Three wishes and a hello!

Hello!


My wishes below:

#1: you could post to one than one fund

#2: you could collect a billing and shipping address

#3: you didn't have to collect registration information on everyone!  It's nice to know but for a 5000+ person ticketed event we don't always need to know.

3 Online Express Wishes


Wish 1:  I wish I could have acutally seen or used a 'sandbox' Online Express BEFORE we were live and had to start using it. (I looked for classes and googled like a mad woman, but couldn't find out how hard or easy it would be to learn or begin to use it. The worst part was how stressful it was knowing my company needed donation pages up and running in very short time and having almost no knowledge of the program I was going to have to master like yesterday until after we were live. It was extremely frustrating. It wasn't as diffficult as I had imagined since it has so few customizable options, but still, it didn't have to be like that.)


Wish 2: I wish we knew BEFORE we signed up for anything that we could NOT use a third party tracking pixel with the donation forms and we could not embed it into the Thank You page either. (Before we decided to go with Blackbaud and one of the reasons for choosing it was to be able to track traffic from digital ads that go to the donation page, then leave the donation page before donating, go to other pages on our site, and then actually donate. Without the tracking pixel, we can't do that. We were told that the tracking pixel would be compatible before we signed up, but once we signed up and were able to begin using the system, we found out that it is not "yet" an available option, but we could suggest it for others to vote on it and maybe in the future it might become an option. Good news is we're almost at the end of the contract for the tracking pixel we cannot use. )


Wish 3: I wish I knew how the HTML would interact with webdesign templates. Some templates it adapts to easily and others not. It's weird little things like the colors not working as what you input in Online Express because of some issue in the code integration. Also I wish there were more customizable options like the arrows or size of the drop down boxes. 

Stephanie Redmond:

3 Online Express Wishes


Wish 1:  I wish I could have acutally seen or used a 'sandbox' Online Express BEFORE we were live and had to start using it. (I looked for classes and googled like a mad woman, but couldn't find out how hard or easy it would be to learn or begin to use it. The worst part was how stressful it was knowing my company needed donation pages up and running in very short time and having almost no knowledge of the program I was going to have to master like yesterday until after we were live. It was extremely frustrating. It wasn't as diffficult as I had imagined since it has so few customizable options, but still, it didn't have to be like that.)


Wish 2: I wish we knew BEFORE we signed up for anything that we could NOT use a third party tracking pixel with the donation forms and we could not embed it into the Thank You page either. (Before we decided to go with Blackbaud and one of the reasons for choosing it was to be able to track traffic from digital ads that go to the donation page, then leave the donation page before donating, go to other pages on our site, and then actually donate. Without the tracking pixel, we can't do that. We were told that the tracking pixel would be compatible before we signed up, but once we signed up and were able to begin using the system, we found out that it is not "yet" an available option, but we could suggest it for others to vote on it and maybe in the future it might become an option. Good news is we're almost at the end of the contract for the tracking pixel we cannot use. )


Wish 3: I wish I knew how the HTML would interact with webdesign templates. Some templates it adapts to easily and others not. It's weird little things like the colors not working as what you input in Online Express because of some issue in the code integration. Also I wish there were more customizable options like the arrows or size of the drop down boxes. 

Tiffany Getch:

Hi Meghann- great to meet you!


Thanks so much for responding- would you say that these three items here are things that would have made an impact in your decision to use Online Express? Or would this have been good to know as you first started creating your forms, etc.?

It would have been nice to know when we started creating our forms.  Or at least wish that support could have answered these questions better for me.  When we first started creating our forms it seemed like I was chatting with support multiple times a day and every question I asked it seemed like I was the first person to ever ask it.  It was a little frustrating, especially being completely new to everything Blackbaud.

Faith Murray:

My three wishes:

1) You can include the Tribute feature on the donation page without being required to create a new constituent record for tributees. (Who wants hundreds of already-dead non-donors added to your database?)


2) You can convert an individual donor/registrant to an organization when creating a new record in OLX, and vice-versa. (We have had numerous people fill out their organization gifts as individuals, and you can't change it before downloading the gift. Which means you then have to delete the false individual record, create a new organization record, and manually transfer the gift information.)


3) That clicking the Opt-out button would take you to a selection menu to opt out of certain types of email communications, rather than automatically opting out of all of them. Some people enjoy receiving our newsletters, but don't want e-solicitations. With OLX, it's all or nothing, and it's a permanent deal.

Faith Murray:

My three wishes:

1) You can include the Tribute feature on the donation page without being required to create a new constituent record for tributees. (Who wants hundreds of already-dead non-donors added to your database?)


2) You can convert an individual donor/registrant to an organization when creating a new record in OLX, and vice-versa. (We have had numerous people fill out their organization gifts as individuals, and you can't change it before downloading the gift. Which means you then have to delete the false individual record, create a new organization record, and manually transfer the gift information.)


3) That clicking the Opt-out button would take you to a selection menu to opt out of certain types of email communications, rather than automatically opting out of all of them. Some people enjoy receiving our newsletters, but don't want e-solicitations. With OLX, it's all or nothing, and it's a permanent deal.

Tiffany Getch:

Good morning, Online Express Community!


I wanted to post a quick introduction this morning, since you'll be reading more from me in the coming weeks. My name is Tiffany Getch and I am part of the Onboarding and Adoption team here at Blackbaud- specifically for Online Express! In the next few days, I'll be posting some exciting news; but in the meantime, I was hoping to get to know you all a bit better.

Question for today: What are three things you wished you had known when getting started with Online Express?
These wishes can be about what it takes to get set up, specific functionality steps that were easier to understand or even knowing where to go when you had a question- any and all wishes are welcome! (Disclaimer: These wishes will not be granted by a genie and are for icebreaker purposes only)

Looking foward to reading your comments below- and stay tuned for more exciting information in the next few days!


Tiffany Getch, PMP

Onboarding and Adoption Program Manager

1) We have around 175 countries configurations in our database. Many of the formats of the countries (around 75 of those) are as follows:


Address Lines

Postcode City

Country


When I did the original set up it was not critical if I selected the available fields for the United Kingdom or the United States. I defaulted to the United States. This was an issue when receiving credit card donations from countries like China. Because I had selected the United States it was making the State field be required for the donation even though it wasn't one of the available fields for that country in configuration. Several frustrated donors later we got to the bottom of it and I updated all of the countries. 


The last two items are more of a wish list for OLX.


2) I learned the hard way that the Addressee/Salutation options did not work the same as RE when I saw that I had three options I was thrilled I thought this was going to work better than RE. They worked great for my test case and then a major email went out with Dear ,. So in the end not better.


3) I would love to be able to name my own appeals and ID's that go onto the records when I select "Add this data to RE" instead of the generic BBOX and the subject line which is often vague dispite my requests.


Thanks Tiffany!


Best,

Elizabeth

 

#3 - YES PLEASE!


Meghann Ryan:
Hello!


My wishes below:

#1: you could post to one than one fund

#2: you could collect a billing and shipping address

#3: you didn't have to collect registration information on everyone!  It's nice to know but for a 5000+ person ticketed event we don't always need to know.