Interactions vs Communications

April Cleary

Hi Everyone,
I am trying to better track our communications with donors. However, I am not sure what the distinction is between the interaction tab in Altru and the Communications tab. I wanted to put our newsletter in the communications tab but it seems you are required to set up an appeal to do so with an expectation of revenue. How does your organization use the communication tab? Would you put a newsletter or welcome letter to a giving society in the interaction tab or communication tab?

Any clarification or advice would be appreciated!

Best,
April

Cara Perez

We add all large mailings (including our printed quarterly magazine) to appeals within the communication tab. We use interactions for direct communication with our constituents (phone calls, emails, visits etc…). I hope this helps.

Gail Vincent

We do the same as Cara Perez described, even with some smaller mailings, event invitations and the like. I also find the Appeal Mailing process to be a more useful way to produce the mailing lists than simply running a query, so this accomplishes two tasks in one process.

April Cleary

Thank you Cara and Gail. This is very helpful information. My organization has not made use of creating the appeal function because they couldn't get the letters and emails to look they way they wanted, but I am hoping to change that in the near future. I was hesitant to use the appeal function for a newsletter since we are not asking for money, but it just makes more sense to put larger mailings in the communications tab.


Thank you both again for clarifying the distinction between interactions and communications.


Best,

April

Cara Perez

We currently do not use the mail/email templates. We, however, do use the CSV files produced from the appeal mailings. Using the appeal mailing feature is good because it shows in the constituent record the last item mailed/emailed.

Regina Holten

I use the communications tab. And would likely do so in your situation. It can definitely be confusing when an appeal is required, though you don't have to ever…utilize that appeal for anything other than a list of recipients.