Helpful Raiser’s Edge Tips and Tricks

If you’re reading this blog you’ve probably contacted Support before. Whether you’re a power-user, a new RE user or anything in between you may have found your own tips and tricks that help you use the database. Here’s a list of four Helpful Tips and Tricks within The Raiser’s Edge that you may or may not already know about!

1) Changing Colors and Columns on Records

When you're on a constituent record you can change the available columns, order of the columns, and colors or font of the data that you see to help you easily view and organize it! A few of the tabs on constituent records  that allow you to do so include the Addresses, Relationships, Gifts, Actions, Memberships, and Events tabs. For example on the Gifts tab, you can change the color of each gift type and bold your cash type gifts to easily see the money you’ve received from that constituent.

To make these changes, you can open up any constituent record and select one of the tabs (Gifts, Addresses, Relationships, Actions, Memberships, or Events). Next right-click in the white space, select Legend, and then change the legend options or right-click and choose columns to view, select available columns, or change the order of those columns.

2) Viewing a Report of Table Entries

Within Tables in Configuration, you can generate a report to include all the active table entries or all table entries for specified or all tables in your system. You may find you have table entries that are outdated or incorrect, and can use this to easily see what data-entry cleanup needs to be done. To generate this report, select Configuration > Tables > select any table name, then right-click in the white space next to the table entries and choose Preview/Print > Code Tables Report. Select the names of the Tables to include, mark the checkbox to include inactive entries if you’d like, then select Preview and generate the report.

3) Change the Name You See on the Top of Records         

For Individual Constituents, if you’d like to see the constituent Addressee from their record or from Configuration you can see this on the top title bar instead of basic Constituent Name. Set this option within Tools > User Options > select the Records tab > Select Individuals > Individual Title Bar and choose one of the 3 options from the drop-down.

For Organization Constituents, you can see the contact name or contact addressee with the Organization’s name in the title bar. Set this option within Tools > User Options > select the Records tab > Select Organizations > Organization Title Bar and select Include Contact Name, then choose the contact name format and the contact types to include. You can also include the constituent ID for the organization.

4) Accessing Records from Query Results

When using a constituent query you may find yourself “spot-checking” the constituents in your results to validate the query criteria. In a constituent query you can double-click any row of output to directly open up that record from within the query. Did you know you can also use the Constituent Menu from that constituent’s menu bar to go to the next record in the query results? This saves you time from closing and click on the next constituent in the query results separately. Select the Constituent Menu in the record that is open, and then select Next Record. You can also select Previous record, First Constituent, and Last Constituent

What other tips and tricks have you found helpful? Comment below and let us know!