Deleting gifts

Karen Diener:

I don't know why you need to delete the gift, but just a couple of thoughts:

Many people find it important to retain the gift and adjust the amount of it to $0. This can be helpful to retain some history that the gift was on someone's record and why it is no longer present.

If the gift was entered on the incorrect record, you can move a gift from one record to another in webview.

There are definitely times when I've deleted gifts, but just think ahead to potential future problems to make that deleting the gift is the correct step.

Karen

While I agree with you about keeping trail, as you already mention, there are legitimate time when gift needs to be deleted.

If this is a “TRUE” feature of RE NXT to not allow delete, then Blackbaud should have not allow the Security permission for that function. HOwever, I think it is more of a bug then a feature. You are still able to delete gift if the gift was created in Database view, and given that the majority of gift will be entered in database view's gift batch ( since webview gift batching is not really versatile enough), it does not make sense that this is intentional.

Any Blackbaud person can provide insight to this?

Anthony Gallo:

Hey Everyone,

I can weigh in here. The thought process for NXT is that we have checks before a gift can be committed and those gifts are usually posted with GL information or transaction data. These should be valid gifts and if they need to be removed, we believe that it should be done thru an adjustment.

We have had some request from partners to delete gifts that are test gifts or gifts added in error thru that process and we are working on updating our API to allow for these third party gifts to be deleted.

The only information we have for the need for gift deletion at this time is that some orgs are entering test gifts and they would like to delete them once finished. If that is the case we would like to figure out a better testing process. If there are other scenarios where gift deletion is needed, I would love to have that conversation and see some examples here so we can all get on the same page.

Thanks
Anthony

Hi Anthony,

Thank you for weighting in here, as Blackbaud perspective is very important for us, clients.

I find that your explanation, while make some sense, does not take the overall RE (and FE) product into consideration.

• RE NXT still have database view, and from many Blackbaud training/instructor, it is still recommended for majority of gift entry, it should be done through RE NXT database view since web view's functionality for bulk gift processing is inferior to database view's gift batching.
  • Gifts recreated in database view can still be deleted without any issue, as long as the user have rights to delete gift, per security permission.
  • For web view created gifts to not conform to the same security permission (when in database view) is absurd in my opinion. (i'm not talking about being able to delete gift from web view, i'm talking not being able to login to database view and delete the web view created gift).
• Not all customer use FE NXT with RE NXT, so the posting/adjustment comment may not apply to all customer of RE NXT.
  • Not to mention that even if customer uses RE and FE NXT with integration (our org does), posting of gifts into FE is not done right away when web view gifts are created. There is usually a process of checks and data correction before posting happens. If a gift IS posted, then adjustment will have to be used, Business as Usual there.
  • What I am trying to express is, I don't think it is correct to “tie” web view gift creation to RE gift being posted to FE.

As to reason for deleting gift, here's a few from our perspective:

• Consistency of what can be done to gift record when in database view
• Test gift record
• Gift incorrectly applied to pledge but is actually not payment

Of course, the “work around” is to just edit the gift to $0 (if not posted). However, it leaves a useless record in the RE system.

As mentioned before, my team did found a way to delete gift that was created in web view, through global delete, you can see ticket #018403497 if you have access. It seems that your support team doesn't know this is possible.

Problem though I'm having with our “new found” way to delete gift is, obviously in the database table somewhere Blackbaud is indicating the gift as “web view created” differentiating gift that “can” be delete from gift record menu vs cannot. I'm concern that the “global delete” option to delete the gift record that was web view created was not “correctly" deleting gift taken into consideration of “other” database table and/or “fields/columns” thereby potentially corrupting the RE database. Please have your team look into this, to make sure the correct foreign key constaints is done with specific info that is “webview” related.

Alex