Two organizations sharing the same RE database

At an organization I worked with many years ago we had this same discussion. We decided it was easier just to add a second database to the existing RE program. They needed their own coding structure. There were also going to be issues with duplicates and we integrated with FE but the other organization had their own accounting software, Quickbooks I think.


Adding a second database was not that expensive. I believe, and again this was many years ago, it was a one time charge of $1,500 and an additonal $500 a year for maint. Another issue to think about is the number of users that need access to the database.

My organization is moving to RE, back to actually, and we have a separate development office in a different state that maintains their own database and fundraising efforts.  But after the conversion we will be merging the two databases into one.  The BB consultant assigned to us is recommending that we use the "security by constituency" to block or give access to constituents based on an assigned constituency code that is specific to each of our offices.  That way you can choose who has rights to view each other's constituents based on that code.


For gifts he said to use the "Gift security by fund" to secure viewing right to gifts.  That way someone could grants rights to view the other office's constituent, based on the constituency but block access to view the gift records.


We are going with his recommendation.


Hope that helps.


Steve Walsh

Hi Gracie,


I'm glad to hear you came up with an effective and simple solution for your needs! Just to quickly chime in to your side note and shed some light on a very good point... Basically, Query cannot look  for "greater than" fund IDs because they are text fields, not number fields in RE. By having the added ability to give Fund IDs (and descriptions) letters, we lose the ability to recognize numbers in the fields as numbers. While it makes perfect sense to not be able to search for funds "greater than Annual" or "less than Endowment," I can definitely understand how you can be frustrated by that limitation!


Have you had experience using copy and paste into a "one of" filter in criteria? If you have a list of funds in a spreadsheet elsewhere, in order, you can capture the selection you want to search for in each case and paste it into a "one of" list - hopefully offering a solution to your need of considering a range of fund IDs!


Best of luck in your new foundation and the transition!


Maire

Hi Maire and Deb - NOW I get it!  I inherited the system in 2012 (my first encounter with RE) and though I've seen other systems with alphanumeric fund numbers, it never occurred to me to think about that. Also, I like Deb's idea of marking all the fund categories as Foundation or Trust, though I'd have to figure out a way to do that as a global add/change - the Trust has WAY too many fund numbers!  I'm probably going to stick with the master queries of greater (less) than or equal to, since most of the activity is below the highest number of the Trust, or is captured in the "greater than" of the Foundation.  It's much less frustrating when you know WHY it doesn't work!

Jan Harman:

Has anyone implemented a solution where two organizations are using the same RE database but keeping their constituent record access separated through constituent code permissions?  If you have, can you share your experience?  I'm especially interested in knowing the level of difficulty to implement and use, if there are any tools like Query that have to be limited in some way, if there are other record types impacted or any other issues.

I am new to my organization (my first encounter with RE) and have been studying our database and our procedures. It seems that when our three foundations merged into RE a few years ago we were advised the same way you were. Now fast forward a few years later and we have an overwhelming number of constituent codes (200+) and failing security measures. A big part of our problem is without a doubt our lack of system wide policies and procedues, but it is also the way in which our data processes were approached from the beginning. Part of my job as the DBA is to clean-up the entire database and also find a solution for us to model for tackling your same question "two organizations using the same RE database but keeping their constituent access and information seperate". I am looking to come away from that idea of using constituent code permissions and base our permissions more on our gift record to help eliminate duplication and setting rules for booking gifts based on the gift information. We are looking to work more collaboratively toward consolidation to help indentify the constituency by gift record and not constituent record because many of our constituent records overlap throughout all three organizations. Of course not all of them, but a large sum overlap. In the end our hope is that this will eliminate the duplication of constituent records in our system and will allow us to keep all records updated because duplication also caused one or two records to have out dated contact information, relationship information and other vital information. We are hoping to be able to set permissions based on the gift information where as, if you work for group A you cannot alter or add gift information for group B. We are also hoping to have one person adding and updating constituent records to maintain accuracy. The main issues with our current set-up with queries and reports (before our clean-up) is the way in which each organization inputs information and the slightest variation may not render the correct information. The lack of streamlined policies and procedures is one of our biggest challenges when it comes to gift reporting for all three foundations, but also having three organizations within one database is also challenging to try to manuver. What I hope you take from my message is that if the procedures manual had been apart of the begining stages as well as a bigger picture approach the database may not need such a big overhaul to clean it up. I am very interested to see the best practices of other organizations when approaching issues with constituent duplication throughout two or more different organizations. And if anyone has done what I am suggesting by differentiating between the organizations with the gift record and not the constituent record?