[hullsa]

Hi Everyone,

I was wondering how other organizations track current and/or completed research (research profiles or funding lists) in RE. We use a combo of an Attribute and an Action.

The Att tracks where in research the prospect is: Request received, currently in research, and finally one of our various profile levels (brief, capability, full, etc) along with the date. We also track the requestor and the researcher in the Comments. I include the most recently completed profile level & date on prospect portfolio lists for the DOs.

Next, I add an Action (Meeting / Identify) to document the prospect's entrance into the development cycle, which also acts as a record for past completed research requests (only the most recent profile appears as an Attribute).

Do other people do this or do you only track it in a separate research log? If you do track in RE - how do you have it set up?

Thanks,
Sarah

[Peter Gulka]

We just hired a researcher, and don't have anything this formal. I've sent her the link for this thread

[hullsa]

That's great! I can't say if it's the best way to track it or not - but I do wish I had tracked it from Day 1, or at least my Day 1.

(Between us non dev officers) there'd be a lot of ID Actions without dev follow-up (hmmmmmm).

[Elaine Tucker]

We use actions to track research steps they are:
Research
Research D&B
Research Level 1 Summary
Research Level 2 Summary
Reserach Level 3 Summary
Research Waltman Directory
Research Waltman Donor

When a level is started, the action is added to the record. When our researcher has finished that particular level, she changes the status to completed, and puts any applicable notes in the notes tab.

We also have the proposal module, so any relevant financial information she finds during her research is added to the applicable area in prospect.

[hullsa]

If you don't mind my asking - what sort of info does she enter in her action notes? I usually only add the profile level and the prospect classification. Does she add that sort of a note, or more like a brief bio, rating, or some other personal info about the prospect? Also, does she use the canned reports to report on her work (to her supervisor or other staff)?

[Elaine Tucker]

The action notes tend to be related to specific action - any bio, rating or personal information we put in the applicable field in the prospect tab. (Financial holdings, giving to other orgs, ratings etc).

Before we started using the prospect module we used the constituent notes:
rsh_goal
rsh_Recent Moves
rsh_Staff/Volunteers
rsh_Strategy
rsh_Summary

any time the summary or strategy note was "updated" our researcher would use the F5 key to insert the time and date stamp; all other note types could have multiple occurances on the record - they would then be orgainzed in descending order.

Currently we do not have any reports (canned or custom) that we are using, HOWEVER - that is on my list of things to do. I would forcast that a custom crystal report will net us better results than any of the canned ones.

hope this helps.
Elaine

[Nicole@NAIT]

I'm now thinking of how to track my research as well. I was the new research Peter referred to earlier in this thread. I've finally got my head wrapped around my job and now it's time to develop a better way to track what I've done.

I'm currently using an excel spreadsheet, but I think that will eventually get too big to use and I would like a way to do this in Raiser's Edge. There are six things I look for when enriching an account, I have a column for each of those things and basically put Entered or Not Found for each one for each company I research. I think it would be much better if I could do that in Raiser's Edge as it could then drive reporting that would show my productivity all the way from when I researched them to when I recommended them to when they were assigned to when (hopefully) we receive a gift.

Ideally, I would like a way that doesn't involve me having to do any work, I'd just like RE to know when I have completed step in the enrichment process so that when I pick accounts to research, I know how much research has been done on them and how recently it was done. I have no idea if that's possible, I somehow think it isn't, but we all can dream right?

Do you guys find that tracking research status in Actions works well for you? I'm thinking the Attribute/Action combo may work well for us.

[hullsa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicole@NAIT

Do you guys find that tracking research status in Actions works well for you? I'm thinking the Attribute/Action combo may work well for us.

Hi Nicole!

It's been working pretty well so far. For the Actions - I like being able to document our research in relation to the other development activities. More than that, I suppose, I like that I can pull: 1) which records have follow-up from the dev officers after research; 2) which of those records have proposals; 3) and later on, which ones have gifts. I love that it's centrally available for everyone to see. It's very handy to be able to determine how much time passes from a research ID Action to a qualification call, and so on.

