Holiday Tips for Success with The Raiser’s Edge® and Luminate Online™ Integration

It’s November! The holiday giving season will soon be upon us. With The Raiser’s Edge® and Luminate Online™ Integration, this will mean an influx of gifts coming in to be processed into your Raiser’s Edge database. With Online Giving increasing, it’s even more important to properly maintain your integration and even more advantageous to use it to full potential.

With the hope that online giving will be extra successful this holiday season for your organization, we want to present you with several tips and tricks for working with your Luminate Online integration. Keep these tips in mind as you go into the busy season to help you be successful with all things The Raiser’s Edge® and Luminate Online™ Integration!

Tip #1: Always keep up to date on your Luminate Online plug in!

-We come out with frequent updates for the Luminate Online plug in for The Raiser’s Edge that resolve bugs that have been reported by our clients. Always be on the lookout for Blackbaud KnowHow blog posts on releases and make sure you are on the latest version.

-Not sure if you’re on the latest? Go to the Downloads page for the plug in and check the version against what you see in Options > About on your workstation.  For update instructions, click here.

-Hosted with Blackbaud Hosting Services? Rest easy knowing you are always on the latest and greatest version of the plug in.

Tip #2: Frequently check Queue Problem Management in Luminate Online for errors

-Occasionally, gifts or constituents can get “stuck” between The Raiser’s Edge and Luminate Online. This can occur if donation forms or campaigns are not cross referenced, if constituents are inactive, or if there are connection issues between the two programs.

-You can find any and all missing records in Queue Problem Management, located in Luminate Online under Data Management > Luminate Management.

-Anytime you see errors here, check to see what action you need to take to resolve them, such as cross referencing new forms or reactivating constituents. You can then click Rebuild to send the data back to where it was trying to go – either The Raiser’s Edge or Luminate Online.

-Not sure what the error means? Try clicking Rebuild a few times. If the errors consistently come back, reach out to Luminate Online support for additional troubleshooting.

-If you appear to be having connection issues, the best steps to walk through are listed in this Knowledgebase on “Information is not synching between The Raiser’s Edge and Luminate Online Marketing”.

Tip #3: Use The Raiser’s Edge queries as Groups in Luminate Online to send out emails soliciting donations

-You can use Constituent queries from The Raiser’s Edge as groups in Luminate Online, which allows you to group constituents in your online system in ways you couldn’t before. For instance, run a constituent query in The Raiser’s Edge on historical giving that is not tracked in Luminate Online and send them a holiday solicitation via email.

-To do this, simply create a query category in The Raiser’s Edge called Luminate, and save your Constituent queries within that category. In Luminate Online, go to Constituent 360 > Groups > Map a new group to an offline segment to select your query. Constituents from the query will then populate as members of the group.

-For more information, check out this Knowledgebase solution on How to transfer queries from The Raiser’s Edge to Luminate Online.

Tip #4: Check out the Automatic Processing feature for Constituent updates and New Constituents

-If you’re used to working with the integration and you’re comfortable with the constituent data coming down from Luminate Online, check out the Automatic Processing feature in the Options section of the plug in.

-This feature allows you to let the integration bypass the plug in for New Constituents and/or for Constituent Updates – which results in less work for you! Instead of going into the plug in for manual review and processing, New Constituents will be added automatically to the database and Constituent Updates will be applied to records immediately in The Raiser’s Edge.

-You can also choose to exclude existing constituents from automatic updating with a query – this way, you can still review the changes for your Major Donors, Board Members, or whoever you’d like to review first.

-For more information on Automatic Processing, check out this solution on What is Automatic Processing for the Luminate Online plug in?

Tip #5: Stay tuned to the Blackbaud KnowHow Blog for upcoming webinars and new features!

-November has several exciting things in store for the The Raiser’s Edge® and Luminate Online™ Integration  including some new webinars and features.

-Be sure to subscribe to the blog and share the posts with your fellow The Raiser’s Edge® and Luminate Online™ Integration users!

Have additional questions on the information above? If you are working within The Raiser’s Edge itself, or working in the plug in, reach out to The Raiser’s Edge support via Chat Support or Case Central.

If you are working in Luminate Online (such as in Queue Problem Management), reach out to Luminate® Support via the Customer Center or by calling 888.528.9501, option 3.

Note: This blog post is specific to The Raiser’s Edge® and Luminate Online™ Integration plug in. It does not apply to the Raiser’s Edge Connector.