Link btwn DB View and NXT

Eleonore Buet

Shouldnt there be a link between the DB view and NXT? We recently migrated from RE7 to NXT and since the migration, none of the data we have entered into the DB view has shown up in NXT, none. All the campaigns in NXT are inactive, no new gift info, and I cannot get lists made in NXT to save into the Query folder in the DB view.


I have opened a support ticket but that was almost 3 weeks ago, and I still dont have an answer. Wanted to see what the community had to say.

Dariel Dixon

It should be more than a link.  If you are making updates in the DB view, it should show up in web view pretty quickly.  I would definitely contact support and have the ticket escalated.  3 weeks in more than enough time for such a critical issue to be in resolution.

Eleonore Buet

Yes, that's what i thought. I thought I was losing my mind for a second. I am beyond frustrated.


I have tried to escalate. I even tried to call our rep, but the rep is no longer there and apparently there is "no phone number" for our new rep.


I have identified the issue, and there was never any connection established. Our IT person was under the impression that our DB was copied at the time of the migration, and then all information would then be entered into the Webview and we would no longer use the DB view. So right now, when we enter info in the DB view, it stays on our server (we previously hosted our own data prior to moving to NXT).


But no one ever talked him about pursuing any further connection. So all the data for the last 4 months has not migrated to NXT, since we still do a large amount of our data entry in DB view.

Dariel Dixon

Eleonore Buet:

Yes, that's what i thought. I thought I was losing my mind for a second. I am beyond frustrated.


I have tried to escalate. I even tried to call our rep, but the rep is no longer there and apparently there is "no phone number" for our new rep.


I have identified the issue, and there was never any connection established. Our IT person was under the impression that our DB was copied at the time of the migration, and then all information would then be entered into the Webview and we would no longer use the DB view. So right now, when we enter info in the DB view, it stays on our server (we previously hosted our own data prior to moving to NXT).


But no one ever talked him about pursuing any further connection. So all the data for the last 4 months has not migrated to NXT, since we still do a large amount of our data entry in DB view.

Eleonore Buet‍ Wait a minute?  Now that you are moved to NXT, you are using your Blackbaud hosted site to log into DB view?  There is no link between your self hosted site and the webview.  This should have been explained to you when you migrated to NXT.  You have to log into RE7 through the Blackbaud Citrix site.  If you were logging into your self hosted database, you'll need to back it up and ask support if it can be migrated.

Eleonore Buet

Yes, that is exactly it!


It was never explained to us that that was the only way we should be logging in, in fact, the link to the database view from NXT was only ever casually mentioned. I even did screen shares with reps logging in using the local version and no one said anything. 


We are requesting a back up and starting over essentially.


Thanks for your help!


 

Dariel Dixon

Eleonore Buet‍ Blackbaud really dropped the ball with this if it has taken multiple calls with support and no one has been able to determine to figure this out.  There's no way it should have taken someone on the internet 20 seconds to figure out this when support should have been able to determine this even faster.  3 weeks?


You need to get in contact with your account executive ASAP.  There's no excuse for something like this.  But, just so you know, this is the ONLY way you should be accessing your DB view.  If you have the old shortcuts on your desktop, it might be worthwhile to delete them to not devolve into old habits.


Good luck!

Eleonore Buet

Yes, I am frustrated for sure. Our rep apparently only has email (which is fishy to me) and he has not responded yet. But thank you SO much for your help.


From now on I will come here for answers, because quite frankly, I am really tried of the Customer Support (or lack there of). 


Thanks!!

Sandra Moore

Oh my.  I feel so badly for you.  Yes, Dariel Dixon said, your IT team should have been in touch with someone at Blackbaud to upload your data to the cloud where it would be used henceforth by NXT, and Blackbaud should have provided that direction.  Blackbaud gave us a very thorough list of expectations and things that were going to happen in the months leading up to our NXT implementation, and we had one person who oversaw the process there from start to finish to make sure all the i's were dotted and t's crossed.


I would highly recommend also reaching out to the customer success team at Blackbaud ASAP.  This is a different team than your Account Reps.  Account Reps priority is to sell things, and they generally are not going to be with you long.  I have lost count of how many different account reps we have had in the last two years - I think 7 or something.  For this reason and others, I have found Account Reps really do not have a great grasp on how the products they are selling work.   Customer Success Reps, on the other hand, are not charged with selling anything - their job is to assure a good customer experience.  You can find out who your customer success rep is by going to your profile page when you sign into Blackbaud.com  .  Please see if they can help ease the pain of this. You should not have to start over.  The Customer Success team knows who to contact for unusual issues.  Account Reps generally don't, and they have limited time to help because they are getting paid for selling stuff.


If you are lucky enough to have Jay Benson as your customer success rep, get ahold of him ASAP.  He is no longer ours, but he helped us navigate so many sticky issues.  I'm a Jay Benson fan big time!

Eleonore Buet

Thank you!!!! I dont see the name of anyone, just a generic: customersuccess@blackbaud.com as our customer success rep. We will give that a try though. Thank you for the information about that!


Also, just to clarify, we copied our DB over when we migrated. The issue comes from accessing the DB view by opening the local version of RE7 from our desktop, rather than accessing it through the NXT website. The information stagnated there since the desktop version is not connected to the webview. So we will copy our current local version and update NXT with that, then delete the desktop application so we don't make that mistake again.

Sandra Moore

Thanks for your response, Eleanor.  That does help explain things.  Wishing you success in solving this without losing valuable data you have entered in either DB view or NXT view.  It may take someone working outside the normal process, and that is where customer success can help. 

Dariel Dixon

Eleonore Buet‍ Were you able to get your data backed up and restored as your NXT database?  Do you have any updates?  I was thinking about your situation and wanted to know if you had any resolution.