For the Attributes, I like being able to see right in RE what prospects we've put on to lists. For example, if we've put several corps and fdns on various lists in January, but no calls were made or proposals were sent, I can pull those numbers easily to try and figure out why.

-S.

[hullsa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicole@NAIT

There are six things I look for when enriching an account, I have a column for each of those things and basically put Entered or Not Found for each one for each company I research. I think it would be much better if I could do that in Raiser's Edge ...

What six things?
I've often thought that it would be really nice to be able to fill out a checklist on the Prospect Tab. It would show productivity, as you suggested, and also allow for monitoring things like: which sources are most helpful or easily show which parts of a profile are found. For example, sometimes we research a "capability" level profile, but some aspect will be missing like no stock holdings - so we have to enter a financial record for "no stock holdings" or they think we didn't look. Is that what you mean?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicole@NAIT

Ideally, I would like a way that doesn't involve me having to do any work, I'd just like RE to know when I have completed step in the enrichment process....

This sounds like the beginning of an actual Action Track that starts with research. Wish I could start that up here - Do it, do it!!

[Nicole@NAIT]

Thanks for responding, sorry it took me so long to reply!

The six things I track right now are:

The number of employees the organization has
Assets
Revenues
Net Income
If they are an Imagine Canada member
How many NAIT grads the company has hired
Past giving history to others

That is exactly what I mean. It would be nice if people could know by looking somewhere in RE that I had already looked for that info, but it was not publicly available.

I'm not sure what an Action Track is...I'm still pretty new to RE. Can you enlighten me?

[Nicole@NAIT]

I just realized I track seven things, not six.

[hullsa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicole@NAIT

The six things I track right now are:

The number of employees the organization has
Assets
Revenues
Net Income
If they are an Imagine Canada member
How many NAIT grads the company has hired
Past giving history to others

That is exactly what I mean. It would be nice if people could know by looking somewhere in RE that I had already looked for that info, but it was not publicly available.

The way I tried to handle that, and it still doesn't prevent some devs from asking if I looked, is to assign a research level (rather than profile type) that corresponds to these things. I've tried to move away from using the term "profile" to indicate what we've researched. Since my original post, I've removed the word "profile" from the Attribute.

As we use the central database more and more to enter research, the staff can pull a dynamic profile by themselves. Indicating a "level" of research becomes more indicative of the what things we've looked for as opposed to what actually exists in the record. Just because someone pulls a Report called "Full Profile Report" doesn't mean it's a "full" record.

For example, take your 6 -7 things, you could say that "Basic" research includes items 1 to 3; a "Expanded" includes 4 and 5, and a "Full" includes 6 to 7+, or something to that effect. So, if you add an Attribute or an Action that says you completed a Basic level - they know that you searched for revenue, but didn't find it (say for those elusive private companies). This could also clue you in onto what you did and what you need to do.

I hope I'm explaining this so it makes sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicole@NAIT

I'm not sure what an Action Track is...?

A Track is a way to set up a specific series of Actions that follow each other, and can be based on certain dates and conditions like the previous Action, its completion or a Query. You can then apply the Track to whatever records.

For example:
Action 1 - Task - ID - prospect research - When completed RE will prompt for Action 2. You can notify a specific user as well as a time span from Action 1 (# of days, weeks, months).
Action 2 - Mail - Qualify - send Letter of Inquiry - When completed, prompt for Action 3.
Action 3 - Mail - Pre-solicit - prepare proposal - create Proposal record - When completed, prompt for Action 4.
and so on.....

You don't need to have active Solicitors already assigned, but do need users for the notify part. The Tracks can be assigned to queries of records or just one, and can also be linked to a Proposal. A similar track could be applied for individuals. I'm aware of such tracks for annual giving, but I think that it can be used for major-gift prospects up to a point where the specific relationship with the person defines the course of action.

You could do one just for research levels so that once you complete one level of research RE will prompt you for the next, and send a notification to your Home. Once you check it as "completed" RE will automatically add the next Action in the Track, and can notify you of that as well.

