Convio Connector

Joanne Felci 2 · July 2018

Not sure if anyone on this forum is still using the Convio Connector but just had to rant for a moment

We were using the connector since the Convio days, never changing to RE-LO

In January we were told the Connector was being 'end of life' but no end date was given, just get another solution ASAP

We purchased ImportOmatic and the Luminate Connector and went live in May - loving it so far

I just received and email that as of July 31 the Convio Connector is being turned off

Thanks for the 12 days notice Blackbaud! Grrrrrrrrrr

I feel for anyone still on the old connector that never moved to something else, granted we were told in January (at least I think we were - no idea who was told what when)

My assumption is LO is treated like the red headed stepchild at Blackbaud - for goodness sakes when did Blackbaud buy Convio?! - it has to be 6 or 7 years ago at least...and most of the documentation still says Convio or has convio urls

So with this assumption I'm thinking the staff at Luminate are not getting timely communication and so the communication to customers sucks

The support staff - especially the technical team I worked with between January and April to put a patch together to keep the Convio connector working for us as we found a new solution - are exceptional

Just makes me sad that it appears that Blackbaud does not value this team more - or the customers on this product

And it makes it a hard sell for me to be a champion for it

Patti Posey · July 2018

Joanne Felci:

Not sure if anyone on this forum is still using the Convio Connector but just had to rant for a moment

We were using the connector since the Convio days, never changing to RE-LO

In January we were told the Connector was being 'end of life' but no end date was given, just get another solution ASAP

We purchased ImportOmatic and the Luminate Connector and went live in May - loving it so far

I just received and email that as of July 31 the Convio Connector is being turned off

Thanks for the 12 days notice Blackbaud! Grrrrrrrrrr

I feel for anyone still on the old connector that never moved to something else, granted we were told in January (at least I think we were - no idea who was told what when)

My assumption is LO is treated like the red headed stepchild at Blackbaud - for goodness sakes when did Blackbaud buy Convio?! - it has to be 6 or 7 years ago at least...and most of the documentation still says Convio or has convio urls

So with this assumption I'm thinking the staff at Luminate are not getting timely communication and so the communication to customers sucks

The support staff - especially the technical team I worked with between January and April to put a patch together to keep the Convio connector working for us as we found a new solution - are exceptional

Just makes me sad that it appears that Blackbaud does not value this team more - or the customers on this product

And it makes it a hard sell for me to be a champion for it

Hi Joanne<

While I do not use the Convio Connector, I do use RE/LO. But I have to agree with you on the support. We purchased Luminate when Blackbaud was still in the process of purchasing them. Their support team (Convio) is the best. They really know the product. We went down to the Austin office for training because no one in SC knew anything about it. I had one of the best CSM luminate guys ever and then they took him away from me last year and I have been unhappy since. I don't think they realize how important the original convio folks are. Well here's to original Convio support team!!!

Patti Posey

Stamford Hospital

Alicia Searfoss · July 2018

I haven't used the connector, but have been using "Luminate" since 2006. When we started, Convio staff were like extended members of our team. It's lost a lot of that now, which is unfortunate. I just found out we're losing our CSM and I literally had tears in my eyes after we hung up. She did a great job explaining everything and letting me know it will work out better in the long run, but I definitely feel like the original solutions from Convio overall receive the least attention.

Brian Mucha · July 2018

Alicia Searfoss:

I haven't used the connector, but have been using "Luminate" since 2006. When we started, Convio staff were like extended members of our team. It's lost a lot of that now, which is unfortunate. I just found out we're losing our CSM and I literally had tears in my eyes after we hung up. She did a great job explaining everything and letting me know it will work out better in the long run, but I definitely feel like the original solutions from Convio overall receive the least attention.

I can chime in also. I vaguely remember being valued too, but these days our CSM does as little for us as possible. I've complained several times to several people but the attitude is pretty much unconcern. The message for a while now has been a pretty clear 'you don't matter to Blackbaud'.

Convio had plenty of problems too (documentation!) but the trajectory was upwards. Luminate as a product is woefully behind the times and BB is spending all this effort making a fancy UI and reports. I don't believe anyone there worries about these sort of threads much either. Luminate's days sure seem numbered.

Shannon Emery · July 2018

Just dropping a line here from your neighborhood community manager as I do want you all to know that the Community Team does review posts like these and I'm currently figuring out how Blackbaud may be able to help with the concerns raised here.

I'll get insight on the following for you all:

1) Better communication around RELO and the Convio Connector.

2) Understanding the Customer Success changes so you're not taken aback.

3) You do matter to us at Blackbaud - and especially to the Community Team. We're here to make sure you feel more valued.

Please let me know if you have any other concerns but I'll follow-up once I get more detailed answers from our internal teams.

