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.
We've got 7.81 in our testing environment and have already confirmed a pretty major problem. When we try to export Organization Contacts, the contact names are blank. We've confirmed the problem with Blackbaud (its fixed in 7.82!) (that was a sarcastic exclamation mark) and are trying to figure out if we need to scuttle our planned upgrade.
Has anyone else encountered this problem and, if so, have you figured out a decent workaround? We're experimenting with running queries and then joining the export with the query outside of RE.
I am so glad we have not upgraded. Are you serious about 7.82 or do you think they can get it out sooner with a patch? At this rate we may never upgrade and at my new job we are still on 7.71. ugh.
We've got 7.81 in our testing environment and have already confirmed a pretty major problem. When we try to export Organization Contacts, the contact names are blank. We've confirmed the problem with Blackbaud (its fixed in 7.82!) (that was a sarcastic exclamation mark) and are trying to figure out if we need to scuttle our planned upgrade.
Has anyone else encountered this problem and, if so, have you figured out a decent workaround? We're experimenting with running queries and then joining the export with the query outside of RE.
Mitch
Mitch - Could you please clarify HOW you are exporting; are you using export straight from a Query or creating a separate Export? What type of Export are you using - Org? Do the results change if you use a different type of export? Have you tried exporting the contact using RE: Mail - and if so, do you get the same results?We are preparing to upgrade in a few weeks...I will definitely be looking for this in issue in our test environment.
Thanks for posting this info - it's good to have a heads up!
Melissa - Yep. Support said 7.82, not a patch. Arghh!
Tracie - We're using Constituent Exports. We can get to the information using Query. We haven't tried it going through Mail. Blackbaud support suggested that it might work with Mail - however, we use Export since there are a number of fields that are unavailable through Mail.
mitch (or anyone else who has 7.81 and wouldn't mind checking) --
is there any chance you could try using Mail when you get a chance? this could be a dealbreaker for the upgrade for us -- we just spent a good amount of time cleaning up our corporate contacts, but if we can't pull them, what's the point? On the other hand, the main place we use this is in Mail, so if that aspect works we could deal with it.
I just gave it a try and it DOES appear to work in Mail. I've got members of my staff verifying it and checking some scenarios on how well different workarounds would work for us.
What we may do is reverse our process where we normally run lists through Mail for some of the spousal suppressions, etc. but then export the list from Export so we can include additional fields. However, if we instead export out of Mail and then use Export just for additional fields and join the two on Constituent Id, then it will probably work for us and may provide a more natural flow - though more work outside of RE.
This is really strange - we are on 7.81 and do not seem to have this problem! I have posted a couple of quirky things since we went to 7.81, but this was not one of our issues. I export using a constituent export and for relationship > contact info I do mark "Primary" because we only want to export the primary contact - do you differentiate in this way? Maybe RE is just confused!! Oh, for it to be that easy!
__________________ Soon to be ex-Coordinator of Advancement Services
Davis & Elkins College
Elkins WV 26241 alkireb@davisandelkins.edu
We've had a problem (which Blackbaud haven't been able to fix) with exporting Addressee and Salutation for Organisation Contacts, though we are able to export Name. But then, we're only on 7.71, so maybe it's a different problem entirely.
__________________ Simon Koppel
Senior Database Executive
Cancer Research UK
London, England www.cancer.org.uk
Hmmm. I have been able to do exactly what you cannot do! When you are exporting, do you designate a particular contact type? I always mark the export to pull only Primary contacts and have had no problem. I don't know how you are selecting the type of contact - perhaps you could try using a particular type of contact, not just the general (all) - in other words, after you select the relationship>contact>addressee/salutation, click on "criteria" and select the type of cantact you want? Maybe you're already doing this..?
__________________ Soon to be ex-Coordinator of Advancement Services
Davis & Elkins College
Elkins WV 26241 alkireb@davisandelkins.edu
Sorry, I was unclear on where the problem comes up -- probably important ;-).
The main area where it is a problem (possibly the only area - I'm not sure) is when using Address Processing. If you use Address Processing when doing the export and specify to use the Contact's address, you get blanks instead of identifying information for the contacts.
If, on the other hand, I go into Relationships - Contacts and use that for the export it's fine - but I only get one export record for the organization and each contact is in a separate field on that one line. 99% of the time, we need separate records.
Does that make sense and are you able to duplicate the behavior I mention above? I know of two other organizations who ran into the same problem we have and Blackbaud was able to confirm it, but not give a workaround. We've changing to exporting to Access and then joining an exported query with the contact information to our mailing list.
Mitch, I don't use Address Processing - we just fo preferred address information; however, I just tried mailing to contacts using address processing, and the business address exported instead of the contact address. I'll look into this further this afternoon and get back to you. Bonnie
__________________ Soon to be ex-Coordinator of Advancement Services
Davis & Elkins College
Elkins WV 26241 alkireb@davisandelkins.edu
Despite Blackbaud's previous statements that this wouldn't be fixed until 7.82, the latest patch, #13, clears it up. We've got it in testing and it looks like a good fix.
Exporting Organization Contacts in 7.81 
Exporting Contacts 
Fixed in Patch 13 
Linear Mode
