Column order in Export changes between runs

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Karl Craven 2
Karl Craven 2
Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
I've experienced this issue before but I just assumed on previous instances that I had messed up somehow without realizing it.



However, today I built an export with a variety of fields in the output and, when I ran it to test the output, the columns in the resulting spreadsheet were in a different order. I re-opened the export in RE to check, and they had indeed changed places without my knowledge. So, for example, instead of having:



Address Line 1

Address Line 2

City

State

Zip



... I had:



City

Address Line 3

Address Line 2

Address Line 1

State

Zip



The address wasn't the only place the fields had changed order, though: my Constituent Code had moved from before the address to after it.



I changed the fields back to where they should be, saved the export, and then ran it again. And the same exact thing happened again, except the order of the fields was mixed up in a slightly different way this time.



Has anyone else come across this issue?
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Comments

  • Anne Herbert
    Anne Herbert
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    This occurs all the time with large exports and the only way I've ever found to resolve it is to recreate the export.  It's a known problem.
  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Ditto what Annie said.  Isn't it frustrating. 



    Here's link to issue on discovery pages.  Add your votes to encourage them to get it solved faster.

    http://rediscovery.uservoice.com/forums/137015-raiser-s-edge-discovery-topics/suggestions/2605139-fix-export-function-so-that-field-order-doesn-t-ch
  • Kathy McDermott 2
    Kathy McDermott 2
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    Yes- I've experienced it often. Very annoying and it makes me think I'm going crazy at times. My only workaround is to recreate.



    Kathy
  • Jen Claudy
    Jen Claudy
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Is this resolved (or any better) with 7.95?  The Idea Jo Ann posted is pretty old...(I'd already given it the max 3 votes).
  • Catherine Burns
    Catherine Burns
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    According to the Knowledgebase (https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/53292) this has been an issue since May 2009 with the only solution to recreate the export.



    I have had it a few times, usually or my larger, more complicated exports, so recreating the export is easier said than done. When I have criteria on the export fields and have defined the column headings for most fields recreating a complex export can be time consuming.



     
  • Emmet O'Conlon 2
    Emmet O'Conlon 2
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    Yes, it's been an issue for years, and no good solution that I'm aware of. I guess NXT is more important than fixing parts of RE that are broken... :-(
  • Linda Saunders
    Linda Saunders
    Tenth Anniversary First Reply
    I have had the column order change on existing queries often over the last few months. I chatted with Blackbaud support and they indicated that the export had been corrupted and I would need to rebuild it. Since some of the exports are pretty complex, I looked for a work around. So far, it seems that if I delete the address lines in the Export and add them back using the "Address Block" instead of the individual address components, it is retaining the correct order. Not sure how long it will hold, but for now, at least, it's working. 
  • Gayle Allison
    Gayle Allison
    Ancient Membership First Reply

    Karl Craven:

    I've experienced this issue before but I just assumed on previous instances that I had messed up somehow without realizing it.


    However, today I built an export with a variety of fields in the output and, when I ran it to test the output, the columns in the resulting spreadsheet were in a different order. I re-opened the export in RE to check, and they had indeed changed places without my knowledge. So, for example, instead of having:


    Address Line 1

    Address Line 2

    City

    State

    Zip


    ... I had:


    City

    Address Line 3

    Address Line 2

    Address Line 1

    State

    Zip


    The address wasn't the only place the fields had changed order, though: my Constituent Code had moved from before the address to after it.


    I changed the fields back to where they should be, saved the export, and then ran it again. And the same exact thing happened again, except the order of the fields was mixed up in a slightly different way this time.


    Has anyone else come across this issue?

    I know that this post is from 2015 but I was wondering if this issue is still a problem in 7.96.  We will be upgrading to 7.96 next month and was told by Blackbaud that this no longer occurs in version 7.96.  Any information you could provide to me on this problem would be greatly appreciated.

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