Gift API Gift Amount (VALUE)

Alex Wong

@Heather McLean @Erik Leaver

I forgot to go back to this so here's a post so you/others can refer back to.

When you get a gift (using Power Automate Blackbaud Gifts Connector), you will get 2 confusing dynamic content: Amount value and Amount

and the description doesn't really help neither: The monetary value and The monetary amount of the gift.

The one that you need to use is Amount value, NOT Amount.

Reason is, Amount is actually an “object” with a value property that is truly what's holding the number that is the gift amount of the gift.

When you look at the raw output of get a gift

You will see that amount is actually {"value":5000}, so trying to do anything with this thinking it is just the number (5000) would cause an error.

Heather McLean

@Alex Wong - thank you for following up on this important differentiation that can cause newcomers grief.

Ben Lambert

@Alex Wong

Just for some backstory - the shape returned by the API is indeed an object as you've noted. The object has a .value property that contains the actual decimal value, and the thinking was that we'd eventually emit additional metadata characteristics about the amount such as currency details and exchange rate (for gifts made in foreign currencies), etc.

So the shape of the API response is the reason for the (understandably) confusing appearance within Power Automate (another good example of how naming things is hard). I think the hint text (descriptions) could probably be improved to better communicate the currency “object” vs the actual currency amount.

Alex Wong

@Ben Lambert
Thank you for the back story, makes sense.

Yes, the description used in the connector will help user be less confused. hopefully someone has a good idea that can be passed to the engineer.

@Ben Wong

Ben Wong

Thank you for sharing this feedback, @Alex Wong. I've added this to the backlog for consideration as we make future updates to the Gift connector.