Workaround to give Volunteer Solicitors Restricted Access to Database?

Maria Gall · July 2017

Is anyone aware of a way that you can give volunteer solicitors restricted access to your database for the purposes of fundraising? For instance, if I have a volunteer solicitor, I would like to be able to give them access to see the 20 people they are assigned to so they can see giving history and enter notes, etc., but I do not want to give them access to our database beyond those 20 people.

Currently, the only solution Blackbaud support is aware of is restricting access by constituency code. For example, I could give a volunteer access to see all "Current Parent" records, but we are not comfortable with that solution. We also do not want to create new consitiuency codes based on volunteer solicitors.

Is anyone currently using any workarounds that give volunteers limited access to your database? Or, are you currently using a solution that is better than spreadsheets of exported data?

Karen Stuhlfeier · July 2017

I spent quite a bit of time on this issue a couple of years ago and agree that the only way to do this is by restricting access by constituent code. This does work really well, but it's a pain to do. We have a Crystal report set up to send volunteers with the status of their prospects. It dopesn't take long to run or email to them.For us, that's easier than setting up constituent codes for this purpose each FY. We have NXT and I did submit the idea that there should be a way for you to set up the security rights so that someone could only see the people assigned to them, but I don't think that Blackbaud will implement that. It makes perfect sense to me that it should be able to work that way.

Jen Claudy · July 2017

Karen, can you post a link to your Idea? I think this is the only way that many orgs will be able to grant access to their volunteer fundraisers, and since BB's primary reason for not providing print & export functionality in NXT (until encountering significant pushback from Users) is that all fundraisers would have access to NXT and be able to view "real-time" reporting, one would think they would work to make sure that orgs have whatever security they need to add their volunteer fundraisers as Users.

As a side note, I chuckle every time I read in NXT documentation that printing or exporting (or emailing) data from NXT is not recommended because it immediately becomes "stale" data. But the refresh rate is so slow that it's not real-time data to begin with. (Plus, I never like to tell fundraisers that they have access to real-time data because sometimes they don't realize/remember that it's real-time as far as the data entry has been completed, not as far as the gifts have come in the door.)

Karen Stuhlfeier · July 2017

Jen, you're right! This is one of the reasons that our department got excited about NXT. We use many volunteer solicitors at our organization and giving them access to other records is not an option for us. No one bought into the idea of restricting their view by constituent code security. Too much work.

When I go to my idea the url goes to the general idea page. The number of my idea is: RENXT-I-67. Search with that and you'll find it.

13VOTED

Allow a solicitor to only view the constituents who are assigned to them.

We want to give our volunteer solicitors the rights to log in and view only the the constituents who are assigned to them. This isn't an option in security, but I can work around it by allowing them to only to view a specific constituent code. It would be much easier if there was an option to only view those who are assigned to them.

Karen Stuhlfeier

Aug 12 2015

Unlikely to implement
Security

Oct 20, 2015

ADMIN RESPONSE

Constituent code security is the way that we accomplish this today. We have heard the need and some folks want to lock down search as one way to handle it. We will evaluate the best possible option to accomplish the need depending on how prevalent it is but currently will mark as Will Not Address to set expectations. We aren't currently evaluating this specifically.

Jen Claudy · July 2017

Here's a link. (If the url at the top of the page is to the Idea Bank instead of directly to the Idea, right-click on the Title of the Idea and select [Copy Link Address].)

And I suggest that anyone interested in this continue to vote up the idea, even though it is currently marked [Unlikely to Implement]. If enough Users want it (like JoAnn who just added a vote & a comment), it is likely that BB will reconsider. Add a comment specifying why/how you would use this functionality and how important it is to you.

Maria Gall · July 2017

Jen Claudy:

Here's a link. (If the url at the top of the page is to the Idea Bank instead of directly to the Idea, right-click on the Title of the Idea and select [Copy Link Address].)

And I suggest that anyone interested in this continue to vote up the idea, even though it is currently marked [Unlikely to Implement]. If enough Users want it (like JoAnn who just added a vote & a comment), it is likely that BB will reconsider. Add a comment specifying why/how you would use this functionality and how important it is to you.

Jen and Karen,

Thank you so much for sharing your insights. Karen, would you mind explaining a little bit more about your solution with Crystal reports? It sounds like, each time you want to give your solicitors new data, you send them a new report that you've created with Crystal Reports. Am I understanding that correctly? If so, how does that serve your needs better than, say, just sending them a Solicitor Performace report? Does it also include contact information?

We use google docs for the reason that we can give them access to one document in one location. It prevents the confusion of, "Ok, is this the latest spreadsheet?". But, it does mean that I'm going in and manually updating the google spreadsheets to indicate which gifts and pledges have been received.

