RELO Connector and orphan records in LO

robert badley · August 2016

We are just in the midst of implementing Luminate Online and have set up the RELO connector with RE as the database of record.

A problem that I have just run across is that we did a bunch of merges of identified duplicates in RE but for various reasons the coresponding duplicates in LO did not get merged. Is there a way of identifying orphan records in LO, ie those that do not have an existing link record in RE?

Wes Vance · August 2016

robert badley:

We are just in the midst of implementing Luminate Online and have set up the RELO connector with RE as the database of record.

A problem that I have just run across is that we did a bunch of merges of identified duplicates in RE but for various reasons the coresponding duplicates in LO did not get merged. Is there a way of identifying orphan records in LO, ie those that do not have an existing link record in RE?

Hi Robert,

In regards to this scenario, you can check which consitituent is linked by looking under the alias section in RE. The Luminate ID will be populated in this alias section and should be able to help you identify which LO record it is related to. Here are some steps to correct this issue:

First, compare the mapped ID’s to determine which Luminate Online record is properly linked to a record in The Raiser’s Edge. Take note of the record that is not linked to a The Raiser’s Edge
On the unlinked (or incorrectly linked) record in Luminate Online, dirty the record by editing a mapped field, such as the middle name, maiden name, nickname, title, or street address
When the record flows into the plug in, create a new The Raiser’s Edge record for it by processing it – we’re making a duplicate on purpose here so that we can merge it in The Raiser’s Edge, which will merge it in Luminate Online as well
Merge the constituent records together in The Raiser's Edge.

I hope this helps correct your issue.

-Wes Vance

Isaac Comer · April 2017

Wes Vance:

robert badley:

We are just in the midst of implementing Luminate Online and have set up the RELO connector with RE as the database of record.

A problem that I have just run across is that we did a bunch of merges of identified duplicates in RE but for various reasons the coresponding duplicates in LO did not get merged. Is there a way of identifying orphan records in LO, ie those that do not have an existing link record in RE?

Hi Robert,

In regards to this scenario, you can check which consitituent is linked by looking under the alias section in RE. The Luminate ID will be populated in this alias section and should be able to help you identify which LO record it is related to. Here are some steps to correct this issue:

First, compare the mapped ID’s to determine which Luminate Online record is properly linked to a record in The Raiser’s Edge. Take note of the record that is not linked to a The Raiser’s Edge

On the unlinked (or incorrectly linked) record in Luminate Online, dirty the record by editing a mapped field, such as the middle name, maiden name, nickname, title, or street address

When the record flows into the plug in, create a new The Raiser’s Edge record for it by processing it – we’re making a duplicate on purpose here so that we can merge it in The Raiser’s Edge, which will merge it in Luminate Online as well

Merge the constituent records together in The Raiser's Edge.
I hope this helps correct your issue.

-Wes Vance

This might work if you have just a handful, five or six orphaned records. But with our organization, as I understand it, it's something like tens of thousands of orphaned records.

The idea of "dirtying" (find a different word for that btw) all the records, then letting those come through the plugin to become dups, then merging them in RE just to get them merged in LO is ludicrous, a significant waste of bandwidth, and a waste of everyone's time (including the computer's, btw).

Brian Mucha · April 2017

'Dirty' is common programming parlance for an edited record that needs to be processed in some way.

What about exporting the records and identifying the dups in Excel or Access? You could then make some minor change and do a Custom Cons import to dirty all those records at once.

There's still the manual merges in RE, but I think this would still save a ton of work.

We're about to go with OMatic rather than RELO, man I hope the process there is better than this. We have thousands of dups as well.

robert badley · April 2017

Brian Mucha:

'Dirty' is common programming parlance for an edited record that needs to be processed in some way.

What about exporting the records and identifying the dups in Excel or Access? You could then make some minor change and do a Custom Cons import to dirty all those records at once.

There's still the manual merges in RE, but I think this would still save a ton of work.

We're about to go with OMatic rather than RELO, man I hope the process there is better than this. We have thousands of dups as well.

Brian, I will be very interested to hear your opinion of the IOM LO Connector as I am seriously investigating it now myself.

Brian Mucha · April 2017

It's expensive compared to RELO (they just moved to a subscription model like Blackbaud. Why pay once when we can keep paying forever?) but you can sync a LOT more data. A quick glance at the fields that can map to RE looks like pretty much everything. We'll be doing the profile mapping class in a week, and I will reply here afterward with an update.

IOM is really two products, the data mapping/importing part which can be used on more then just LO - it can import data from any CSV, and the actual data sync that uses web services to get the data out of LO and into the importer. The importer uses profiles to map how LO data gets stored in RE - basically a huge XRef document, so if you have a new data source all you have to do is create a new profile and let it rip.

We were originally pretty much set on the new RELO, but heard more than a few horror stories at BBCon. And just about everyone steered us to IOM, even Blackbaud did!

We also bought Merge-O-Matic, but I didn't mention that since I don't know anything about it's cababilities yet.

I'm pretty surprised that BB hasn't just bought Omatic. I wonder if they tried.

robert badley · April 2017

Brian Mucha:

It's expensive compared to RELO (they just moved to a subscription model like Blackbaud. Why pay once when we can keep paying forever?) but you can sync a LOT more data. A quick glance at the fields that can map to RE looks like pretty much everything. We'll be doing the profile mapping class in a week, and I will reply here afterward with an update.

IOM is really two products, the data mapping/importing part which can be used on more then just LO - it can import data from any CSV, and the actual data sync that uses web services to get the data out of LO and into the importer. The importer uses profiles to map how LO data gets stored in RE - basically a huge XRef document, so if you have a new data source all you have to do is create a new profile and let it rip.

We were originally pretty much set on the new RELO, but heard more than a few horror stories at BBCon. And just about everyone steered us to IOM, even Blackbaud did!

We also bought Merge-O-Matic, but I didn't mention that since I don't know anything about it's cababilities yet.

I'm pretty surprised that BB hasn't just bought Omatic. I wonder if they tried.

This is good to hear Brian. Not the pricing part as that really stings but the rest of it!!

I am very familiar with IOM as we have been using it for a few years now and we literally use it every day. When we were signing up for LO the IOM LO connector was still in the early versions and we decided to stick with BB and RELO. I'll wait to hear your review.

RELO Connector and orphan records in LO

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