Search Bar Update (3/28/2022)

Campbell Reiter

Hi Everyone,

Thank you so much for reaching out to us with your concerns and challenges around the changes to the Search bar in Altru. For those who I haven’t met yet, I am the Senior Product Manager for Altru and I’m here to help make sure Altru is meeting your needs as we move forward.

I understand that this change has been frustrating, and that not enough visibility was given to you all in advance of the change in terms of why it was happening. The new Omnibar was a critical feature for Altru in terms of bringing Altru into the Blackbaud Engineering System, which will enable Altru to benefit from work being done across all of Blackbaud to create more secure, stable and scalable solutions for you, our customers.

Although we are unable to revert to the previous Search bar experience, I am taking all of your feedback into account as we look into incremental improvements to the new experience for you and your teams. Please continue to post any feedback you have in the community, as it’s a great resource for me to get to hear directly from you!

Best,

Campbell

Nick Gaffney

Thanks Campbell. I think the frustration is not only with the search bar, but also the fact that there are so many worthwhile ideas suggested on the Altru Ideas site, and it seems like few of them are ever implemented (or even reviewed). I doubt anyone was clamoring for a new search bar, yet here we are.

You write: “The new Omnibar was a critical feature for Altru in terms of bringing Altru into the Blackbaud Engineering System, which will enable Altru to benefit from work being done across all of Blackbaud to create more secure, stable and scalable solutions for you, our customers.” Can you talk more about this? Are there more significant change to the Altru UX we should be expecting? More ways for Altru to integrate with other BlackBaud services (or potentially other services? ?) I know you periodically provide “road maps” for future Altru releases. Is the new search bar part of a larger plan for Altru's future?

Vicki Cotton

Hi Campbell,

Is it possible to at least make the search bar area open all the time? Most of us use this area 100+ times a day. It was perfect before when it was just always available and never closed on you while you were typing.

Kris Romero

Yes, the search bar was of little concern to most. The fact that we can not book field trips on line has been suggested for seven years now and that has not been addressed. I'm sure there are others as well!

Campbell Reiter

Thank you all for replying to my post. I will definitely propose into the idea of keeping the search bar open as a short term improvement. I am also acutely aware of the quantity of ideas that have not been addressed, including but not limited to online field trip booking, and I am working to ensure these ideas are heard and considered.

To answer Nick's question about further changes to Altru's UX and more ways to integrate Altru with other Blackbaud services, the answer is yes, the adoption of Omnibar is a stepping stone on the path of SKY adoption and we plan to continue this journey of adopting more SKY features into Altru. On the UX side, the changes will focus on improvements to search and navigation, which are now made possible through the new Omnibar. In terms of integrations, there will be an announcement with regards to SKY API in the upcoming PUB on April 27th which I will be presenting with my colleague Leigh, and we would love to have you there! You can sign up to attend at https://www.blackbaud.com/products/product-update-briefings.

Regina Holten

Or making it customized - where you let's say always open search to ask for email? i remember years ago when this was put into raiser's edge and it was HUGE…removing the search bar in altru made a pretty bad search feature somehow WORSE…it is awful vs RE and one of the major things i miss….

Sophia Fatouros

I would like to add another voice or vote for keeping the search bar open so that it does not disappear while you are trying to type in the name of a constituent. I do not mind that it switched from the left to the right, but hiding what you are typing is very annoying. Thank you for listening to our concerns.

Akane Henriquez

add my voice as well please. Fast data entry and ease of use is important to hard working Altru users. Should always be a consideration in UX design.