Exporting donation information into .csv

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Silvina Santos
Silvina Santos ✭
Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Hello,

We are looking into OLX and have been doing some testing to see if is a right fit for our Org.... There are some things that concern me... 1) Not being able to match the donation to a spouse...2) Having to create a constituent record for the contact of an organization even though they are a non constituent contact. 3) Having our International Country table drive the country fields on the donation form.  (what happens if a donor gives from a country that is not on my list?)  4) Not being able to export the data out to review it and do with it what we need. (in this case go around the transaction manager and import the information another way.)  Not ideal, I know.  But it may be the only way for us to use OLX. 

Has there been any discussion of having an export functionality?
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  • Karen Stuhlfeier
    Karen Stuhlfeier ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 3 Name Dropper Photogenic

    You have an interesting set of issues. If you don't want to bring gifts into a batch and commit the batch in RE the traditional way OLX might not be the right product for you? I think that your other concerns need a little more explanation. It's not exactly clear what you mean or maybe I'm just not understanding it? Are your spouses linked the traditional way? Are they automatically being soft credited for gifts or are you doing that manually? If the contact is initiating the gift on your donation form don't you want them to have a constituent record? I have OLX and really love the product and it works very for my organization.


     




    Silvina Santos    :

    Hello,

    We are looking into OLX and have been doing some testing to see if is a right fit for our Org.... There are some things that concern me... 1) Not being able to match the donation to a spouse...2) Having to create a constituent record for the contact of an organization even though they are a non constituent contact. 3) Having our International Country table drive the country fields on the donation form.  (what happens if a donor gives from a country that is not on my list?)  4) Not being able to export the data out to review it and do with it what we need. (in this case go around the transaction manager and import the information another way.)  Not ideal, I know.  But it may be the only way for us to use OLX. 

    Has there been any discussion of having an export functionality?

     

  • Silvina Santos
    Silvina Santos ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply
    Patty,

     
    There are a great number of things that we like about OLX hence the reason for our interest in migrating to it.  It had always been our intention to use the gift batch to bring the gifts into RE as it was intended.  The only reason for the  inquiry about the export functionality is the obstacles that I am having with the constituent matching.  We as an organization have always consolidated spouses into one record.  Not being able to match on the spouse (nickname or contact for that matter) is a hindrance.  (if spouse, Jane Doe, goes online to give a donation, we would like to apply this donation to the record for John and Jane Doe.  I am having to jump through hoops to find Jane Doe.)  (Even a way to search manually would be a great help.)  Right now it is causing issues as duplicate records may be created unnecessarily.   An export of the data would allow me the opportunity to have full control of the information and how it is brought in. (possibly by using IOM) – Not ideal, but a work around.  

     
    The contact of an organization is a valued resource for us but ultimately not the donor.  We would prefer not to add this contact as a constituent until they show interest in being an individual partner. This also causes some issues as records would need to be added that will result in having no any further participation.

     
    These are things that I can try to work around but had hoped would have been handled differently.  In the 15 years I have used  RE, it’s always been advocated that we as organizations dictate how we use the software.  I feel restricted to having to conform to doing things a specific way that may not be ideal for us. 

     
    I hope to find a way around my concerns and end up loving the product as much as you do…

     
  • Jen Claudy
    Jen Claudy ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    I admit it's not the most intuitive process, but you can manually search for Jane Doe if her husband is the HOH on their record.  And you can then import via Batch that transaction to John Doe's record.  There is a Find Constituent button, and then you can use the checkboxes to adjust search parameters.  Find the record you want, select it, and tell OLX to use it.  Then set it to disregard data updates (so that it doesn't change John to Jane or a 5-digit zip to a zip+4).  I wish OLX would allow us to set defaults on some of these options, but it's doable for now and they are always improving the system.


    Many times, when I get the email alert for a new donation, I search RE before opening OLX.  Then when I do go download transactions, I know if they have a record already, and what the HOH name is.


    Of course, we don't have a high volume of online donations, so maybe an export/import process would work better for you at this point in time.  There is an Export button on the transaction screen, and you can then dismiss all of the transactions without downloading them to a Batch.  But you'll want to be sure you've grabbed any other data from them first.  You could also let it create a new record, then merge that new record for Jane with the existing on under John's name and delete the new one.

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