What I would love to do here, especially for foundations, is to assign the prospect to an Action Track that prompts the requestor to contact the foundation. In addition to individuals, we do a lot of prospect lists for grant proposals. I've found that MANY of the orgs we list are never contacted - without any explanation from the requestor. There's no contact accountability for the development officer, but I would be held accountable for not producing the list. If I could add that org to an Action track, I could automatically prompt the dev officer to make contact with in three months, pull from the database what prospects were listed and also contacted. I'd even start the Proposal for them so it would link to the research from the start.

Does anyone do this already?

[Nicole@NAIT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hullsa

The way I tried to handle that, and it still doesn't prevent some devs from asking if I looked, is to assign a research level (rather than profile type) that corresponds to these things. I've tried to move away from using the term "profile" to indicate what we've researched. Since my original post, I've removed the word "profile" from the Attribute.

As we use the central database more and more to enter research, the staff can pull a dynamic profile by themselves. Indicating a "level" of research becomes more indicative of the what things we've looked for as opposed to what actually exists in the record. Just because someone pulls a Report called "Full Profile Report" doesn't mean it's a "full" record.

For example, take your 6 -7 things, you could say that "Basic" research includes items 1 to 3; a "Expanded" includes 4 and 5, and a "Full" includes 6 to 7+, or something to that effect. So, if you add an Attribute or an Action that says you completed a Basic level - they know that you searched for revenue, but didn't find it (say for those elusive private companies). This could also clue you in onto what you did and what you need to do.

I hope I'm explaining this so it makes sense.



A Track is a way to set up a specific series of Actions that follow each other, and can be based on certain dates and conditions like the previous Action, its completion or a Query. You can then apply the Track to whatever records.

For example:
Action 1 - Task - ID - prospect research - When completed RE will prompt for Action 2. You can notify a specific user as well as a time span from Action 1 (# of days, weeks, months).
Action 2 - Mail - Qualify - send Letter of Inquiry - When completed, prompt for Action 3.
Action 3 - Mail - Pre-solicit - prepare proposal - create Proposal record - When completed, prompt for Action 4.
and so on.....

You don't need to have active Solicitors already assigned, but do need users for the notify part. The Tracks can be assigned to queries of records or just one, and can also be linked to a Proposal. A similar track could be applied for individuals. I'm aware of such tracks for annual giving, but I think that it can be used for major-gift prospects up to a point where the specific relationship with the person defines the course of action.

You could do one just for research levels so that once you complete one level of research RE will prompt you for the next, and send a notification to your Home. Once you check it as "completed" RE will automatically add the next Action in the Track, and can notify you of that as well.

What I would love to do here, especially for foundations, is to assign the prospect to an Action Track that prompts the requestor to contact the foundation. In addition to individuals, we do a lot of prospect lists for grant proposals. I've found that MANY of the orgs we list are never contacted - without any explanation from the requestor. There's no contact accountability for the development officer, but I would be held accountable for not producing the list. If I could add that org to an Action track, I could automatically prompt the dev officer to make contact with in three months, pull from the database what prospects were listed and also contacted. I'd even start the Proposal for them so it would link to the research from the start.

Does anyone do this already?

I am working on implementing the Research Level Attribute now. I think that will help solve the problem, if people still ask, at least I can go back and check easily to see if I've looked or not. Your response made perfect sense. Thanks

Action tracks make sense now too, I'll have to give that some more thought.

I talked to Peter and he says we don't use Action tracks right now.

[Matthew]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nicole@NAIT

I'm now thinking of how to track my research as well. I was the new research Peter referred to earlier in this thread. I've finally got my head wrapped around my job and now it's time to develop a better way to track what I've done.

I'm currently using an excel spreadsheet....<snip>

Potentailly dangerous words in these parts......... just kidding.

The Prospect module in RE is pretty robust, and once you learn the ins and outs and set up your ratings, etc.. you'll find it will save you time and make reporting and tracking much easier.

Matthew