Coming Soon: Improvements to Lists Filtering Experience

Published

In the coming weeks, we are excited to begin introducing a new experience for filtering in Lists in Raiser’s Edge NXT.

Since Lists was introduced several years ago, we have come a long way with the number of filters that can be used to find the right records. As the number of filters that you can use grows, so does the need for an experience that allows you to find filters and keep the experience simple. I wanted to take a moment to share how the new experience will work, what is different, and why we are making the change.

In the new experience, you can:

Interact with your selected filters with the new filter bar and not get lost in the sea of options as you refine criteria. You can easily pick relevant fields and place them front and center for filtering when you share a list with users. 901b1b2e1557e426e69a2ffa75f8bbc4-huge-lp

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Set default filters and columns so that each new list starts with your favorite filters and columns most valuable to you. 516d9a47d30472388c09bd026167305e-huge-lp

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Easily navigate to columns so that the information you need to see for your records can be found for sorting and exporting. 1c8d17fe0b70c6a68c6d2590beeb0a3c-huge-lp

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Refine criteria with simplicity without compromising control so that even powerful filters like constituent codes and giving aggregations are easier for users of all skill levels.

Why are you changing the filter experience?
In deciding how to approach transforming Lists to be more valuable to you and your organization, we had a lot to consider. As we unlock more functionality in web view, we know you’ll need more Lists capabilities. You’ll want more fields to filter from, more columns to display, and more filter operators. On the path to giving you more fields, buttons, and knobs in your lists, we wanted to provide an experience for all users was powerful, but still delightful.

The updates to Lists are more than just cosmetic. This new streamlined filtering experience represents a lot of work “under the hood,” with common designs across filters so we can continue to grow and deliver future functionality faster.

Key questions

Do I get to keep all my current lists?
When you open a list you previously saved, it will load as you last saved it in the new experience. Your saved filters for each list will show up on the filter bar with your criteria applied. We will also open all your lists tabs that are unsaved in the new user interface.
Do I lose any functionality I have now?
Our entire goal was to make Lists more valuable, not less. You should not see any loss of functionality. Instead, we hope you notice that using Lists is now easier for you and your organization to use.
Did you add any new filters to lists, or is this just a different experience?
You may not see new filters light up just yet in Lists, but we plan to give you more fields in the future.
Does this affect Work Center as well?
The power of Lists drives much of the real estate in Work Center such as the Portfolio, Gifts, Actions, Opportunities, and Unassigned active constituents. We have added the new filtering experience there as well.

News Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT® Blog 09/16/2020 8:21am EDT

Added by Blake Moody

6 Comments

Patti Hommes Nov '20

Is there a way to keep all of this great new functionality and bring back the recently accessed lists that used to show across the top? I access and share numerous lists daily and now have to search for each one - adding extra steps to my day. Thanks!

Blake Moody Nov '20

Hi, Patti. Your lists are still available, but it might be that you have enough open Lists that they are wrapped up into the one drop down. I think this will help: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/194801?_ga=2.192471722.1669448071.1605306125-245625900.1587639503

Blake Moody Sep '20

Hi, Dan. Although we’ve added a lot of functionality over the years, I agree with you that there's still valuable improvements that we think would help users like you achieve more with Lists. These changes mentioned in the post were selected at this point in time to make sure any additional functionality didn’t bring unwanted complexity from users needing a simple List tool in the web view.

Blake Moody Sep '20

Karen, thanks for the comment and question. Both you and your fellow users will have access to 100% of the same filters you had before. The new user interface allows you to select your most important filters to be shown at the top of the list. When you share a saved list with other users, they can quickly interact with the filters that you selected to be shown first. They are also able to select additional filters (or remove the default choices) to fit their needs.

For other improvements like grouping Lists, are you referring to folders to group when you have too many lists to navigate? Check out this idea https://renxt.ideas.aha.io/ideas/RENXT-I-3087 and vote there and comment on how you’d like to use that type of ability.

Susan Todaro Sep '20

As a new user of RENXT I like the simplicity of lists, but what I'd like most to see is the availability of more columns. I'm very happy to hear that this is in the works, too.

Dan Snyder Sep '20

I have to agree with Karen, that these changes might be nice and I appreciate your trying to make the product better, but it would be better to have more functionality in lists as opposed to just a different view. Changing the layout may just provide more confusion than anything.

Karen Diener Sep '20

More rigorous list building has been needed for quite awhile, so this is an encouraging step. I love that you can finally declare some default values!

Could you elaborate a little more on the "interact with your selected filters more" enhancement? Does it mean that you can create a list, share it with people and allow them to refine some (but not all) of the fields? Or is it a display so they can more easily see the filter criteria? I'll admit that I hardly have any clients using lists because of the lack of functionality, so the usefulness of this change may not be apparent.

I'm assuming that a way to group Lists in some way is on the docket, but is it high on the list?

Thanks!