One Small Step Toward The Future For Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT®
We have some momentous news to share about Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT and its future development.
We have been on a multi-year journey together as Blackbaud builds Raiser's Edge NXT web view, a modern experience for one of our community's most loved and depended upon software systems. We do not take the responsibility lightly to support you in powering the business of philanthropy. As we discussed in the April Product Update Briefings, our focus since 2014 has been on developing a complete end-to-end solution for you - all in one place, the web view. The end goal, as always, is improving efficiency and effectiveness of your daily CRM operations.
We have been gradually moving complete workflows from database view to web view, with a focus on fundraising, event management, communications, reporting, and administrative tools. We recently also began sharing the years of foundational work we've been doing to build key power user functionality in web view.
At some future point in time, we will deprecate database view functionality that has been fully built out in the web view. We want to create a minimally disruptive experience while we power solidly toward the future state where database view functionality has been fully built out in web view.
First steps
We have planned a pilot project to "turn off" functionality within database view that has been built out within the web view. We will focus initially on a feature used periodically and less impactful to your daily tasks. We will turn off the ability to manage table values, clean up table entries, and add new donor category tables from Tables under Configuration in the database view. Tables are now fully manageable in web view by navigating to Control panel, Tables. This change only affects Raiser’s Edge NXT customers; if you have Raiser’s Edge 7 only, this does not affect you.
In an abundance of caution, we have run an Early Adopter Program to work with Raiser's Edge NXT customers in a controlled environment to mitigate unanticipated impacts of this change. We're only moving forward now that this Early Adopter Program is concluded. Here is some of the feedback from your peers who participated in this program:
“Our tables are now managed in web view, and the transition was uneventful, just like we like it. Smooth and simple. I love the ability to drag an entry up or down. It’s fast and clear and the more that can be done easily in web view, the better.” – MultiCare Foundations
“I just wanted to follow up and say this has worked fine with no issues. My team does really like the drag and drop functionality for some tables where we need the entries to be out of standard sort order.” – Community Health Network Foundation
How will my table management experience change?
In web view, go to Control panel, Tables. You will go here to manage table values, clean up table entries, and add new donor category tables. Any functionality that relies on Tables in database view will be unchanging, including adding attribute tables, importing and adding table entries directly in fields, and running the Table Report through Configuration, Tables, File, Preview.
It's important to know that Tables will still be stored in database view. The only user action, however, is moving to web view. When users go to Configuration then Tables in database view, they will see a message that redirects them to web view for this functionality.
Web view has had the Table functionality for a few months, and we hope that you have been taking advantage of it. No functionality of this feature has changed. Learn more about Tables.
Timing
We will roll this change out in two "waves". The first wave will start on November 6, and we expect the full process to be completed by January 2023*.
What else do I need to know?
We will continue to communicate with you about product changes. The level of impact determines the communication channels we use. More impactful features will be communicated via in-product messaging, email to administrative users, posts in the Raiser’s Edge NXT Community, our twice-yearly Product Update Briefings, and periodic Town Halls. We continually pulse communications about smaller feature changes and enhancements through in-product messaging (the green "i") on the home page and/or banners throughout Raiser’s Edge NXT.
With this in mind, be sure we can reach you through multiple communication channels.
- We will be hosting a series of Raiser's Edge NXT town hall discussions on tables. Please choose the session below that best fits your schedule.
- Subscribe to the Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT Announcement page in the Community. If you're subscribed, you will get an email when we post an announcement to this blog.
- Join us for the next Product Update Briefing the week of November 13, 2023. Registration will become available in mid-October. You can view April’s Product Update Briefing in the archive. Product Update Briefings are a useful tool in understating the development and vision for Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT.
- The What's New and What’s Recent pages are informative quick refence guides to Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT developments.
- Blackbaud University has an advanced and diversified Raiser’s Edge NXT program that can be segmented by role, outcome, or functionality. These courses will help you and your team begin and/or expand your knowledge of web view capabilities.
- Blackbaud Customer Success has developed a resource library to help users to understand and benefit from all the capabilities of Raiser’s Edge NXT.
We hope to work with you through this period of change as we position Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT for the future we have talked about for a long time. We are dedicated to delivering an essential solution, all in one place, and partnering with you through the journey. Please comment below this post. If there is enough interest, we can set up a town hall for the discussion. The future will arrive; please help us design the journey together with your input.
*These dates are subject to change.
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We use tables for more complicated forms in Online Express. Will tables in web view connect with Online Express in DB?
I'm thrilled to see less redundancy between the systems. My concern is if this will include a feature alignment between NXT and DB view, so no features are lost in the transition? Many others have summarized the features we're concerned about well, but one I wanted to mention is no longer being able to require or remove fields on a page layout. That causes so many data quality issues on the NXT side that make us force our users to do all data entry on the DB side - if this goes away from DB, we have nowhere “safe” for users to enter data and it will create so much monitoring/cleaning/training work for us, plus tension between admin and the entry specialists.
Please do not implement this transition until all features in DB are fully supported and tested.
I see that ‘Clean Up’ doesn't work in NXT for the ‘Address City’ table, like it didn't in DB view. Any chance this could be activated?
How in the user settings are we able to limit who can access the Table values? We've limited this on the database view as everyone had been adding new things left, right and centre but now this looks to be accessible on web view for people we had previously limited this for.
Control panel is not separate under roles and settings is separate from the Table values
Just to clarify, this will be completed in January 2024 and not January 2023, correct?
