Updating to the Raiser's Edge 7.95 from 7.93 or below
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All of our hosted customers have been updated to the Raiser's Edge 7.95! Pending client feedback, we are planning to release 7.95 as a download on Blackbaud.com within the coming weeks. With that being said, what can customers look forward to when upgrading to 7.95 from 7.93 or below? There are plenty of exciting new features to rave about.
Phones are no longer attached to addresses! That's right. Phone numbers, email addresses, Web links, fax numbers, and any other contact numbers are now in a tabbed grid below the address block. The same grid appears on relationship records, participant records for events, and anywhere else address and phone information are stored.
The new Source Record column will appear on relationship records for individual to organization relationships. This column helps you identify which contact information applies to the relationship, and which applies to the constituent.
The new Date Last Changed and Comments columns now appear on the contact information grid of constituent records. These fields serve as a reference to easily identify phone numbers, email addresses, and other contact information on records. Because you are updating from 7.93 or lower, the Comments column will be prepopulated with data that tells you the data was moved to the constituent record from an alternate address. What does this information mean? Check out KB article 96767.
There is a User option as well for the new phones grid. This allows users to determine which tab of the contact information grid is selected by default when accessing a constituent record. This will allow for the most useful information to be displayed when a record is opened.
With the update to 7.95, duplicate phones/email types are allowed on records. With that being said, it is up to your organization to decide if you want to allow this. You can now set a business rule to allow, prompt for, or prevent multiple phone numbers and email addresses of the same type to be saved. Business rules do apply to the entire database, so this is an important decision to make for how your organization wants to store contact data.
You will have the ability to mark some contact information as Primary or inactive. This will help distinguish which number or email address is the most preferred. With that being said, you will find a new plug-in called the Mark Phones Primary Plug-In. This will allow you to automatically mark or unmark phone numbers of a specific type as Primary or Inactive.
As you can see, there is a lot to look forward to with the update to the Raiser’s Edge 7.95. You may be wondering now, well what do I need to do to prepare? Don't worry. We've got you covered. Check out our Release Page on the community. Here you will find the buttons in the image below which give you access to preparation checklists, FAQs, Webinar information and the most up-to-date news.
The new Source Record column will appear on relationship records for individual to organization relationships. This column helps you identify which contact information applies to the relationship, and which applies to the constituent.
The new Date Last Changed and Comments columns now appear on the contact information grid of constituent records. These fields serve as a reference to easily identify phone numbers, email addresses, and other contact information on records. Because you are updating from 7.93 or lower, the Comments column will be prepopulated with data that tells you the data was moved to the constituent record from an alternate address. What does this information mean? Check out KB article 96767.
There is a User option as well for the new phones grid. This allows users to determine which tab of the contact information grid is selected by default when accessing a constituent record. This will allow for the most useful information to be displayed when a record is opened.
With the update to 7.95, duplicate phones/email types are allowed on records. With that being said, it is up to your organization to decide if you want to allow this. You can now set a business rule to allow, prompt for, or prevent multiple phone numbers and email addresses of the same type to be saved. Business rules do apply to the entire database, so this is an important decision to make for how your organization wants to store contact data.
You will have the ability to mark some contact information as Primary or inactive. This will help distinguish which number or email address is the most preferred. With that being said, you will find a new plug-in called the Mark Phones Primary Plug-In. This will allow you to automatically mark or unmark phone numbers of a specific type as Primary or Inactive.
As you can see, there is a lot to look forward to with the update to the Raiser’s Edge 7.95. You may be wondering now, well what do I need to do to prepare? Don't worry. We've got you covered. Check out our Release Page on the community. Here you will find the buttons in the image below which give you access to preparation checklists, FAQs, Webinar information and the most up-to-date news.
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Raiser's Edge® Blog
12/04/2015 9:34am EST
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