Introduction to the Blackbaud Data Warehouse/ETL

The Blackbaud Data Warehouse isn’t another application but an addition to Blackbaud CRM that can be used with reports and, in 4.0+, to query constituent information. The data warehouse copies data from your source database and places it in a data warehouse to allow you to conduct complex reporting and analysis.


After you create the data warehouse, options appear in Administration for the Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) process. The ETL process extracts records from the source database, transforms them for optimal loading into the OLAP cube, and loads them in the data warehouse. From Administration, you can access the Reporting data warehouse page to monitor ETL activity, schedule business processes to coincide with the ETL process, and manually start an ETL refresh.


When the deployment wizard creates the standard data warehouse, it also creates an OLAP cube to conduct complex reporting and analysis on the data in the data warehouse. The cube increases your ability to manipulate data from the source database, and it allows you to perform advanced reporting. With the OLAP Explorer, you can build pivot tables and charts based on the OLAP cube. The program also includes Microsoft Excel report templates so that you can use subsets of the data in the OLAP cube to create reports in Excel.


For more information regarding Data Warehouses Configuration, OLAP excel reports, OLAP explorer, managing data warehouses, and/or reporting data warehouse page please visit the following links:


The Data Warehouse Guide is our definitive guide to the BBDW.


There is also plenty of information searchable on the Blackbaud Developer Network and in our online support documentation.