Moving to Hosted - What Tests Should I Run?

First a question: are you moving to Hosting in preparation for NXT?  If so, Hosting was a much bigger learning curve and headache than NXT.  Probably because I wasn't expecting it to be that way.  And with NXT, if you can't do it there (yet), you can just switch back to RE:7 (now Hosted).


I didn't actually have time to do much testing...by the time we made the decision and all the pieces fell into place, we had to just jump in because we were in the EAP (Early Adopter Program) for NXT.  I do know that I had to keep reminding myself not to do any data changes in the test version...which was hard as my coworkers kept requesting things!


One of the biggest things I had to get used to was Exporting and Importing.  Hosted RE can't access your org's network (for security reasons), so there is a File Manager piece, which I tried out and then have ignored completely.  I ended up creating a Blackbaud folder on my Desktop and that's where I Export to and Import from.  It's a bit of clicking to get to that folder from within RE, but RE usually remembers what folder to default to.  Then I have a shortcut that lives in that folder to a folder on our network, so I can just drag-and-drop the files to and from the network locations where they belong.  It's an extra step I didn't have, but not too bad.  I would recommend checking that out now, while you've got a little time, rather than when you get to a crunch and don't have time to go playing with it and figuring it out because you've got something that has to be done asap...if you can't tell, that was my experience .


There will be a lot of things to adjust in your processes, but most of them really are little and not a big deal.  And not really anything to test for.  I also recommend having your IT team keep a good copy of your database at the time you actually make the switch.  You can then get back to how it is on Day 1 if you need to reference something or check on something...  I just changed everyone's passwords in that version to something else, so they couldn't accidentally access and work in the wrong version, and I changed my own password so I would realize/confirm which version I was in.  Over time, we removed the desktop links for everyone to that version, and I never really did have to reference it.


Good luck!  And definitely post again with any specific questions (or message me directly and I'll help if I can).

I've been a 3 different organizations where we went to being hosted by Blackbaud and the process always went smoothly and I can't really think of anything that I had to do to get ready for it. I agree that it's just a matter of adjusting to things being a little different, but none of it is difficult to figure out.