Onboarding a new employee

Robert Brown

Hi everyone,

My Chief Advancement Officer has tasked me with preparing onboarding, our incoming Director of Annual Giving with regards to RE7 and RE NXT. That includes deciding what she should have access to in Raiser's Edge, at least temporarily. I should mention that she's not familiar with Raiser's Edge at all.

This is the first time I've been asked to decide this on my own, and I'm not sure where to start. I want her to have access to constituent records, query, export, and reports at the very least, but maybe she should just have view access for now and then add edit access to things when I'm sure she knows what she's doing? What do you think? Thank you.

JoAnn Strommen

Viewing access is definitely needed but are think you are quite right to restrict edit, deleting rights at least temporarily. How long depends on your org's procedures.

Our development staff can create actions and work needed to do their role but updating addresses/contact info and such is limited to a couple of us who understand format and how to keep old info.

Dariel Dixon

If they aren't familiar with the tool at all, I wouldn't give access to any of it until you start their onboarding and training. You'll need to determine what they will need, and their level of competency before you hand over the correct level of access.

I think it's probably the proper way to go about this, since your CAO is empowering you to make these decisions. They must trust you and recognize your ownership of the data.

I'd probably start with view only access to get started, and then set up a schedule for some training so you can get a feel for how the new employee is coming along.

Jenny Marquardt

I agree with Daniel Dixon. View only until training takes place. They can at least start by poking around and looking. You might give them a list of board members to review in query so they can use query a little bit. Maybe a list of recent donors, employees, any major donors.

Marguerite Gravois

Don't let anyone try to convince you it is not worth a new employee's time to follow the training paths established/available via Blackbaud University! The information presented in this way is an investment in developing a solid grounding for the new RE user, and is a better use of everyone's time than one user trying to relay everything from their desktop in an afternoon.

Larry Wheeler

I am forced to provide new users the access which has been designated for the position they are filling as soon as they receive a Blackbaud ID. The non-tech “higher-ups” push this access and have blamed me if a new person “can't do their job from day 1”.

My process is to send them a list of the Blackbaud trainings they need to complete for their job description. I include all of the Basic Trainings which relate to their duties. Once they notify me that they've completed those, I will send them the Fundamentals Trainings which touch on their duties. I also explain they can go further with their training and become certified (Fundamentals, Pro) if they so desire.

After they have viewed the Basics, they will begin in person training of their duties by the appropriate office personnel. I must trust those training to teach the newly hired well. I have auditing type of queries where I can track (mostly) that individuals are entering data correctly. If I find more, or corrected, training is needed, I begin that process.

It is not an ideal situation, but when there are problems due to lack of experience/knowledge - “Larry can fix it”, is the solution. ?

Jeanne Townsend

I have a role called "View All" in RE 7 and RE NXT that all new employees using RE get. I start people in that role, regardless of their prior experience with RE. By using and exploring the database, they can see everything and begin to understand the way we use the tool at our school before they have access to edit any parts of it. I find it is really helpful for my new users to “see” everything in our RE, even if they won't have editing access to certain areas, because it helps them understand how all the pieces of our system work together.

I also highly recommend the BBU trainings. We have a training pass subscription, which I push hard for our Advancement Office employees to take advantage of. Every organization uses RE differently, so learning how to use the tool is a required first step, then learning how your organization uses the tool is an important second step.

One final piece of advice - write down your onboarding procedure. This will give you back-up if anyone questions why you're doing it the way you're doing it, and it will help you be consistent with future new hires. My onboarding procedure is now several years old, and I've expanded it to include three “tracks”…Frontline NXT Users, Back office NXT/RE 7 Users, Back Office plus Research Point Users. But everyone starts with just the “View All" role!

Robert Brown

Thank you everyone, you've been amazingly helpful. I appreciate all the advice and now I know what I need to do. Thank you all again!