Attachments Vs. Media? Attachments FTW!
Published
With the recent — and highly anticipated — addition of gift attachments, a bump of this earlier post, where we explore the relationship between attachments in the web view and "media" in the database view — including the fact that attachments added in the web view don't appear in the database view.
Raiser's Edge NXT provides the ability to save files and collateral about a constituent relationship — to the record of the constituent itself or to a related action, opportunity, or gift — as attachments. It's an exciting feature to be sure, and one that's stirred a bit of discussion about how it works with the similar "media" feature in the database view. In short, while you can track miscellaneous files — such as correspondence, prospect research findings, and videos found online — on the Media tab on the record of a constituent or proposal in the database view, you should really just save them as attachments in the web view. Yes, you can save files as "media" on the record of a constituent or proposal in the database view. And those files — at least, those under 100mb — will appear under Attachments on the record of the constituent or opportunity in the web view. But it's a one-way, one-time trip from the Media tab to Attachments.
- Unlike other features that share data between the two views, attachments saved to a record in the web view won't make their way back to the Media tab in the database view.
- It can take up to 60 minutes for a media file saved in the database view to appear as an attachment in the web view. And afterward, any edits you make in the database view — such as to the file's name or media type — won't appear for the corresponding attachment.
In addition, attachments have several intrinsic characteristics that make saving these files in the web view truly beneficial.
- Portable. Since attachments live in the cloud (rather than in your database), you can easily access them across devices. Need to review a PDF on your iPad before you meet with a constituent? Want to upload a video you just took on your smartphone? Done deal!
- Editable. You can open and manage attachments directly in their native applications — such as Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat — so you can always make edits and keep them up-to-date from the web view.
- Centralized. Have files online or in a cloud storage account like Dropbox or Google Drive? You can link to them directly in the web view, creating one central location for everything you need to know about the constituent. (Recommended for large files over 100mb!)
- Efficient. Attachments in the web view simply upload and open much faster than media files in the database view, giving you more time for other things.
News
Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT® Blog
10/04/2016 10:03am EDT
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Oh attachments…. There has been so much confusion around this and our team has had to spend an insane amount of time working through these issues as we are converting to NXT. BB has gone back and forth, first informing us that we can't convert attachments, then we can but only about 1000 in databaview since it takes too long, and then finally, telling us it's possible to upload in bulk in web view (although not to specific areas such as proposals, funds, etc).
The next issue we are facing relates to getting files out of the database if we ever decide to switch to another system down the round. Again, we are going in circles, trying to come up with solutions as BB has really not provided helpful answers. Our attachments are basically being held hostage in the cloud, unless we pull them down one by one. BB, please offer a better solution for exporting attachments in bulk from web view for your clients, along with the appropriate metadata to go with the file such as what ID # the attachment is associated with, what contact report, etc. We are now considering having our users enter attachments in 2 different places and potentially database view again, but in reading this blog post, it sounds like Web View is being encouraged.
Please consider this with future development and to help future clients converting to RE from having to spend many many unnecessary hours trying to work through all the details as we have had to do.
Interesting, I have to update items in 4 databases. I have RE and FE so when we upload documents they go to two databases on 4 platforms. This is not acceptable.
1. As Steve mentions in this post, we are adding attachments to records that do not have a media tab in database view. It would be extremely costly, risky, and time consuming to add corresponding Media tabs in database view.
2. There are significant technical challenges that would require us to derail efforts aimed at adding more functionality to web view. In other words, the opportunity cost associated with figure out the details for pumping attachments back in to database view as media objects would likely "cost" months of web view features.
3. As Steve references in this post, one key advantage to NXT Attachments is the fact that they are not stored in the database. Media objects are. This has a couple of implications, but perhaps the most concerning is that a database bloated with all of the attachments added through NXT may drastically impact performance of query, reporting, and record access.
This is not an exhaustive list of reasons, but I at least wanted to illustrate that it's not as simple as "we don't feel like it". We really do care and want to do what is best for our users! We are certainly excited about moving more and more features and functions to web view and, where it makes sense, adding a few new enhancements or changes along the way to make RE better, but I assure you we would never intentionally do that in a way that blatantly ignores client needs or requests. Our vision for NXT does ultimately involve moving all needed functionality to web view in some way, shape, or form, so while I understand that some existing database view users probably won't move to web view in the next 1 - 2 years, I hope that the "probably won't ever" timeline is not true.
Ultimately, we do believe our decision to relax the constraint on user licenses with NXT should help with this some. We realize that organization change is difficult, but if there is a true need to access attachments that live only in RE NXT, any user with that need could, in theory, have access to web view for that specific practice. With things like gift attachments lighting up and some upcoming features (such as the aggregation of various attachment types - constituent, action, gift - in a single view on the constituent record), this may be a better/easier way to find what they are looking for anyway!
Again, I apologize if in any way we've led you to believe that we don't hear you or don't care, but please do understand that features and enhancements are not implemented this way without a reason. I hope we find a way to make this feature more acceptable and usable for you and your organizations going forward!
Thanks,
Jarod