FWIW, I posted a similar question in the CASE NAIS forum yesterday and got a reply from another school who is using BlackBird Connect and also recommended looking into EverTrue which has a beta Volunteer Management product. Though it seemed more oriented toward

Thanks for continuing to share your insights. It seems like such an easy problem to solve and I can't believe that more people aren't calling for it! I did add one more vote on the New Ideas page!

Karen Stuhlfeier · July 2017

We use the Crystal report because it's customized to our specifications. We send it to them maybe once a month, so no, they are not being constantly updated. When there is a btter option in NXt we will use it. We don't want to add a product from a third party vendor.

Maria Gall · July 2017

Thanks, Karen. That makes sense. Our parent volunteers work in a very condensed 8 week time period, so I'd have to be pulling and e-mailing them repports all the time, which I why we go with the option to just create a custom google sheet that I manually update. I hope they can figure out a solution soon. Thanks for sharing all of your advice and expertise!

Dan Junkins · January 2018

Maria Gall:

Thanks, Karen. That makes sense. Our parent volunteers work in a very condensed 8 week time period, so I'd have to be pulling and e-mailing them repports all the time, which I why we go with the option to just create a custom google sheet that I manually update. I hope they can figure out a solution soon. Thanks for sharing all of your advice and expertise!

Thanks. I've added my vote to Karen's Idea. If you broaden the view of the Volunteer beyond the Volunteer Tab, to include Solicitors, I think a Volunteer View in NXT is something that almost every customer could use. We all have Board Members and key volunteers soliciting on our organization's behalf. Schools and Universities perhaps a bit more with Parent and Alumni solicitors. Keeping them organized, informed and on-task can be a pretty labor intensive job and NXT could be an awesome tool to facilitate that. I'll look into the new Evertrue product, thanks for the mention.

Graham Getty · January 2018

Maria,

If you are on RE NXT, it's fairly easy. You create a security group in traditional RE called something like "Volunteer Solicitors" and limit in as much detail as you wish (you can limit it by constituency code, yes, but you can also limit whether or not they should be able to see gifts, etc.). You can also limit this security group in RE NXT control panel for NXT options if needed. Then invite your volunteer solicitors to RE NXT but DO NOT LINK to a user for Windows Authentication in traditional RE. [Obviously you must link the RE NXT invitee to a user that is a solicitor with assignments, etc. - but don't give them Windows Authentication options]. Thus, you would have a user that could login to RE NXT at renxt.blackbaud.com but who cannot login to your database via Citrix hosting. I have set this up for a couple of organizations - you can see details here: https://resolvedllc.com/fundraising-nxt/. This lets volunteers get in to RE NXT directly for what they need without seeing everything. Just be careful and realize implications on Blackbaud ID, seeing other solicitor's assignments, seeing ask amounts, etc. I really think once Blackbaud ID and personas / roles / permissions / entitlements gets ironed out, almost anybody who you want to be able to login could be setup to do so.

Of course, it's best to test this with one or two key volunteers first (or as if you were one with your own, personal email not yet tied to Blackbaud ID or Google). Caveat emptor.

Here's some screenshots that might help -

RE Security Group that you can limit by constituency code as well as detailed security access:

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RE NXT Security Group settings for same group but additional RE NXT features that you can limit:

d394ea5f0c45d06c0fdc4f8cd0e2dfb7-huge-re

RE Security Settings for users to ensure they have RE NXT only (not also Citrix access):

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Good luck,

-graham

Dan Junkins · January 2018

Thanks, this just may do. Action Security was a little tricky - I don't want them to see all Actions so I needed to create a new Action Type and use Action by Type security to limit. I also used Gift by Fund, Proposal by Purpose, and Note by Type security to narrow things. Seemed as though I needed to include at least one Note Type and Action Type for that panel to appear in NXT.

Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to add a constituent code to limit who they can open.

Nice videos - are those done with Camtasia?

Dan

Jen Claudy · January 2018

Please be aware that Security in RE:7 does not (yet) fully transfer to NXT.

I recommend (as Graham suggested) setting up your Security Group and creating a second User for yourself. Put your second User in that Group and set everything up the way you think it needs to be. Then sign in under that second User and see what you can see...intentionally test accessing records you do not want to have access to. And periodically check this as new functionality rolls out in NXT.

Use caution when creating your second User Record. Use either an entirely separate computer or at least a different browser (if you regularly use Firefox, use Chrome instead). The same applies if you create Users and set them up for your volunteers. If you use the browser you normally use, you run the risk of unintentionally editing your own Blackbaud.com User Record...unless they've changed something...this happened to me when setting up Users for volunteers and new staff.

Graham Getty · January 2018

Dan,

Glad it helped. Looks like you and I could swap war stories. The videos were done in Camtasia 9. I was tempted to add a soundtrack and flashy graphics but I exercised restraint.

-graham

Workaround to give Volunteer Solicitors Restricted Access to Database?

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Allow a solicitor to only view the constituents who are assigned to them.

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