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Transition from FE7 to FENXT

Stacy Robinson

Good Morning,

Our team is going to be moving from FE7 to FENXT in the next few months. For those who have made this transition recently, I'd like to hear from you on any “lessons learned” or pros/cons you have seen in making this move. I realize the ability to view our old database is going to make this transition much smoother, but there is always a little bit of hesitancy when making a move like this. Also, we are working with Blackbaud on a nightly download that allows us to feed the data into a Business Intelligence site, which is our main way of communicating fund financials to campus. Curious to know if anyone uses FENXT as a way to communicate financials to campus partners and how it is working. Thanks for any feedback.

Stacy

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Sannyasin Siddhanathaswami

Aloha Stacy!

Just a couple minor notes on the transition part of your post:

You will be using both NXT and FE7 (now called "database mode") even after you fully “transition”. This is actually a bonus as you can have both open at the same time. I don't think it's realistic to expect to be only using NXT.
If you keep the above in mind, it's less of a major upgrade, and more of an extension of what you already do.
Understand and learn precisely what exists and what doesn't in NXT. It can be frustrating when you expect a feature to be there, but isn't. For example, A/R isn't in NXT yet. We don't use that, so it's a non-issue for us.
Certain things are going to be way more efficient to do in NXT, other things not so much.
I use NXT about 90% of the time now, but that 10% in FE7 is totally critical to our workflow--and I'm fine with that.

Best of luck in this transition period!

Stacy Robinson

Thank you for this feedback.

Sannyasin Siddhanathaswami

I forgot to mention, there's a table that shows what's in NXT and what is not. I'm not sure where it is though. I suspect your Blackbaud rep can send you the link. Anything on that table that doesn't make sense, be sure to ask your rep, or here.

Kevin Brazell

Here is a link :

Thomas Walker

Aloha Sannyasin,

Hope all is well with you. I'm curious what are the activities that fall into the the remaining 10% that takes you out of the new UI and back to the old.

Cheers,

Tom

Dawn Alonso

Thomas,

I can tell you that one thing that exists only in Database view but not in NXT is Purchase Orders. However, they recently took all capabilities regarding Purchase Orders away in NXT while they work on some stuff. My fingers are crossed that the entry, receipting and viewing in NXT will not only exist but be better/easier than the Database view. ?

Sannyasin Siddhanathaswami

Thomas Walker:
Aloha Sannyasin,
Hope all is well with you. I'm curious what are the activities that fall into the the remaining 10% that takes you out of the new UI and back to the old.
Cheers,
Tom

Aloha Tom!

All is well here. I hope the same for you.

Here's what takes me back to database mode right now:

Queries for proofing line items on invoices
Editing queries for reports
Certain queries that I export to a spreadsheet
Drill down for detail in project records to see activity (NXT one doesn't do it in a usable way)
Bank reconciliation (that's a worthy topic in an of it's self)
Recurring journal entries
Recurring invoices
Budget editing (another worthy topic)

Everything else I do in NXT (of course I have suggestions there too! But that's not the topic.)

I hope that helps.

Sannyasin Siddhanathaswami

Aloha Tom!

One more really important item:

Importing journal entries and bank adjustments

I actually do this a few times every month. It's critical to our work.

Dawn Alonso

Sannyasin,

I am curious as to why you don't use NXT for recurring journal entries, recurring invoices, and importing journal entries. Those are capabilities that exist in NXT and I use them daily.

For recurring journal entries I search in the journal entry screen for the one that I need, click the blue journal entry number. Once the pop out opens, the three dots then click copy batch. The pop up window will open and you can set the date of the journal entry post date and edit the title if needed. You would then finish the journal entry in the entry screen, if no editing needed hit save and close. If you have a bunch of journal entries that are identical and you want to do them all at once, once you return to the journal entry screen you can click copy batch and repeat as many times as needed.

