Tag Archives: The Raiser’s Edge

Blackbaud Labs RE7 code sample

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I just noticed Blackbaud have added a code sample to their Blackbaud Labs site. This appears to be the same code sample as was released on CodePlex but it will no doubt get a larger audience here.

My initial thought about this code are that it is unnecessarily complicated. Creating an embedded HTML resource, creating a specific control, putting in the correct GUID into to the HTML page and then getting it all to work seems to be somewhat of a long winded approach. Continue reading Blackbaud Labs RE7 code sample →

Changing Raiser’s Edge skin part 2

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When you are supplied all the dlls that an application uses and these are all COM object it is possible to discover things about the application that you would otherwise not normally be able to do. Some people may call this “hacking” but others like myself would prefer the less confrontational description of “investigating”

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Installing IDLookup

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Update: IDLookup is a legacy application that is no longer available for download. Almost all of the functionality has been incorporated into Importacular and we recommend that product instead.

In this post I hope to offer some help in installing IDLookup. Many people have downloaded it but it may not be so straight forward to install. Note that these instructions can also be used for installing Query Manager.

If you do not know what IDLookup is here is a brief outline. IDLookup is  a plugin that I have created to lookup records in Raiser’s Edge given a list of constituents and their address details. This is useful where you have a third party list given that does not contain your constituent ids (such as many giving sites e.g. JustGiving, FirstGiving, CharityWeb, etc)  or cold lists that you want to ensure really are cold. The application can be found on Zeidman Development ->IDLookup. This is a demo version that is tied to the sample database.

When you download IDLookup from Zeidman Development you receive a zipped up file consisting of one installation file. After extracting the installation file (IDLookup Setup.msi) double click on it and follow the guide that will install all the files in their correct location. In the plugins directory you will then see a link for IDLookup. However we are not ready to start just yet.

Continue reading Installing IDLookup →

Is the API really that expensive?

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I get a lot of questions asking me if a certain change to The Raiser’s Edge can be done. Here is a typical (if somewhat abbreviated conversation)

Them: “We would like to add an attribute every time a constituent is saved. Then we want to synchronize our online giving application with Raisers Edge. Lastly we want to validate fields when entering gifts into Batch.”

Continue reading Is the API really that expensive? →

Working with Attributes

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Attributes are a common tool within The Raiser’s Edge. I know of no organisation that does not have any constituent attributes. Yet the API treats them rather peculiarly. Unlike an import where you specify the category and description the Attribute record doesn’t store the category in plain text. This would be OK if you regularly referred to attributes with their code table id but you do not. They are referred to using the category text.

Continue reading Working with Attributes →

Sometimes the API is just not enough

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Sometimes I cannot quite get want I want from Raiser’s Edge using the API. Or if I can it is very slow to get the information. For example when you get a collection of top level records, say constituents, there are filter objects which work well, you can also use the custom where clause which works when there is not a filter parameter. However what do you do when you want a combination of different areas of The Raiser’s Edge all combined into one selection.

Continue reading Sometimes the API is just not enough →

A Non-production database

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There has been some discussion on the Blackbaud forums and on the Blackbus forum about using a second non-production database.  This article will highlight some ways of doing this. 

Before I begin I want to categorically state that if you believe what I am writing in this post breaks your Blackbaud contract then do not do it. A long time ago I was told by Blackbaud that it was perfectly acceptable and I hold by that but I know that others who have been told otherwise (including various support people at Blackbaud who will give you a different ruling depending on who you speak to!) Just to reiterate I am in no way encouraging you to break the law!
Continue reading A Non-production database →

The problem with imports

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One common problem that I have had with writing VBA code that hooks on to the import process is debugging. Unlike the other processes that you can write VBA code for the import process is a modal form. This means that the import window has to be on top at all times and you cannot go back to another window in Raiser’s Edge

 The problem with this is that you cannot set a break point in your code and you cannot step through the code. This makes debugging code difficult.

There are a couple of work arounds.
Continue reading The problem with imports →