Best Practice: Delete Rights for Actions

Adam Dunigan · May 2020

We have a small team of gift officers who are responsible for entering actions as they work their portfolios. These GOs can add/edit actions and notes, but beyond that, they do not have much control over the data in the system. Our services team takes care of record updates such as address, email, phone, etc. This has been useful in keeping errors to a minimum when it comes to data entry/updates. However, recently, a couple of GOs have requested to have the rights to delete actions. Their reasoning is because these actions were either mistakenly entered, incomplete, or are a duplicate. I have instructed them to send those requests to my team so that we can review the action and delete it if necessary. I do not feel that the GOs need to delete any data from the system, as it would render it impossible to find out why a record was removed once it's gone.

What best practices are being utilized with respect to edit/delete rights within RE/NXT? Would love to know more about what the community is doing on this front. Thanks!

Mark Guncheon 2 · May 2020

We allow ours to delete. I understand your concern and we too have them coded so they can only add and edit proposals, actions, and notes. They can only delete actions and proposals.

Adam Dunigan · May 2020

Good to know! I will mull over loosening the restrictions on deletions of actions and and proposals, since those are their primary areas of work within the system. Thanks for your feedback!

Keri Barnhart · May 2020

Depending on how many GOs you have and their comfort/proficiency with RE and data entry, I'd have two levels of permissions. New users and those who would prefer to ask you to delete erroneous data can be prevented from deleting, and those who are generally experienced/proficient can be allowed to delete.

I used to do a lot of reporting based on Actions and Opportunities, and we had some Opportunities completely disappear after some RENXT outages. The only people with permission to delete didn't actually go into the Opportunity records, and we had reports showing that these records were present on Day X, but missing on Day Y. This helped a lot with identifying the cause as related to the data blip/widespread outage, instead of someone accidentally clicking the wrong button. Remember that being able to delete means deleting ANY Action/Opportunity, not just the ones in error...

For that reason, when I explained that basic security permission levels prevented any deleting, but the power users could get an "upgrade", most of my GOs asked to not have the ability. They were happy to get other power user features that we kept locked down so as to minimize clean-up if someone made a mistake, but they did not want to delete. And if they had to email us to request deletion, we would have a log in case we had to do any detectiving about odd changes.

Dariel Dixon 2 · May 2020

This is a good question! I understand wanting complete control over your database. However, in this case, you are kind of creating more work for yourself. Their request seems valid; they are creating the actions which are in question, and while they have edit ability, having the ability to delete does seem like it makes sense.

I believe in empowering my colleagues as opposed to restricting them. They fact that they asked for this ability shows initiative, and that they have some sense of pride in entering these actions accurately. Is there some reason that you have to suspect that this could have a negative result. It might be worthwhile to grant them this function on a trial basis, to see how it goes. I'd also do a backup if possible in case things go awry.

You know your GOs better than we do. Keri Barnhart‍'s suggestion of a tiered permission level is good.

Personally, I don't allow my GOs to delete actions, but primarily because they haven't asked to. If they'd ask within reason, I'd surely consider it.

Daniel R. Snyder · May 2020

We took delete rights for actions away a few years ago as it was creating problems with an integration with another platform. I took more delete rights away than just actions and have had very few problems.

If someone needs an action deleted they can flag an action for deletion by placing "Delete" in the action notepad description field or action summary field in NXT and I have a weekly check to delete those. We are also a small team so this works for us.

Elizabeth Johnson · May 2020

We are a small office - only 6 daily users (all with their own security clearances based on roles and needs) and it isn't that often something needs to be deleted and to avoid accidental deletions (that was a bigger issue about a decade ago) I have a "Please delete this" table entry for Actions, Constituent Notepads, Addresses, and Gifts. I catch them in my regular database audits and come up so seldom I see no need for us to change.

For instance, I wouldn't run weekly reports without reviewing my gift record audits (a ton of solicitor and gift queries set up in a dashboard so I can review several at a time.) That review also allows me to let our gift entry person know that it is safe to run acknowledgements as common and easy to identify issues will already have been dealt with. It isn't a mistake if it is fixed before the constituent (or administration) would have seen it.

Beth Halleck · May 2020

Would be willing to list or share a couple of your favorite gift record audits? I am the only staff who does gift administration and have to audit my own work.

Thanks,

Beth

Best Practice: Delete Rights for Actions

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