We are a group of users of Blackbaud products and are not affiliated with Blackbaud. We'd love to have you join our community to help and be helped in getting the most from your Blackbaud software.
Register now to join us to get independant advice on your system, connect with 3rd party consultants to help you maximize your database and have a real alternative to the official Blackbaud website.
I am looking for "best practice" ideas for achieving the following:
Scenario: All of our donor data is on RE, except an indicator for those who have adopted an animal from us. That data is on another database (Chameleon). There is no unique link in common between R.E. and Chameleon records. Our management would like to be able to see the complete donor picture on RE, including adoptions.
What I was going to do was export the adopter data from Chameleon, then import it to RE with an Attribute of Adopted Cat, Adopted Dog, etc. Since I cannot rely on the the dup checker to find true dups in this case (names and addresses in Chameleon could look quite different from what is in in R.E.), my plan is to import them as new records. They will be easily identifiable, as all Chameleon person records are in upper case. When someone searches for a consitituent, they should see both the RE and the Chameleon record. This is not a very elegant solution, but it beats having to open both RE and Chameleon to get the donor's full background. As people are working with these, they could merge the Cham. record with the RE record.
I am open to any niftier ways to accomplish the transfer of this info.
Thanks.
__________________ Harriet Farmer
Ottawa Humane Society
I am looking for "best practice" ideas for achieving the following:
Scenario: All of our donor data is on RE, except an indicator for those who have adopted an animal from us. That data is on another database (Chameleon). There is no unique link in common between R.E. and Chameleon records. Our management would like to be able to see the complete donor picture on RE, including adoptions.
What I was going to do was export the adopter data from Chameleon, then import it to RE with an Attribute of Adopted Cat, Adopted Dog, etc. Since I cannot rely on the the dup checker to find true dups in this case (names and addresses in Chameleon could look quite different from what is in in R.E.), my plan is to import them as new records. They will be easily identifiable, as all Chameleon person records are in upper case. When someone searches for a consitituent, they should see both the RE and the Chameleon record. This is not a very elegant solution, but it beats having to open both RE and Chameleon to get the donor's full background. As people are working with these, they could merge the Cham. record with the RE record.
I am open to any niftier ways to accomplish the transfer of this info.
Thanks.
Harriet: How would you have my record(s) in Chamleleon if in Jan 2008 I adopted and dog and then in Feb 2008 I adopted another dog. Would I have two records or only one and what if I adopted a cat, does that give me a separate record or not. Do dog people get a different record from cat people. Do you also want to know in RE when the adoption was done or not? Is that information in Chameleon?
Harriet: How would you have my record(s) in Chamleleon if in Jan 2008 I adopted and dog and then in Feb 2008 I adopted another dog. Would I have two records or only one and what if I adopted a cat, does that give me a separate record or not. Do dog people get a different record from cat people. Do you also want to know in RE when the adoption was done or not? Is that information in Chameleon?
The relationship in Chameleon is one Person record to one or more Kennel records. The Kennel table shows what type of animal was adopted and the date of adoption. (There are many more tables, but all I need for this exercise is to show that the person adopted from us.)I would be using Crystal Reports to pull a list of people who have adopted an animal and the date(s) and type(s) of animals they adopted. For more details,the RE user would then have to open Chameleon. I could include a formula that creates the attribute based on what animal type(s) were adopted. I'm not sure what I'd do about importing the dates.
I am also wondering about formatting some text for each Chameleon record and importing it as a note rather than an attribute; or both.
__________________ Harriet Farmer
Ottawa Humane Society
Harriet: Here is my suggestion. Import each main record from Chameleon into RE, then import each cat or dog adoption record as an attribute. You can make a attribute code called Adoption with the table value of cat, dog or bird or snake or whatever. Then import each animal adoption record into the attribute section. There is a date in the attribute to put in the adoption date. Then import all these records and who will have duplicated much of your Chameleon system into RE. After this is done is someone going to go into both systems to add each new adoption? If you are then you should get a pay raise for doing more work!
This is a special, one time only project that is related to talking to people re our building capital campaign. We don't want to be soliciting funds and not know they are adopters. I won't have to keep this up after the initial import.
As for your suggestion, to make that work, I would have to match the attributes to the correct person, which would be tricky. Even if I create an import file from RE that contains the new Constit. id nos., I 'm not sure how I would line them up with the exported adoption info.
Because Chameleon contains so much more data about the adoption and other transactions, I am thinking I might just add an attribute of "Adopter", which will flag the user to look at the Chameleon records. Some adoptions do not end well - ie animals are returned for a variety of reasons and some sadly have to be euthanized. I think the solicitor needs to see the big picutre before saying - "Oh Hi Mr. potential donor - I see you are one of our happy adopters!"
__________________ Harriet Farmer
Ottawa Humane Society
It sounds to me that you might be cluttering up RE with all those extra records/duplicates. Are you planning on a merge duplicate files after the import, or would there be permanatly two files for a person who donates and also adopted an animal. How many records are you importing? I know I often do things the hard way but I really hate duplicates. Do you have volunteers that could look up RE ID #s for those that are on the adoptor list/Chameleon. Then query on the ID #s and globally add the attribute. You could do one query for cats, one for dogs and one for other animals.
__________________ Nina T. Williams The Cleveland Institute of Art Making Art Work
It sounds to me that you might be cluttering up RE with all those extra records/duplicates. Are you planning on a merge duplicate files after the import, or would there be permanatly two files for a person who donates and also adopted an animal. How many records are you importing? I know I often do things the hard way but I really hate duplicates. Do you have volunteers that could look up RE ID #s for those that are on the adoptor list/Chameleon. Then query on the ID #s and globally add the attribute. You could do one query for cats, one for dogs and one for other animals.
Yes, I also dislike duplicate records, but this is a special case. I have figured out what process I will use.
First pass, I am going to import the Chameleon person ID as the Constituent ID along with name, address, phone, etc. (I tested this and it works) for all Adopters. I will then be able to update those records with adoption data pulled from Chameleon, because I will be able to match the Constituent IDs. Having a unique Chameleon ID (they all start with "P0") will make it easy to show that they came from the Chameleon import and to exclude/include them in various queries.
__________________ Harriet Farmer
Ottawa Humane Society
Yes, I also dislike duplicate records, but this is a special case. I have figured out what process I will use.
First pass, I am going to import the Chameleon person ID as the Constituent ID along with name, address, phone, etc. (I tested this and it works) for all Adopters. I will then be able to update those records with adoption data pulled from Chameleon, because I will be able to match the Constituent IDs. Having a unique Chameleon ID (they all start with "P0") will make it easy to show that they came from the Chameleon import and to exclude/include them in various queries.
Harriet,
Does this alleviate the duplicate issue?
Suggestion: Make the RE IMP id the same as the Chamelion imp id and then you have a link between the two systems (that way next time they have a "special case" the fields are in place...)
__________________ Elaine Tucker Stewardship Coordinator St. Mark's School of Texas USA www.smtexas.org
Harriet, A question that just came to mind -- How is your gift entry person going to know on which record, if there are two for a person, to enter gifts?
__________________ Nina T. Williams The Cleveland Institute of Art Making Art Work
Linear Mode
