We are pleased to send you The Raiser's Edge 7.61. Before you begin using the program, take a moment to review the following notes, which highlight some of the new features. It is important to share this information with all Raiser's Edge users in your organization. A shortcut to the Release Notes for The Raiser's Edge has been added to your desktop, so you can access these notes at any time.
New Feature Highlights:
You can now add amendments to recurring gift records. For example, a donor may want to upgrade or downgrade (increase or decrease) a recurring gift. On the Amendments tab, you can add an amendment to the gift record to track the change. For more information, see the Gift Records Guide and the Regular Supporters Implementation Guide.
To convert your pledges to recurring gifts, you can use the new Convert Pledges to Recurring Gifts utility, located on the Administration page. For more information, see the Gift Records Guide.
Dashboard enhancements include the addition of the Recurring Gift Missed Payment Summary and the Recurring Gift Amendment Summary. The Recurring Gift Missed Payment Summary shows unrealized payments for recurring gifts. It processes information for recurring gifts with consecutive missed payments. The Recurring Gift Amendment Summary displays summarized information about amendments in your database. For more information, see the Dashboard Guide and the Regular Supporters Implementation Guide.
On the Constituent Profile, Individual Profile, and Organization Profile, you can include an Amendment History. This can be helpful to see the giving trends for a donor or group of donors over a period of time. You may want to see how many times this fiscal year a particular individual upgraded (or downgraded) a recurring gift. For more information, see the Reports Guide, Sample Reports Guide, and the Regular Supporters Implementation Guide.
Three new reports are available to help you analyze your regular supporter programs. The Recurring Gift Missed Payment Report helps you locate the regular supporters you lost and helps you determine when you lost them. The report shows the gift amounts to which a donor has committed, but not yet paid. It processes information for recurring gifts with consecutive missed payments.
The Recurring Gift Amendment Report can help you determine the success rate of your upgrade appeals or campaigns. It can show you who has upgraded or downgraded, when, and how much your donors were previously giving and how much they are giving now.
The Recurring Gift Statistical Report can help you find the regular supporters you lost and help you better target future donors. You can determine statistics such as how many donors were lost per month; which gender or age group is giving the most money; which gender or age group is less likely to continue giving; or from which ZIP Code, county, or region you are receiving the highest donations. For more information, see the Reports Guide, Sample Reports Guide, and the Regular Supporters Implementation Guide.
You can now authorize and process credit card transactions with International Automated Ticket Systems (IATS). With IATS, owned by Ticketmaster, you create credit card transmission files in Batch to send to IATS/Ticketmaster for authorization and processing. You must first contact IATS/Ticketmaster to set up an account. For more information, see the Electronic Gifts (EFT) Guide and the Regular Supporters Implementation Guide.
When you select IATS/Ticketmaster as your credit card processor, the Create credit card file checkbox and the Account field appear on the Create Transmission Files screen. Mark this checkbox and select an account to which to designate all credit card gifts in a transmission file. For more information, see the Electronic Gifts (EFT) Guide.
For direct debit transmission files, on the Create Transmission Files screen, you can mark the new Create credit offset transaction checkbox. The credit offset transaction is then included in the direct debit transmission file. For more information, see the Electronic Gifts (EFT) Guide.
From the Business Rules page of Configuration, you can now specify that a warning message appear when a constituent has an outstanding recurring gift. For more information, see the Gift Records Guide and the Batch Guide.
A new Import Recurring Gifts plug-in imports data for new recurring gifts from a single file. This import creates a new recurring gift record and includes the associated payment schedule. When you create your import file, if a constituent or financial institution included in the file does not exist in your Raiser’s Edge database and the file contains sufficient data to create a new record, the plug-in creates the constituent or financial institution record. The import file layout includes a field in which the donor’s country may be specified, allowing the plug-in to process gifts from foreign countries. Any country-specific processing for a gift is based on the country specified in this field. The Import Recurring Gifts plug-in appears on the Plug-Ins page. For more information, see the Import Recurring Gifts chapter in the Import Guide.
In Import, under Gift in the tree view, using the Amendment import type, you can update or create amendments to recurring gifts. You can change the recurring gift amount and transaction schedule, appeal, solicitors, and more. For more information, see the Import Tables chapter in the Import Guide.
In Import, under Constituent in the tree view, using the Constituent import type, you can import new bank records or import updates to existing bank records in your database in the same import file you use to import new individual constituent records or update existing individual constituent records. You can use a single file to import all the information. This feature can be beneficial if you receive import files with this type of information from outside fundraising agencies or organizations. For more information, see the Import Tables chapter in the Import Guide.
The new Financial Institution Cleanup utility in Configuration enables you to replace duplicate financial institution records in your database. Select one or more financial institution records to be replaced, then specify a single financial institution with which to replace them. As part of the cleanup, any constituent and other records associated with the duplicate financial institution are changed to show the association with the replacement financial institution. Account numbers are not changed on any records. The Financial Institution Cleanup utility is also excellent for combining banks if, for example, two banks merge to form a new bank with a different name. For more information, see the Configuration chapter of the Configuration & Security Guide.