Kathryn Hall · July 2018

Joanne Felci:

Not sure if anyone on this forum is still using the Convio Connector but just had to rant for a moment

We were using the connector since the Convio days, never changing to RE-LO

In January we were told the Connector was being 'end of life' but no end date was given, just get another solution ASAP

We purchased ImportOmatic and the Luminate Connector and went live in May - loving it so far

I just received and email that as of July 31 the Convio Connector is being turned off

Thanks for the 12 days notice Blackbaud! Grrrrrrrrrr

I feel for anyone still on the old connector that never moved to something else, granted we were told in January (at least I think we were - no idea who was told what when)

My assumption is LO is treated like the red headed stepchild at Blackbaud - for goodness sakes when did Blackbaud buy Convio?! - it has to be 6 or 7 years ago at least...and most of the documentation still says Convio or has convio urls

So with this assumption I'm thinking the staff at Luminate are not getting timely communication and so the communication to customers sucks

The support staff - especially the technical team I worked with between January and April to put a patch together to keep the Convio connector working for us as we found a new solution - are exceptional

Just makes me sad that it appears that Blackbaud does not value this team more - or the customers on this product

And it makes it a hard sell for me to be a champion for it

Hi, Joanne - Sorry for the abrupt notification. My job's to help Luminate customers have a good experience using our tools and I hate when we don't meet expectations. I've been working within Blackbaud since last year on the Convio Connector migration. At that time I got a short list of the few customers still using the Connector and have worked with customer success managers for each of those accounts one-on-one since December to support them in reaching out personally to customers. I personally worked with the RELO team and our partners JMG and OMatic to brief them on the situation and arrange demos for this group of customers. Another coworker made sure that Blackbaud would make a contribution toward migrating to the new system (we can't make up for your time spent, but we can help ease the cost). Every two weeks since that initial notification I've checked in with the CSMs to make sure customers who haven't committed to a new direction get encouragement and support. Those who had let us know they'd decided on a new direction and had the work under way were not necessarily checked in on that frequently. Mark Montenero, your CSM, let me know you were on track, made sure you got the credit toward OMatic, and filled me in on his conversations before he left the company. I apologize if the "two weeks" notification was a bit abrupt; since Mark was gone I reached out to the new Healthcare CSM team and the person who contacted you hadn't been involved in all the previous briefings and internal meetings about the process. It's never easy to change solutions ... both Susan Checkman (who reached out to you) and I came over to Blackbaud from Kintera, and having worked on the Sphere "end-of-life" we know firsthand the challenges for organizations who must move to new technology. We're here to help!

Joanne Felci 2 · July 2018

Hi Kathryn,

I do appreciate your response

May I suggest in the future a better way to communicate would be with a timeline for end of life

That was the most frustrating part of this situation to me

Product is being terminated but no one seemed to know when

I did truly appreciate the efforts by the team (Mark, the technical folks I worked with, etc. - also really appreciated the rebate for switching to Omatic, that was a very nice surprise) and I assumed my Luminate CSM and others on the Luminate team didn't know the time frame either - I never thought they were trying to keep me in the dark, I just assumed no one knew.

Which really communicates to me - either Blackbaud doesn't have their stuff together...either not communicating internally or making decisions, or that Luminate just does not matter much to Blackbaud.

Joanne

Andy Kearney · August 2018

Hello fellow community members. My name is Andy Kearney, and I am the Vice President of Customer Success at Blackbaud. First, I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts about Blackbaud and Luminate. In the spirit of openness, I want to respond to the questions expressed in this thread about the value of Luminate to Blackbaud and recent changes to the customer success program.

Since 2012, when Blackbaud acquired Convio, Luminate Online has been our premier solution for digital engagement and online marketing. We began our “next gen” initiative in 2016 to bring a fresh new interface and new functionality to this solution. Some of the results of this initiative we can see today in Luminate Beta. Others remain to be revealed as part of the total transformation and integration of all of our software solutions, leveraging the SKY platform.

In 2018 we increased our investment in “current generation” Luminate Online and TeamRaiser. This allows us to continue to develop “current gen” at the same time we build our “next generation” solution for digital engagement and marketing. We’re excited about the progress we’re seeing. In July of this year, we rolled out both our “next gen” Email solution and “current gen” TeamRaiser Integration with Facebook Fundraiser.

I invite you to attend our roadmap update on August 8 to learn more about the future direction of Luminate Online.

In addition to the software acquired with Convio, we also gained the “customer success” model where all customers were supported by individuals experienced in both the software and the industry to help ensure their success. In 2017, we made the business decision to expand customer success program to reach every customer across all Blackbaud software. Now all customers, using all products, in all verticals, have access to customer success programs to help ensure their success. We have over 100 individuals on the customer success team, representing a combined total of more than 500 years of non-profit and technology experience.

The goal of our customer success team in 2018 and beyond is to help ensure you reach your success outcomes, adopt the products that you have, and learn from best practices. You may have started to see some of the fruit of this effort this year, with success webinars for Luminate, TeamRaiser, Raiser’s Edge, Financial Edge:

Luminate Online & TeamRaiser Tips and Timesavers
Raiser’s Edge NXT Tips and Timesavers
Onboarding and Adoption Program for Financial Edge NXT
Onboarding and Adoption for Raiser’s Edge NXT
Luminate Beta Success webinar series

… these are just a few of the offerings; look for more in the coming weeks and months!

I understand that the people commenting on this thread are active Community members and experienced users of Blackbaud software. On behalf of all of us at Blackbaud, thank you for your efforts on behalf of the community and the support you have shown us over the years.

We are here to receive your feedback, guide you on your journey to success, and help you reach your outcomes. Please continue to engage with us through the Community or contact the team at customersuccess@blackbaud.com. Finally, for those of you planning to attend bbcon in Orlando this year, I look forward to the opportunity to meet and further get to know you. In the meantime, I wish you all the very best of success in your endeavors. Please know that we all share a common bond, which is to serve a cause greater than our own. Thank you all for what you and your organizations do each and every day to make a difference for good in this world.

My best regards to you all.

Convio Connector

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