Best way to compare RE "LO Alias" to LO Alias from LO

Melissa Sheinman · January 2020

Our organization is using Raiser's Edge and Luminate Online with Omatic as our connection between the two. We have been successfully bring gifts from LO into RE for a couple years and now want to begin syncing in the other direction, from RE into LO.

Our goal is to setup group export profiles to add RE constituents to LO groups for email sends and email suppressions. We've talked with Omatic and are fine with setting up the exports. The problem is that the exports are going to use the LO Alias as the key to find matching records and we haven't been 100% consistent with populating or updating that field in the past. Before we can begin using the syncs we need to clean up the LO Alias in RE to make sure it matches what is in LO.

I know I'll need to export information from both RE and LO to Excel and do some work to compare the two. I'm wondering if anyone has gone down this path before and has any guidance or suggestions on how to start. I fear it may be a long, manual process so any tips are appreciated!

Allison Williams 2 · January 2020

Have you tried using the Exchange ID in LO? When I do exports and comparisons from RE to LO, I use the Exchange ID in LO, which maps to the Import ID in RE. I have found that to be a much easier and more trustworthy way of comparing records between the two systems. In my experience, the Exchange ID is automatically generated in Luminate once a record is connected to a Raiser's Edge record. This could help with matching records for your cleanup, or maybe you could use these two fields to sync your data.

Good Luck!

Allison

robert badley · January 2020

Melissa, I am really curious to see what responses you get to your question because we are in a similar position. We use RE, LO and Omatic integration to keep the two in synch. For some time I have been synching changes in RE back to LO but every day we get several exceptions for various reasons and so there is constant cleanup that is needed.

One of the issues that you will face is that if an existing donor processes a new gift through LO but uses a different email address (even if name and mailing address are identical) LO will create a new record. Omatic is smart enough to recognize the match and will add the gift to the existing RE record but you will end up with a second LO_ID in the RE Alias and that will generate an exception next time you synch.

Allison, using the Exchange_ID is only an option if you use RELO to link RE and LO but not for Omatic integration users.

Melissa Sheinman · January 2020

Thank you, Allison, for your suggestion. I don't see Exchange ID as an option, instead we have been relying on a combination of comparing the LO ID, RE Constituent ID, and email. Usually between those three we can figure things out, but it also means there are many different ways to approach the comparison, sometimes leading to analysis overload.

Robert, it sounds like we are in the same boat! We have definitely come across issues with constituents using different email addresses over time when making a donation or ticket purchase in LO. I do a monthly clean up of all RE records with more than one LO Alias, but that is just checking the records with multiple entries, it isn't doing anything to review the accuracy of records where just one LO Alias is present.

Up to now we have been focusing on keeping email address and RE ID consistent between the two databases since we were told by Omatic that email address is the key connection field. Last night I did a VLOOKUP between all RE records and all LO records based on email but to compare LO ID. It looks like there will be about 1,500 records to initially review. I’m not sure if that was the most efficient way to do the comparison, but at least it is a list to start on while I think of other options.

Best way to compare RE "LO Alias" to LO Alias from LO

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