The One per page checkbox has been added to the General tab in Mail for the Reminders, Appeal Cards, and Receipts mail tasks. You can choose to print a customizable full page reminder, appeal card, or receipt, instead of the standard preprinted version. You write a custom message and perform a mail merge within the mail task with the help of a wizard. As a result of these changes, the "3 per page" Receipt type selection on the General tab has been renamed "Preprinted receipts" and on the Reminders mail task "per pledge" and "per installment" options have been changed to a drop-down menu. When you mark the One per page checkbox, the Write custom message button appears on the toolbar. For more information, see the Mail Guide. For information about Blackbaud standard forms, send an e-mail to forms@blackbaud.com or call 1-866-4BB-FORMS (1-866-422-3676).
In Mail, to account for amendments to recurring gifts, the following fields have been added to the Fields to Include tab under the Gifts folder in the Donor Acknowledgement Letters, Reminders, and Renewal Notices mail tasks: Amount last paid, Date last payment, Amendment type (Donor Acknowledgement Letters and Renewal Notices only), and Amendment date (Donor Acknowledgement Letters and Renewal Notices only). For more information, see the Mail Guide and the Regular Supporters Implementation Guide.
In response to client requests to use attributes as the primary selection criteria for determining the contacts who should receive mailings at an organization, contact address attribute processing has been enhanced in Mail and Export. Options have been added to the Contact Address Attributes to Consider screen, as well as a help link to examples of contact address attribute processing. For more information, see the Mail Guide.
For NCOA On-Demand subscribers, the Address Format tab has been added to the Updated Address Report and Update Addresses processes. On this tab, examples help you select the Address Lines Format you want to use for secondary address information, such as APT 123. For the Update Addresses process, the Address Capitalization options have moved from the Process Options tab to the new Address Format tab. For more information, see the Data Enrichment Services Guide.
An Automatically maximize preview window checkbox has been added to User Options for Reports and Mail. For more information, see the Program Basics Guide.
In Query and Export, gift information fields help you extract information about your recurring gifts: Number of Consecutive Missed Payments, Latest Payment Amount, Last Payment Made, and Installment Frequency. An entire Amendments group has also been added to help you extract information about your recurring gift amendments. For more information, see the Query & Export Guide and the Regular Supporters Implementation Guide.
In RE:NetSolutions, options have been added for customizing receipts and confirmation messages. You can include your logo, add links to your various Web pages, insert contact information, and more. A Preview Receipt button lets you view your message before committing it to the Blackbaud server. For more information, see the Customizing Receipts chapter in the RE:NetSolutions Guide.
A Page Statistics link has been added to RE:NetDonors, RE:NetEvents, RE:NetVolunteers, and RE:NetMembers, displaying statistics for individual Web pages. The Page Statistics screen includes amount and page hit information for only the selected Web page. To view statistics on all pages created in a module, you can still click the Statistics button. For more information, see the RE:NetSolutions Guide.
RE:NetDonors, RE:NetEvents, RE:NetDirectories, RE:NetVolunteers, and RE:NetMembers now include a Page Style screen. Using the Page Style screen, you can give each RE:NetSolutions Web page a unique look, setting it apart from your other RE:NetSolutions pages. For more information, see the RE:NetSolutions Guide.
In RE:NetDirectories, the Directory Content screen has changed for all directory types. You have more control over the information included with the online directory. For example, you can select to include the individual's city and state information without including their street address. For more information, see the RE:NetDirectories chapter in the RE:NetSolutions Guide.
In RE:NetDirectories, you can select the phone type you want to include with your online directory. A Phone field has been added to the Directory Content screen for all directory types. For Professional and Constituent directories, you can also choose a Business phone. For more information, see the RE:NetDirectories chapter in the RE:NetSolutions Guide.
In RE:NetDirectories, visitors to your online directory page no longer have to mark a checkbox to include maiden names in their search. The maiden name is automatically included. For more information, see the RE:NetDirectories chapter in the RE:NetSolutions Guide.
In RE:NetDirectories, visitors to your online directories can now search on more than the constituent's last name. Depending on the directory and the content you included, visitors can search on address information, profession, class of, degree, and more. For more information, see the RE:NetDirectories chapter in the RE:NetSolutions Guide.
In RE:NetDonors, you can now accept recurring credit card and debit card gifts from your online donation page. You can also accept corporate donations from this page. The Download Transactions function has been enhanced to import this information into The Raiser's Edge. For more information, see the RE:NetDonors chapter in the RE:NetSolutions Guide.
For nonprofit organizations who need remote/roving access to critical relationship-building information, RE:Anywhere is available to provide secure, cost-effective access to The Raiser's Edge. For more information, click here.
For the Oracle version of The Raiser's Edge 7.61, a NoDBAForRewin.sql file is included with your update. This file allows you to revoke database administration rights from all connections to the database made via The Raiser’s Edge. For more information, see the 7.61 Update Guide.
For Oracle users, we also added the Database User Password field to the User screen accessed through Security in The Raiser’s Edge. This screen still includes the Database User field, and both fields are required. The default - REUSER/REUSER - is a valid login. Before you can change these fields, the user must be set up in the database. For more information, see the 7.61 Update Guide.