Coming Soon: Enhancements to the Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge®-ResearchPoint™ Integration

You spoke, we listened! In the ResearchPoint quarterly update on March 17, 2023, we announced iterative changes to the Raiser’s Edge-ResearchPoint integration. These will result in big changes to how Ratings and Wealth Information are appended and reported on in Raiser’s Edge and Raiser’s Edge NXT web and database views. We made these updates in response to hundreds of votes in the ideas bank and direct feedback from users like you. Thank you for sharing your feedback and ultimately making our products better for everyone!

This post is formatted as frequently asked questions to help answer your burning questions and better understand the reasoning behind these enhancements.

WHAT IS CHANGING IN RAISER’S EDGE AND RESEARCHPOINT?
When you sync your Blackbaud model scores (ratings) and/or wealth data from ResearchPoint to Raiser’s Edge after the final updates are made to the integration later this spring:

1. The Ratings data types in RE will match the type in ResearchPoint, allowing for improved user experience using ratings in query criteria and list filters. For example, the Major Giving Likelihood (MGL) rating will now be a number rather than a text data type in RE.
2. The Ratings and Financial Information Sources and Categories in RE will have new, unique descriptions, allowing the user to extract specific ratings in separate columns in Export.
   • Note: The financial information will only be available for those with the RE: Search aka Prospect Management module.

There will be no changes as to how you view or report on the model scores and wealth data in ResearchPoint.

WHO WILL THIS IMPACT?
This update will affect all Raiser’s Edge and Raiser’s Edge NXT databases integrated with ResearchPoint™. For the purposes of this post, I will refer to Raiser’s Edge (RE) as both versions.

WHEN WILL I SEE THE CHANGES?
Blackbaud made iterative changes, mostly behind the scenes, to the Raiser’s Edge-ResearchPoint integration in the ResearchPoint 5.27 release in October 2022 and the 5.28 release in March 2023 in Raiser’s Edge configuration Ratings and Sources tables in the Patch 31 release in February/March 2023. The date for the final release that will enable the new integration features will be announced in the coming weeks.

After the final enhancements to the integration go live, you may need to adjust your integration settings in ResearchPoint and sync all your records in order to consistently report on your ratings and wealth data moving forward. We will share more information as we get closer to the final release to prepare for these changes in a way that limits the impact on your prospect research and fundraising efforts.

WHY THE CHANGE? WHAT IS THE IMPACT?
Better Data Extraction with Export:
Prior to the update, all the ratings synced from ResearchPoint were configured with the Rating Source of “Blackbaud Analytics - WP", which caused difficulty in exporting Ratings using Export. You had to export all ratings using a broad Ratings Source (e.g., Blackbaud Analytics - WP), then perform significant clean up in your spreadsheet because the ratings were often mixed among the various columns in the resulting spreadsheet.

After the final integration update, you will be able to choose to export a specific rating in a column with the new unique, Rating Source naming conventions.


Better Criteria in Query:
Prior to the update, most of the ratings synced from ResearchPoint were configured as text fields. For example, to query on all prospects with a Major Giving Likelihood (MGL) over 700, you had to include the criteria of MGL is greater than or equal to 701 OR MGL equals 1000. Ratings like Target Gift Range and Wealth Segmentation will continue to be text fields.

After the final enhancements, you can simplify your query criteria and confidently include the correct constituents in Query.


Better Filtering in Lists and Work Center:
Raiser’s Edge NXT web view Lists and Work Center are great, simple reporting tools to view a group of constituents or those assigned to a specific fundraiser. Unfortunately, the filter operators (e.g., greater than or equal to) are restricted based on the field data type. For example, a text data type Major Giving Likelihood rating would allow you to select the operator of “equal to” but not “greater than or equal to”. Workarounds included creating a List starting with static query in RE NXT database view. This process was tedious and not very intuitive.

After the ResearchPoint 5.27 release updated to the ratings data type configuration, these ratings have logical operators based on their new data types. You can create a list of your best prospects with Major Giving Likelihood greater than or equal to 701 without any complicated workarounds using database view Query.


WHAT DO I NEED TO DO?
No action is needed at this time.

We will share more details on how best to manage these updates in the coming weeks to help you develop an implementation plan for when and how to resync your data in a way that will minimize disruption to your prospect research, prospect management, and fundraising efforts.

Please share comments and questions below. I hope you share my excitement for the upcoming latest version of the Raiser’s Edge-ResearchPoint integration!

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