Raiser's Edge Hacks

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Joshua Bekerman bCLO bCRE
Joshua Bekerman bCLO bCRE
Tenth Anniversary 500 Likes 500 Comments Name Dropper
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
My last post about using the event module to track plaque locations has me wondering what other RE hacks are out there.  Anyone else using a RE module or functionality for a purpose other than its intended use?  


I'll start by mentioning that at my last organization we used the membership module to track our texting program.  We would add a membership when donors opted in, and enter an end date when they opted out.  We would also enter the phone number as the membership ID, that way we would know which number they opted in/out with in case they had multiple phone numbers on their record.


What RE hacks are you doing?
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  • John Heizer
    John Heizer
    Ancient Membership 500 Likes 500 Comments Photogenic

    Joshua Bekerman bCRE:

    My last post about using the event module to track plaque locations has me wondering what other RE hacks are out there.  Anyone else using a RE module or functionality for a purpose other than its intended use?  


    I'll start by mentioning that at my last organization we used the membership module to track our texting program.  We would add a membership when donors opted in, and enter an end date when they opted out.  We would also enter the phone number as the membership ID, that way we would know which number they opted in/out with in case they had multiple phone numbers on their record.


    What RE hacks are you doing?

    My big caution when using RE in a manner that it wasn't designed for is the potential for it to bite you on the butt later.


    When I first started working with RE in the old DOS days and was preparing our system to be upgraded to RE 6 (Windows 3.11 version) I asked our Membership department if there was anything they had concerns about.  "No, it works fine for us."  What I didn't know was about were all the "hacks" they had implemented to work around some limitations and non-standard operating procedures.  We invested heavily in advance training for RE6, but when we then did the conversion (this was long before the organization had resources to test the upgrade before going to "production') it was a complete mess.  Nothing converted correctly and we were looking at serious time needed to get things worked out so that the data would convert correctly (much cleanup on our end and programming a custom conversion by BB).  It was almost a year later before we could get a clean upgrade and much of the expenditure on training was wasted.


    If you're doing a "hack," proceed cautiously and document it extensively!

  • Jen Claudy
    Jen Claudy
    Tenth Anniversary 1,500 Likes 1000 Comments Name Dropper
    Yikes, John!  I don't think this scenario is quite so problematic as it used to be, since the need for conversions isn't really relevant anymore.


    However, when you migrate (which isn't really the right term IMO, but that's the term Blackbaud has chosen, from what I was told) to NXT, you will find that some hacks or customizations to RE no longer appear in the same way.  Specifically, if you hide a field in RE:7 Config that field will appear in NXT (assuming that the field has been added to the NXT structure) or if you relabel a field in RE:7 Config, that label will not flow thru to NXT.  Frustrating...for me, the only major disappointment with NXT is the lack of ability to customize things like this.
  • Tami Hormell
    Tami Hormell
    Eighth Anniversary 10 Comments Photogenic 5 Likes

    Jen Claudy:

    Yikes, John!  I don't think this scenario is quite so problematic as it used to be, since the need for conversions isn't really relevant anymore.


    However, when you migrate (which isn't really the right term IMO, but that's the term Blackbaud has chosen, from what I was told) to NXT, you will find that some hacks or customizations to RE no longer appear in the same way.  Specifically, if you hide a field in RE:7 Config that field will appear in NXT (assuming that the field has been added to the NXT structure) or if you relabel a field in RE:7 Config, that label will not flow thru to NXT.  Frustrating...for me, the only major disappointment with NXT is the lack of ability to customize things like this.

    We are looking to move over to NXT and we have mulitple fields that we have customized in RE7 so this will be a problem for us. Thank you for the heads-up! That is definitely something we need to look at very closely before we transition.

     

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