2. Different ways to save data to Excel
3. Power BI without Gateway via Power Automate
4. Power Automate Excel, Word, Email and HTML Tips and Tricks

Kelly Hogan

@Crystal Bruce
I think @Alex Wong is on the right track!

Tips and tricks about solving org problems using Blackbaud and Power Platform would be great. I have dabbled, but I definitely need to build my confidence and knowledge.

JoAnn Strommen

Have liked a number of the suggestions. With more functions hopefully being available in web view by Q3, I would hope to see sessions on admin/roles/security. I find the ‘role’ function a bit confusing. How will import and global change / global add functions work? We have international addresses that need to be formatted correctly - how will that those be set? Where will attributes end up?

I am hoping more sessions will be available virtually. I understand the challenges for sound/video that presents but for many it's not an option to attend every year.

Miki Martin

@Mark Guncheon I wish I was still at my old org so I could grab those dashboards I built! I was so proud of those things.

Scott Chrysler

@Crystal Bruce - For the K12 track sessions on report card & transcript design would be very helpful. There are some pretty neat buried tricks in there that can really enhance these items. Also, a deep dive into Roles and managing roles would be helpful.