When you design the Sponsorship Search part, the query you select from Blackbaud CRM and the number of search results you display on the web page can heavily impact the performance of the page. To provide the best experience for website users, review these importance performance tips.
When you design the part and include the Location Name field under Search Fields, make sure the Show this location to online users checkbox is selected for each location you want to make available on your web page. This checkbox appears on the Add or Edit a sponsorship location screen in Blackbaud CRM. For information about sponsorship offline data entry, refer to the Blackbaud CRMSponsorship Guide.
You associate a Sponsorship Opportunity – CMS query from Blackbaud CRM with the Sponsorship Search part. This query is used when a search occurs on the web page to return results by:
First, identifying opportunities that are valid to sponsor at the time of the search.
Second, returning data that matches the search filters the website user selected.
By default, the query only returns opportunities that meet the program’s standard criteria. However, your organization can include more fields to the query to add additional fields to search to further limit opportunity results.
Whether or not you select the Show this location to online users checkbox for an opportunity's location in Blackbaud CRM impacts the web page search in two ways.
Location filter - When you design the part to include the Location Name field under Search Fields, only locations with the checkbox selected appear in the search field. However, the locations that appear depend on whether or not your Sponsorship Opportunity – CMS query has an associated selection.
If the query is not associated with a selection, all locations appear from the search field. Be aware this can include locations that do not have a corresponding opportunity when a website user executes a search.
When query has an associated selection, only locations that correspond to opportunities in the selection appears from the search field. When you use a selection, the search limits the location options to only those that will return a search result.
Search results - When you design the part to include the Location Name field under Search Results:
When the opportunity's location has the checkbox selected, that location displays.
Otherwise, the program moves up the location hierarchy from the opportunity's location until one with the checkbox selected is found. When this occurs, that location displays.
For example, if the Blackbaud CRM location hierarchy includes the following:
Africa – Show this location to online users checkbox selected
North America – Show this location to online users checkbox selected
When opportunities exist in all three countries, but only opportunities in Malawi appear in the query results, the following appears on the page based on whether or not you use a selection from the query.
Note: When an opportunity is marked inactive in Blackbaud CRM, it does not appear in search results on the web page.
To improve performance and decrease search time on the web page, always use a static selection from your query for this part. When you use a static selection, the query process to filter locations (and other criteria you select) occurs at the time you create the selection and it only processes again when you refresh the query in a queue. A static selection is a saved list referenced by web page requests. When you use a dynamic query, the query filters criteria process at least once for every website user's web session and this happens directly on the web page. This can degrade performance and the website user's experience.
Tip: To create a static selection from a query, open the query in Blackbaud CRM and select the Set save options tab. Next, select Create a selection, Create a static selection. For information about queries, refer to the Blackbaud CRM Query and Export Guide.
We recommend you then schedule the query to update using a queue process in Blackbaud CRM. When you do this, it is important to refresh the static selection on a regularly interval that benefits your organization's opportunity needs the most. For example, if you constantly add new opportunities to the Blackbaud CRM database, you may want to run the queue daily. If you add new opportunities once a month, you may want to schedule the queue to run monthly.
Schedule the queue to run after hours to avoid refreshing the query during peak usage by website users. For information about queue, refer to the Blackbaud CRM Queue and Business Process Guide.
When you design the part, the Results per page field includes the number of opportunities a website user can view on each page of the results. For example, if you enter "25" in this field and a user's search returns 100 results, four pages return with 25 result opportunities on each page. The Results per session field includes the number of results a user can view during a browser session. Therefore, the number in the Results per page field should be less than the number in the Results per session field. If the number is greater, you display more results on a page than a user can view.
The higher the number you enter in these fields increases the volume of data the program must handle to return results on the page. To provide an optimal experience for website users, you can change these numbers to determine if the impact on the page is acceptable. If not, decrease the numbers to decrease the time it takes to return results.