Deleting Old Data

Alison Cassorla · July 2018

Hi,

We have used RE since 2000. We were using the Membership module until this year. (We have started using Daxko, but we did not move any of the old membership data.) All of the old membership gifts are still in RE. My Development Director would like me to "delete" all of the old membership gifts because they cause misleading information in RE NXT on the Work Center Overview Gifts tile. She thinks it also messes up the "Next Ask" amount as well.

What do you do with old data? We have always been told to not delete anything.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Alison Cassorla

JoAnn Strommen · July 2018

I would be leery to delete it also. When you say membership gifts are you talking about money given that provides a membership or money given as a member in excess of membership? I data was not transferred to Daxko you will lose all donor/membership history. My guess is down the road you'll want that info at some point for some project. Maybe memberships are tracked in some other way?

We don't use RENXT so don't have reference point for commenting on Work Center Overview Gifts tile

Not sure how it would mess up next ask amount. If data's deleted you'll have nothing to base next ask amount on.

La Donna Borth · July 2018

Alison Cassorla:

Hi,

We have used RE since 2000. We were using the Membership module until this year. (We have started using Daxko, but we did not move any of the old membership data.) All of the old membership gifts are still in RE. My Development Director would like me to "delete" all of the old membership gifts because they cause misleading information in RE NXT on the Work Center Overview Gifts tile. She thinks it also messes up the "Next Ask" amount as well.

What do you do with old data? We have always been told to not delete anything.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Alison Cassorla

Hi Alison,

I would also be reluctant to delete that data. In my opinion, gift data that's a year old isn't actually old, it's definitely a part of your current statistics. For the next ask, I would think you can exclude the membership gifts from the data in your exports. I've been asked to look back as far as 5 years for some information. While we don't have membership, I would think it's not unreasonable to need to query on whose membership has lapsed over the last few years. I'd say it's a definite keeper for now. Often a part of our jobs is to explain to others that they may need that data (or why some data is fine to delete).

Best wishes with your data!

La Donna Borth

Christine Cooke 2 · July 2018

Alison Cassorla:

Hi,

We have used RE since 2000. We were using the Membership module until this year. (We have started using Daxko, but we did not move any of the old membership data.) All of the old membership gifts are still in RE. My Development Director would like me to "delete" all of the old membership gifts because they cause misleading information in RE NXT on the Work Center Overview Gifts tile. She thinks it also messes up the "Next Ask" amount as well.

What do you do with old data? We have always been told to not delete anything.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Alison Cassorla

This would be a code issue on old gifts. NO ! you should not delete!!! You do that and you have ruined the integrity of your database. All history is erased. And then what happens when you want to see all giving (no matter the type, membership or outright gifts etc) going back through the history of the insititution? That does happen, especially when planning the future. Thing strategic planning, feasibility studies.... ugh! Sorry, this is just the sort of thing that makes me pull my hair out.

You can code things so that they "archival" for those that cannot interpret info on their screen, and making sure the dates reflect the time period would be important also.

Jen Claudy · July 2018

I would think long and hard before deleting anything. And I would instead export the Membership-related Gifts and move them to the new Membership system so that you can maintain accurate and complete Membership data.

As far as NXT's Next Ask Amount and Overview dashboard, you are likely correct in that NXT considers all Gifts and does not (yet!) allow Filters in all cases for what Gifts should be included/excluded. I am sure this is in the NXT Idea Bank, and would recommend voting there and adding comments (or new Ideas if you can't find this in there). Either way, post links back here for whatever you find, please!

Alison Cassorla · July 2018

Hi All,

Thanks for your comments to my question about deleting data.

I have found a work around, but it takes a long time to set up...I have changed the Development Teams security to include Gift Security by Fund. I have unchecked the Funds I want them to see (which is quite a few, since we have been using RE for 18 years). This limits their viewing of gifts by fund in RE NXT as well.

Jen Mackinder · August 2018

Alison Cassorla:

Hi,

We have used RE since 2000. We were using the Membership module until this year. (We have started using Daxko, but we did not move any of the old membership data.) All of the old membership gifts are still in RE. My Development Director would like me to "delete" all of the old membership gifts because they cause misleading information in RE NXT on the Work Center Overview Gifts tile. She thinks it also messes up the "Next Ask" amount as well.

What do you do with old data? We have always been told to not delete anything.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Alison Cassorla

We don't have NXT, but most reports / exports in RE let you filter based on certain criteria. Assuming all the memberships are contained in one fund, can't you just filter out that fund on the report? Although I would not delete the data, if you can't get around deleting I would definitely export all of the information (with import ids and constituent ids) and keep it forever in a safe/secure location.

Deleting Old Data

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