Blackbaud MobilePay and compatibility with devices

Gina Gerhard:

I just received a newsletter from Blackbaud Payment Services about their MobilePay service and wanted to share something we ran into recently.


We had been using MobilePay for several years at our event, using the swipers and several tablets (one iPad and one Galaxy) in order to process credit card transactions.

• This year, we wanted to use more tablets, so we purchased 2 additional Samsung Galaxy tablets for this purpose - the same model as we had been using previously.
• When we went to try them out before the event, the swipers no longer worked on any of the Galaxy tablets - apparently something had changed.
• We worked with Blackbaud and somehow our model of our Galaxy tablets were not on the approved list - even though the one before was working fine for several years.
• We had to return the 2 new tablets we ordered for this purpose (and lost some money in the bargain for restocking fee).
• And instead, we ended up using 2 mobile phones with the swipers -- so we had 1 tablet and 2 phones taking registrations.

So just be careful -- the advertising says it works on Android tablets and phones -- but make sure you check the 'approved' model information that Blackbaud provides before assuming they'll work.  


Otherwise we've been very happy with the functionality.