Can I personalize emails in On-Line Express, using Raiser's Edge fields like first name (or nickname), class of, last gift, etc.?

Hi Joe. Yes, you can include merge fields into emails to help personalize the content.



When you are editing an email message text widget, select the "Merge field" menu option to see the list of available fields.

Hi Joe. The merge field list contains the most common fields, but we do plan to add more over time.



We would love to add fundraising related fields like last gift amount and date, but it gets a little tricky because orgs define things a little differently from each other. For example, should soft credits count, pledge payments, etc. It's a solvable problem and we are looking into it, but it's not as simple as it seemed on the surface.



Fields like "class of" are a little more challenging, because while they are very valuable for educational institutions, they are completely useless for the rest of Online Express customers.



Rather than clutter up the list with fields that are irrelevant for some users, we would like to come up with an *easy* way to manage fields without having to do any complex query operations.

Matt Garbarino:

Hi Joe. The merge field list contains the most common fields, but we do plan to add more over time.



We would love to add fundraising related fields like last gift amount and date, but it gets a little tricky because orgs define things a little differently from each other. For example, should soft credits count, pledge payments, etc. It's a solvable problem and we are looking into it, but it's not as simple as it seemed on the surface.



Fields like "class of" are a little more challenging, because while they are very valuable for educational institutions, they are completely useless for the rest of Online Express customers.



Rather than clutter up the list with fields that are irrelevant for some users, we would like to come up with an *easy* way to manage fields without having to do any complex query operations.

Joe Patke:

Unfortunately, that functionality is very limited. One example: We have many email addresses attached to the Primary Business address (for work email addresses). If we select the "nickname" field, the emails to the business address come out blank. So we cannot use that field. It does us no good.


Also, we do many things by class, and the "class of" field is not offered. Sending LYBUNT or SYBUNT appeals would be much more powerful if a last gift amount and last gift date were among the offered fields.


We find ourselves more and more using our "old" eblast system, because On-Line Express just cannot do what we need. Hoping this gets upgraded soon. It would be nice to be able to export whatever fields we want and include them in our e-mails...like we do with our old eblast system.