Media Tab

Allison Moskus 2 · July 2018

Hi all-

My organization is considering utilizing the Media tab in constituent records to upload all paperwork that accompanies checks so that anyone can access donor letters of intent. My worry is that over time, we will have so many PDFs saved throughout out Raiser's Edge database that it may slow it down. Has anyone experienced this or know if there is a data limit in Raiser's?

Dennis Ladnier · July 2018

We have >1.5M constituents with all of their associated data - our DB is in excess of 200gb so I doubt you will have any issues with database size - even with the legacy RE app, SQL does a pretty good. With that said, I would be more concerned with your disk/storage IOPs and your server horsepower.

John Heizer · July 2018

Allison Moskus:

Hi all-

My organization is considering utilizing the Media tab in constituent records to upload all paperwork that accompanies checks so that anyone can access donor letters of intent. My worry is that over time, we will have so many PDFs saved throughout out Raiser's Edge database that it may slow it down. Has anyone experienced this or know if there is a data limit in Raiser's?

Modern versions of SQL Server can handle HUGE amounts of information without batting an eye. While your IT department may have concerns about data size, from an IT standpoint if you're storing the data electronically it really doesn't make any difference if the file is stored within the database or as a file on your file server, it's going to take the same amount of storage space (maybe even LESS storage space on the SQL server because SQL does a good job of compacting data and reducing duplicate data behind the scenes). After all, a file server is just a simplified database server, the data being the files. If you need additional storage for the PDFs then it makes more sense to add resources to the SQL server than a file server.

Melissa S Graves · July 2018

John,

This is assuming that the copy in RE is now going to be your only copy. Sadly you often have to save it somewhere on the network then go to RE to retrieve/upload it. Do any of us then go back and delete the original? No - we often have 2 (or more) copies of such things all over our networks (email attachments, etc.)

I would not recommend the media tab for this - unfortunately it is just not "linked" well to gifts and over time will really clutter the media tab. I would recommend a separate product like PaperSave. OR if you are on NXT you should really advocate in the Ideas section for a recommendation that gifts get media links. Then I would support putting them there.

Julie Whitney 3 · July 2018

Melissa Graves:

John,

This is assuming that the copy in RE is now going to be your only copy. Sadly you often have to save it somewhere on the network then go to RE to retrieve/upload it. Do any of us then go back and delete the original? No - we often have 2 (or more) copies of such things all over our networks (email attachments, etc.)

I would not recommend the media tab for this - unfortunately it is just not "linked" well to gifts and over time will really clutter the media tab. I would recommend a separate product like PaperSave. OR if you are on NXT you should really advocate in the Ideas section for a recommendation that gifts get media links. Then I would support putting them there.

I agree with Melissa. We have used the media tab in the past and you need to keep the backup "linked" to the media tab entry. So this may not be the best option. Instead, we are now using RE NXT for attachments and you can actually attach to the gift record.

John Heizer · July 2018

Melissa Graves:

John,

This is assuming that the copy in RE is now going to be your only copy. Sadly you often have to save it somewhere on the network then go to RE to retrieve/upload it. Do any of us then go back and delete the original? No - we often have 2 (or more) copies of such things all over our networks (email attachments, etc.)

I would not recommend the media tab for this - unfortunately it is just not "linked" well to gifts and over time will really clutter the media tab. I would recommend a separate product like PaperSave. OR if you are on NXT you should really advocate in the Ideas section for a recommendation that gifts get media links. Then I would support putting them there.

Multiple copies of a file is an operational problem that doesn't go away even with PaperSave if you allow multiple copies to float around. I was addressing the database performance question.

Cara Perez · July 2018

We have a special drive on our server that only Development and Finance have access too. This holds scans of all of our deposits plus folders for each donors who we need to scan thank you letters, checks or LOI pledge forms. We only use the media tab for press releases, news articles or publications we find on our constituents.

Melissa Steinbach · August 2018

We use the media tab ... but it seems that every time we do a server upgrade we lose all of our links. Very frustrating!

John Heizer · August 2018

Melissa Steinbach:

We use the media tab ... but it seems that every time we do a server upgrade we lose all of our links. Very frustrating!

Always embed the media into the RE database.

Gracie Schild · August 2018

At my previous org, we started out linking all Media (and we were scanning every gift with its donation form and payment). About 18 months into it, we had a total crash of our servers and every link was broken. When my long-suffering work/study students redid it all, we embedded the PDFs.

We were scanning everything to month-labeled folders and "attaching" the Media from there. On some occasions we had to go back and check on the shared drive - the wrong thing was attached to a constituent, or nothing was attached. And of course any really important documents, like gift agreements or important correspondence, were also attached. It was easy to check all the documents for a constituent, and also to pull whatever the auditors asked for in the group of random gifts they looked at from top to bottom. We never scanned the acknowledgement letters (auditors didn't want them) unless there was something very unusual in the text of the handwritten note.

We also did a "scan and shred" project of the masses of paper files I inherited when I started working there. It was a big pain and a big expense, and we rarely looked at any of it, but it did come in handy now and again, and we ditched all the paper!!!

Gracie Schild

Bluebird Business Services

Santa Fe NM

Katie Vitale 2 · August 2018

Allison Moskus:

Hi all-

My organization is considering utilizing the Media tab in constituent records to upload all paperwork that accompanies checks so that anyone can access donor letters of intent. My worry is that over time, we will have so many PDFs saved throughout out Raiser's Edge database that it may slow it down. Has anyone experienced this or know if there is a data limit in Raiser's?

I agree with everyone who says to load the document into RE, don't link. I take it you're locally hosted? The size of the database or server storage space isn't the issue as much as the performance of your server is.

Neil Scarse 2 · August 2018

Apologies, not sure that what I'm about to say is overly helpful.

We have recently need to pull out all data relating to part of the organisation's operation (without going into the boring detail this is because that part of the the charity is going it alone). Whilst this was relatively straight forward when it comes to exporting gift data, addresses, relationships, notes, etc., embedded items such as on the media tab were problematic. Unless you download them manually one-by-one you face the problem of needing to remove the OLE wrapper (which isn't easy to do) before the files are readable. Thankfully my rather smart colleague painstakingly worked out how to do this for each different file type, but it's worth asking yourselves - and perhaps Blackbaud - what happens if/ when you move off of Raiser's Edge? How will you extract this data from RE? If you end up moving from RE to NXT or CRM, then it might be worth finding out what support Blackbaud can offer in this regard. To that end may be having two copies is the best course of action.

As I say, probably unhelpful - just introducing something else for you to worry about! After all, what's the alternative given the not uncommon breaking of links (let alone people 'tidying-up' and renaming network folders/ Sharepoint locations).

https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/147/37848?post_id=143123#p143123

Cindy Shanks · August 2018

We were advised not to use links for that very reason. We're in the hosting environment so it is not a problem to save a lot of PDFs, etc. If you're concern about the memory, don't use hyperlink, provide address so staff members can do a copy and paste into browser. RENXT is an awesome place to store them, if you have NXT.

Media Tab

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