Tag Archives: Action

Audit Trail Cloud doubles the areas tracked

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Today we released a new version of Audit Trail Cloud and what a release it is!

New Tracked Areas

We have doubled the number of areas tracked. As well as constituent, gift, address, email, phones, online presence, prospect and solicit codes, you can now also track actions, relationships (both individual and organisational), constituent codes and constituent custom fields.

We said that as soon as Blackbaud released new webhooks we would release new areas to track additions, changes and deletions and that is exactly what we have done.

To complement the new areas, we have also added two new tiles. When looking at a specific action page or a specific gift page in the Raiser’s Edge web view, we now include a tile that shows the history of changes for that action or gift respectively. (You only see this if it has been turned on for your login in Tile Security under the Configuration area of the Audit Trail Viewer)

And More Too!…

A while back Blackbaud added the functionality to see who made a change to the record. This was a much sought after addition but it was not available for all records. The changed by id only comes through for constituents, gifts and addresses. This meant that for all the other areas, we were forced to simply write “Not Available”.

As part of this release, if a user has made a change to, say, a constituent and then to an email address, we will infer the changed by user from the constituent change by data. This is not an exact science as, in theory there are several possibilities. It could be that one person is changing the constituent and, unlikely as though it may seem, another goes and changes their email address. Alternatively the same person changes the email address before the constituent record. (Or the change is made so close together that the webhook for the email is fired before the webhook for the constituent even though the constituent is changed first). In this case we will still write “Not Available”

To make it clear, for inferred changes, the changed by user is given in italics and hovering over it will show the tooltip that the value is inferred.

Upgrade (or Purchase) Now!

If you are an existing user, you will be prompted to upgrade the next time you go into the Viewer. Just go into ZeidZone to download the latest configuration version.

If you are not an existing user then what are you waiting for?! Get in touch now

Checking access restrictions in The Raiser’s Edge

Intermediate, ,

In a recent project I had to ensure that specific confidential information was being saved as an action. I had a custom screen where this data was going to be viewed and edited. Only certain users had access to that action using security by action types. I had to check to see if the current user was able to view the action and if they could whether or not they were able to edit the details. There are useful methods for this in the API and I assumed it would be a simple task to use them. Continue reading Checking access restrictions in The Raiser’s Edge →

What Should You Consider When Users Leave? (an additional thought to Blackbaud’s post)

Beginner, Not Code, , ,

I like BlackbaudKnowHow. The blog that consists of many articles on best practise within Blackbaud’s products often inspires me. The posts are written by a lot of different people at Blackbaud with a lot of experience in Blackbaud products. One post written recently, What Should You Consider When Users Leave?, highlighted what users of The Raiser’s Edge should do when one of their users leaves. (Update Sep 2020 – BlackbaudKnowHow is no longer active. A similar article can be found here)

One issue it does not cover (there are probably many more that were beyond the scope of the article) was what to do about action reminders that have been assigned to a user. The article suggests either deleting the user or changing their name, giving them prefix of “X”. Neither of these solutions help when a user has actions reminders associated with them.

It is possible to go in and change the assignments one by one. It is also very easy to miss them too. It is quiet easy to see what could happen if you miss a reassignment. A major donor who was due to be reminded about their donation is now forgotten about because the reminder instead of going to David goes to “XDavid” who is not longer at your organisation.

Our free plug-in Action Reminder Updater helps solve this problem. Select a soon-to-be ex-user and select a replacement user. Press start and all of the actions will be reassigned to the replacement user. Simple.

Enter Actions in Batch with a new plug-in

Beginner,

Zeidman Development are pleased to announce the release of our latest plug-in for The Raiser’s Edge – BatchIt:Action

BatchIt:Action allows you to enter actions en masse in a batch. This is the first of a series of modules in the Batch:It range.

Efficiency
Entering actions one by one is slow. Importing actions in one go is not always practical. BatchIt:Action provides the solution to simply and efficiently entering accurate data.

Templates
Create templates for different types of actions. For example, do you use actions to represent an event, or a request for information. Populate the template with defaults and hide pre-populated fields just as you would in a gift batch.

Custom Validation
For users with advanced requirements set up a custom validation file that implements your organisation’s business rules. Does your event actions always need a t-shirt size? Should a phone action be prevented if the phone number is international? Create custom validation rules to enforce this or let us help you create them. (Requires coding skills, additional custom validation module required)

Demo
More information can be found on our website where you can download a fully working version tied to the Sample database. There is also a screen-cast showing BatchIt:Action in use. If you have any questions then please contact us.

SSIS Convert

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I have been working on a project to bring in a large amount of data into The Raiser’s Edge. Everyone else on the project has been using SSIS to do this and previously I would probably have manipulated the data in Excel, Access or for the most complicated data written a small application to convert the data into the format that I wanted before importing it into RE. Having used SSIS for a day now I am say that I am converted!

Continue reading SSIS Convert →

Integrating Raiser’s Edge with non-Blackbaud Products

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A lot of the work that I do involves the integration of third party products with The Raiser’s Edge. It is not always right to develop a custom application to perform this integration. There are many factors including the volume of data transfer, the complexity of data, how quickly the data needs to be integrated and of course what budget is available. This article attempts to outline the options available to Raiser’s Edge managers who need to integrate with non-Blackbaud products.

Continue reading Integrating Raiser’s Edge with non-Blackbaud Products →

Top Plug-ins of 2008

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A few days shy of the end of the year, I hearby present to you the top visited plugins of 2008 (unless of course there is a sudden rush on any of them before midnight in which case the list will be adjusted accordingly). This list is based on the top number of clicks through to the more information about each plug-in supplied by each plug-in author.

Audit Trail
Blackbaud NetCommunity Integration
Bank Checker Solution
Clear Invalid Spouse IDs
Constituent Document Linker
Code Insert Custom Part
Convio DataSync Connector RE
ID Lookup
Action Reminder Updater
CanadianUpdateRE

Thank you to all that have added to the directory during the year and to those that have rated the plug-ins.

Battling on with the Batch API

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I have on several occasions expressed my delight about the arrival of the Batch API. I am still enthusiastic but somewhat war weary having spent this passed week trying to solve problems that have appeared. Clearly the Batch API was not rigorously tested before it was released as otherwise the sort of errors I am getting would not have appeared. In case you have been struggling too or in case you thinking about using this functionality here is what I have been up against.
Continue reading Battling on with the Batch API →