Event vs spreadsheet?

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Lynn Jones
Lynn Jones
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in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
We are currently planning an event to kick off a building campaign.  We have addresses of people (potential donors) to invite to a reception to introduce the campaign.  In the past I have done all this with spreadsheets.  Would it be better to enter all the info in the event tab of RE?  How do others track the potential donors?  Also can you create a mailing list from the event?
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  • Elizabeth Perron
    Elizabeth Perron
    Eighth Anniversary 2,500 Likes 1000 Comments Photogenic
    Moving question to RE product community to get RE specific answers.


    Elizabeth
  • Matthew Nareff
    Matthew Nareff
    Ninth Anniversary 100 Likes 10 Comments
    I would say you should definitely keep the information in RE otherwise there's no easy way to find out if someone has actually attended an event, was invited, etc. without having to refer back to an excel spreadsheet.  Much easier to open someone's record and see all the info there.


    As for actions vs. events, if you have the events module I'd say use it.  You have the ability to have lots of information associated with the event and invitees (most of which we don't use but the option is there if we want it) and sometimes it's a lot more difficult with an action because you often need to have specific event related attributes/custom fields or use a field that's not really for event information which makes it more difficult to query/export/report.  It's also a lot more difficult to wade through all the actions to find the one(s) for the event instead of just having that list in the events tab.


    The other thing, and I've told this to people at many of the organizations I've worked at, you need to remember that development teams overturn a lot and you need to make sure that you have things set up so someone new at least has some idea of what's going on.  When I'm new to an organization, or someone else comes in, generally if you want to find out if someone was invited/attended an event the first place you're going to look is in the events tab.  You're not usually going to go to actions first to see what events are on a record. 
  • Dariel Dixon 2
    Dariel Dixon 2 Community All-Star
    1,500 Likes Seventh Anniversary 1000 Comments Photogenic
    I think the best way to think about it is to try to think about what information you'll be asked for later.  If you ever need to cross-reference attendance or invited with donor information, entering it in RE means that all the data is in one source.


    Granted, Excel is a comfortable blanket that we often run to, but I think you'll be doing yourself a disservice not to entering it as an event.  It may make things much easier come reporting time.


    Of course, that's all depended on how comfortable you are with the Event Module.  
  • Carrie Aranda
    Carrie Aranda
    Seventh Anniversary 250 Likes 100 Comments Photogenic
    I also agree that it should be entered into Raiser's Edge, but mostly from an analytical view.  Two years ago we moved all of our event registrations and invitations to Raiser's Edge.  It has taken a while to get everyone comfortable with it but it is such a great way to track and analyze.  For example, I can run a report showing what each table (i.e. sponsor) brought in during our gala.  We can also look and see who attended an informal event and then made a gift after the fact.  If the information is in two different place, it takes a lot of work to run these types of reports.  We are currently re-purposing our Constituent Codes and dating them so we can see who started as an event attendee who then became a donor and/or a volunteer.  How people become engaged with us and how that leads them to being involved either as a volunteer or donor is of big interest to us right now.  None of this is possible with tracking in a spreadsheet.

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