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Olivia Steadman
Olivia Steadman ✭
Sixth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Good afternoon!


I work in the Foundation at a community college and we are trying to establish a database of alumni within RE in order to encompass alumni awareness, engagement, activities, commitment to giving, etc.  Our College uses another database Colleague, which holds a variety of student information and our goal is to pull data from Colleague to input into RE. The information we would like to pull from Colleague and import into RE is as follows…

 
  • Basic demographic information (first name, last name, middle initial, DOB, gender, etc.)
  • E-mail address
  • Telephone #
  • Year graduated or year program completed
  • Degree/major
  • Cohort program
  • Colleague ID
  • Scholarship information 
Would you recommend pulling any additional data?  Once the information is pulled are there certain places in RE that you would recommend storing the new data?  I am just trying to figure out the best place to store this new data so that it isn't difficult to run reports.   


Any pointers or advice will be greatly appreciated!


Thank you in advance,


Olivia Steadman
Osteadman@carrollcc.edu


 
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  • Olivia Steadman
    Olivia Steadman ✭
    Sixth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply

    Shaun Grace:

    Hi Olivia,


    I would import as much information as you can, though without knowing what Colleague stores I can't give you specifics.


    I would map the data points you have listed as follows:

    • Basic demographic information (first name, last name, middle initial, DOB, gender, etc.) - These all have their own fields in RE
    • E-mail address - Under phones with a type of email
    • Telephone # - Under phones
    • Year graduated or year program completed - in an Education relationship
    • Degree/major - in an Education relationship
    • Cohort program - Possibly in an Education relationship or as an attribute
    • Colleague ID - as an Alias
    • Scholarship information - possibly as a fund relationship, or as attributes
    Hope this helps, and I'm sure others can help too!


    Shaun



     

    Hi Shaun,


    That is extremely helpful. Thank you so much for your response!


    Olivia

  • Jaime Fortier
    Jaime Fortier ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Name Dropper Photogenic
    I agree with Shaun however the only difference we have done is use the College ID as the RE Constituent ID. 


    Jaime
  • Marguerite Gravois
    Marguerite Gravois ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 1 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Is anyone currently using a separate Alumni database while also being linked to Core via ConnectRE?  If so, are you mapping/importing updates to Core, RE or both?

    Thanks in advance!

     
  • Madeleine Holdsworth
    Madeleine Holdsworth ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Shaun's answer is pretty much how we store this info - but I would add that you can also "repurpose" some of the fields on the Education tab, which is what we do.  You can rename the fields by going into Config-->Fields-->Education/Schools.  We use several of the fields (such as Campus and Fraternity) for other purposes related to our needs for alum info and associated tables with those fields.
  • Dariel Dixon 2
    Dariel Dixon 2 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Seventh Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    I agree with Shaun Grace‍, however I think scholarship might be better placed as an educational relationship attribute.  Simply due to the limitations of importing fund relationships.  


    And Madeleine Holdsworth‍'s suggestion of renaming fields is good as well.  If it doesn't apply to your organization, use that field for something else.
  • Shaun Grace
    Shaun Grace ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 1 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Madeleine Holdsworth:

    Shaun's answer is pretty much how we store this info - but I would add that you can also "repurpose" some of the fields on the Education tab, which is what we do.  You can rename the fields by going into Config-->Fields-->Education/Schools.  We use several of the fields (such as Campus and Fraternity) for other purposes related to our needs for alum info and associated tables with those fields.

    That's a great idea, and good place to put the Cohort Program information.


    Shaun

  • Kristin White
    Kristin White ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Name Dropper
    Hi, I am at a Community College that uses Colleague too.

    If info about participation in sports or clubs is recorded I would pull that out of Colleague. We also have a Do not Contact field that is helpful. 

    The Colleague ID is imported as a constituent attribute for us and scholarships are imported as Education Attributes

    I would suggest adding your own ImportID to your import file once you start mapping the spreadsheet of Colleague info. Happy to talk more if you think it would be helpful.

    Kristin
  • Tom Klimchak
    Tom Klimchak ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Hi.. We have used Colleague for 30+ years here... Converted to Raiser's Edge from Benefactor about 12 years ago....  


    We include all the student's "club" activity in the attributes of the Education record... That's been helpful for inviting alumni back due to their interest in the radio station, student newspaper, certain fraternities, etc.


    We use the Colleague ID as an ALIAS on the Raiser's Edge ID.  It makes things a little trickier for lining up records between the two systems, but it isn't too difficult.  We actually have thousands more alumni records in RE than they do in Colleague because we go 80 years back... so not every student even HAD a Colleague ID.


    Good luck!

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