Spring Cleaning Your Database I - Accounts
Published
Ahh, Spring! It’s that time to open the windows to let in that fresh breeze that has us northerners aching for all winter. Spring is a perfect time for dusting out the cobwebs and planting the seeds for your organization to grow! To get the best results from your database, you want to perform maintenance on it periodically.
A great place to start would be within your Accounts. Keeping clean data in your accounts will be the best way to get the most effective mailings as well as keep your reports accurate. There are several areas within accounts that you will want to pay attention to.
First question to ask: Am I tracking my relationships correctly?
Couples and Households are tricky, since there can be many different ways to track them. For instance, you can have a couple that participate in your organization together. You can create one account for them, such as Bob and Mary Jones.
The idea being that everything they do is being done jointly (donations, volunteering, communications, etc.) If they have different roles within your organization, you can create separate accounts and link them together using a Household Relationship.
A good example is John Smith may volunteer at the organization, but Mary Jones donates money. If you need to track anything unique to one person in the household, you’ll want to use separate accounts.
You won’t really use one method or the other. Each couple is different. For one couple you may decide that have a single account with both names on it is better. Others you may decide to split into separate accounts. Either way you do this, the key to success is remaining consistent.
The next step in maintaining good account data would be to periodically run your Duplicate Report. This is a standard report that looks at the accounts within a query and compares them against the database to find possible duplicates.
The report starts by considering how close the names of the accounts match. From there it takes into consideration other fields such as: email addresses, addresses, cities, postal codes, phone numbers, etc.
Depending on how close these items match determines the results that will appear in the report. You’ll want to run the report to Display Results On Screen.
The report will pair the accounts in your query to possible duplicates it found in the database. You then have the option to merge these two accounts or identify them as “not duplicates.” Marking them as “not duplicates” will remove them from the report and prevent them from appearing in the report again.
Now that you have your couples the way you want them and you have eliminated all of your duplicates, the next task to cross of your list would be the Name Format Conversion.
If you have not run this task yet, now is a great time! The Name Format Conversion is a tool that allows you to choose what type of name fields you want to use for your existing accounts. You’ll want to use the Individual name format if you want separate First and Last name fields on the account. You can use Family or Business name formats as well. These two options use the Account Name field to name the account rather than separate first and last name fields.
Keep in mind that assigning a Name Format is simply deciding how you want to handle the Name of the account. Using a Business or Family name format isn’t necessarily saying that the account is a business or a family account.
Also, not all of you may have a Name Format Conversion tool. Databases older than October 2015 will have the Name Format Conversion tool so you can convert your accounts to the new features.
Finally, the last bit of cleanup will be done through the AddressFinder/NCOA.
The AddressFinder (NCOA) is a database registry hosted by the United States Postal Service that can identify and return updated address information for individuals and businesses who have recently moved. This service will provide your database with the most up to date address information for your constituents. Your organization will also qualify for reduced bulk mailing rates with the USPS.
For Canadian eTapestry users, the process for Canadian NCOA is slightly different. You first export the data from the database and then you upload the data for our Target Analytics team. They will run the NCOA and provide you with a file that you can import back into eTapestry to update the accounts.
These steps should keep you busy until our next session where we will dig further into database cleanup!
Please feel free to comment below any thoughts on this article or helpful tips that you want to share with other users.
First question to ask: Am I tracking my relationships correctly?
Couples and Households are tricky, since there can be many different ways to track them. For instance, you can have a couple that participate in your organization together. You can create one account for them, such as Bob and Mary Jones.
The idea being that everything they do is being done jointly (donations, volunteering, communications, etc.) If they have different roles within your organization, you can create separate accounts and link them together using a Household Relationship.
A good example is John Smith may volunteer at the organization, but Mary Jones donates money. If you need to track anything unique to one person in the household, you’ll want to use separate accounts.
You won’t really use one method or the other. Each couple is different. For one couple you may decide that have a single account with both names on it is better. Others you may decide to split into separate accounts. Either way you do this, the key to success is remaining consistent.
The next step in maintaining good account data would be to periodically run your Duplicate Report. This is a standard report that looks at the accounts within a query and compares them against the database to find possible duplicates.
The report starts by considering how close the names of the accounts match. From there it takes into consideration other fields such as: email addresses, addresses, cities, postal codes, phone numbers, etc.
Depending on how close these items match determines the results that will appear in the report. You’ll want to run the report to Display Results On Screen.
The report will pair the accounts in your query to possible duplicates it found in the database. You then have the option to merge these two accounts or identify them as “not duplicates.” Marking them as “not duplicates” will remove them from the report and prevent them from appearing in the report again.
Now that you have your couples the way you want them and you have eliminated all of your duplicates, the next task to cross of your list would be the Name Format Conversion.
If you have not run this task yet, now is a great time! The Name Format Conversion is a tool that allows you to choose what type of name fields you want to use for your existing accounts. You’ll want to use the Individual name format if you want separate First and Last name fields on the account. You can use Family or Business name formats as well. These two options use the Account Name field to name the account rather than separate first and last name fields.
Keep in mind that assigning a Name Format is simply deciding how you want to handle the Name of the account. Using a Business or Family name format isn’t necessarily saying that the account is a business or a family account.
Also, not all of you may have a Name Format Conversion tool. Databases older than October 2015 will have the Name Format Conversion tool so you can convert your accounts to the new features.
Finally, the last bit of cleanup will be done through the AddressFinder/NCOA.
The AddressFinder (NCOA) is a database registry hosted by the United States Postal Service that can identify and return updated address information for individuals and businesses who have recently moved. This service will provide your database with the most up to date address information for your constituents. Your organization will also qualify for reduced bulk mailing rates with the USPS.
For Canadian eTapestry users, the process for Canadian NCOA is slightly different. You first export the data from the database and then you upload the data for our Target Analytics team. They will run the NCOA and provide you with a file that you can import back into eTapestry to update the accounts.
These steps should keep you busy until our next session where we will dig further into database cleanup!
Please feel free to comment below any thoughts on this article or helpful tips that you want to share with other users.
News
ARCHIVED | Blackbaud eTapestry® Tips and Tricks
03/16/2016 11:21am EDT
Leave a Comment