When to use Notes, when to use Media?

Elizabeth Krischer:

I use Media for scanned documents and notes for bio updates or news. For example, if I update the constituent's phone number, I add it to notes. If I get a note from the donor that gives us his or her new phone number, I scan it into Media.

Basically, I'm trying to make us go paperless (as much as possible), so anything that can be scanned goes into Media. General information or updates can go into notes, so I think your gut is correct.

Other thoughts welcome.

Sorry I should clarify - if I update the constituent's phone number, I say that I have done so in the Notes section (Biographical Update: Donor submitted her new home phone number as XXX-XXX-XXXX. Replace old phone number of XXX-XXX-XXXX).

And because I get a lot of news from online, I don't have anything to scan in so I just copy/paste the article. I could very well save a PDF of the article, But I prefer using Notes for things like this.

Dan Gomez:

I use Notes whenever possible, and try to limit the use of Media. I only use Media when it's important that I have the "original" copy of something. From my understanding, Media, along with Static Queries, take up the most space in R/E. You know when you're running a large query/report, and you get the spinning circle and it takes a long time to complete the action? The more data you have stored in in R/E, the longer those take. At least, that's what I've been trained to understand.

Just to expand on Dan's comment. If you are linking media vs embedding media - it should not slow down Raiser's Edge. We use it for photos in addition to original copies of items as it is helpful when our solicitors are on the road. We do not find the media tab to be very useful unless we are on the actual record since we have not found a real way to extract the content in reporting. 

Luisa Montgomery:
So, are you saying that you add photos/etc to notes?

 No Luisa, we currently add photos and documents to Media tab by linking the file.