"We will roll this change out in two "waves". The first wave will start on November 6, and we expect the full process to be completed by January 2023*."
I appreciate the fact that you can still PRINT code tables from DB view, but does anyone know how to export the values from either web or DB view? We need them in Excel format to validate imports at times and I can't seem to recreate that in web view. Thanks!
We also need the ability to extract the table values into Excel or CSV from the web view (since BB will be taking the Code Tables Report away in database view). This is an important function for managing tables that we use all the time.
Hi Darcy, I don't know if anyone responded to you about running all code tables in excel. Conig > Tables > File > Preview > Code Tables Report and then make sure you uncheck the box “include selected code tables only” (if you want ALL tables and fields) and then hit preview. Once it's in preview, you can go up to the far left icon (looks like a bent lamp?) and change the format from Acrobat to CSV and then download. Then save as your current excel format.
I do certainly hope that you will not deactivate the query function in DBV until you have duplicated and or improved upon the functionality in NXT. I want, no NEED, to be able to query on whatever field I want, not a handful that BB has determined is useful. I also NEED to be able to pull in a lot more fields into my “reports” than are currently available. And the reporting ability needs to be completely built out because dashboards don't always meet the need.
Is there a limited number of rows available for view in a table in web view? Previously when I was working on cleaning up a particular table I could not see all the entries because there are so many. Now it appears that I am able to see them all but I am wondering if there is any limit and if maybe I have just cleaned up enough to now be under that threshold. This specific table for us still needs a lot of work but it is good to know what limitations there might be.
@JoAnn Strommen I had this issue with System Record ID, too. I found it kind of ironic that I have to do a query in DBV to try to figure out what records still need to be changed to clean up a table entry in web view! (Or is there a reporting criteria in web view that will let me search by System Record ID? Always hoping…but often still searching…) But the System Record IDs weren't pulling any records up in DB view!
I was cleaning up Relationship tables - I had to dig deep into a Relationship Query - Individual - then use Recip Relation Code & Relation Code, filtered by the table entry I was trying to delete.
Same for the Phone Type table I was cleaning up - had to go to the granular level in a query to find the one last hold-out so I could delete a phone type. ‘Not Blank’ was also a key filter that I found helpful when trying to do these edits.
Good luck!
Am I missing something, or does this mean we can no longer create new tables for custom fields? This is a HUGE issue for us as we are a program-driven organization and track some critical data about our constituents in these fields.
@Tanya Fitzgerald I see how you can create tables, but each entry appears to be associated with a dollar amount. Most of my custom fields do not do this. What's going on with that?
@Christine Ware you can continue to create new tables for custom fields by going to Configuration and then Attributes in database view. You can also create the table in web view and then select it for the Attribute/Custom Field in database view.
On the surface looked great. So attempted some table clean up projects that still have a type of data on record I have not been able to find or delete. System Record ID seems to be useless to create a query except for constituent records. What value is System record id of user if one can not query on it????
What would be ideal is if we could click on the Con ID to look at and potentially remove the value from a record. That would make cleaning up tables much easier.
Thanks for sharing more information about the changes to table management. Is the process to print the code tables documented anywhere so that I can point my colleagues towards it?
I too appreciated the the link to the knowledgebase about printing code tables.
@Rachel Cavalier You can view how to print code tables here.
A few things that concern me about this:
“The level of impact determines the communication channels we use”.
I don't think it is okay for Blackbaud to decide how important or impactful a change is, and therefore how the change will be communicated. A change that you deem as “not very impactful” could actually have a significant impact for an organization. I'd like to know more about how you are measuring the impact.
Minimizing the ability of users to make changes to configuration tables is critical to data integrity. We've all witnessed what happens when users can add anything they want to a table, so I'd like to know more about how security will function.
The ability to view uses of a table entry is helpful, but not when it is by system record ID. Don't add functionality that really isn't functional. Is there a plan to make any adjustments to “view usage”? Can you open those records in a list?
Karen
Thanks for the clarifications, @Tanya Fitzgerald.
For followers of this post, there are currently two ideas regarding table use. I often do this incorrectly, but I'll try to get the links right:
I will go on record that I don't think this is a terribly disrupting move and IMHO, things are being blown a bit out of proportion.
I DO think this should have been communicated better and there should be more time between communicating the change and making the change. A webinar or two to demonstrate the functionality, announced at the same time the change is being communicated, would probably minimize a lot of the concerns.
@Karen Diener Great questions. Security for web view cod tables is based directly on the level of security for database code tables. All users will have the same permissions in web view that they do for database view code table functionality. Regarding view usage, we are open to improving this capability in the future. Since view usage doesn't exist in database view this change won't affect view usage. Please do add your thoughts about any adjustments that you would like to see happen in the Idea Bank. We will be reviewing those to improve functionality on view usage. If your overall feedback is that view usage isn't useful, please do let us know. Any, and all, feedback is helpful.
Can you give us more details about the timeline for Query (Query Builder in RE NXT according to April 2023 Product Update Briefing) move to RE NXT? April 2023 PUB showed H1 2024 (April - September 2024) according to PUB schedule but I haven't seen recent details or an update. This is one of most crucial functions in RE so more information is critical.
I'm glad I came across your question. I've been missing the product updates and am also really interested about the timeline for Query.
@Annette Rurka Our teams have been hard at work on Query and we will be seeking customer feedback within the next few months and have an update in the November Product Update Briefing. Also, keep an eye out in the Community because we will be asking for volunteers soon.
Interesting conversation in the Community about this change.
Did this originally point to a specific conversation?