For recurring invoices, while it doesn't work exactly the same as the database view you can copy invoices as well. Click on payables, invoice and then click the add button once the invoice screen opens. All of the invoices for that vendor will be listed on the right or you can search for the invoice you want with the search box under the listing. Once you have the invoice, click on it and it will copy the information into the invoice entry screen, you can edit and then save and new if you have more invoices or save and close if you are done. You can do something similar in the vendor, but I don't tend to enter invoices that way.

For importing journal entries, there is a FENXT add on for Creating Journal entries and Creating Budgets. I use the Journal Entry one daily for Student Billing since the two are not connected. You could also use the Journal Entry Creator for doing recurring entries, you would just have to save the excel entries somewhere.

I do agree that there are things that can be improved in NXT, but I thing some of the processes have moved towards being more feasible and bear another look for those looking to switch. I would be more than happy to share feedback.

Thomas Walker

Sannyasin,

As always thank you for your thoughtful replies! Could you give me more insight into the view and information you would expect to see when you drill into the project record?

Tom

Stacy Robinson

Any idea how often this link is updated? I see it was last updated in Dec 2021, so I'm curious if some of the future or partially completed items have changed.

Sannyasin Siddhanathaswami

Dawn Alonso:
I am curious as to why you don't use NXT for recurring journal entries, recurring invoices, and importing journal entries. Those are capabilities that exist in NXT and I use them daily.

Aloha Dawn!

All of your points are useful and what I do. I should have been a bit more specific.

Recurring Journal Entries: This is really for month fixed amount entries that are changed based on a finance meeting. It's helpful to update a template journal entry, then copy it into a new one. All others I copy or enter new in NXT.

Importing Journal Entries: via Excel never worked well for our workflow. I only import a couple anyway. It would be great if there was a better way.

Recurring Invoices: These are actually recurring on a schedule. e.g. once a month or year grant to another organization. Copy previous invoice in NXT is probably the most important time saver in A/P. I use it all the time!

Sannyasin Siddhanathaswami

Thomas Walker:
As always thank you for your thoughtful replies! Could you give me more insight into the view and information you would expect to see when you drill into the project record?

Aloha Tom!

It's pretty simple in database mode:

Open a project
Filter on a date range (last quarter would be awesome)
Shows a simple income statement
Double click on an account
See line item details for every transaction that's in the project, date range and account

This is impressively fast for finding errors in entries, if a number isn't reasonable.

You can't exactly do that with NXT.

There's some drill down on the “Budget” tile on the project record in NXT. But, it's only by year. Then when you drill down far enough, then you get a list summarized by monthly transactions, then you have to click on each month to see the detail of each month. It's kinda close, but not really. At the last level of detail, of course you can manually adjust the filter to change the date range, but you've lost any efficiency at that point.

Plus it would nice to be able to export that final Account activity into Excel.

Robin Waldinger

Hi Stacy!

We've been NXT since 2017 and still rely pretty heavily on the dashboard (FE7) view. The biggest reason is convenience. Our people know how to do things quickly in FE7 and choose to always go that route since it is available. I'm guilty of it myself!

Lessons learned:

I ran my reports in both FE& and NXT to compare until I got a comfort level with how I got them correct
The Excel add-in to Create Journal Entry Batch is your friend! Get to know it! I use it monthly for our payroll entries.
No queries in NXT (yet) but maybe someday!
Keep a copy of the install files from our onsite FE7 in case you need to reinstall and access that data and (I can't find it now) but there is recommendations for what reports to print from on-site to have good documentation for your files.

Kyle Fuchs

Hi, do you have instructions (or know where I can find within Blackbaud) instructions on how to process a journal upload? I have downloaded the Excel Add-in, but it doesn't have the Fund in the template and I don't know how to add to the template.

Robin Waldinger

Hi Kyle! Have you looked at the Knowledgebase article here - it might help. We have fund as part of our account structure, so not sure what you are trying to accomplish - maybe you have it a an attribute??