Q2 2024 Product Update Briefings: Leave Feedback & Earn a Badge!

Irene Hui

@Crystal Bruce I am also excited to hear about the improvements to batches and reports. Will be especially interested to see how query works and later exports. I also hope database view isn't sunsetted soon after 2025.

Spring Velazquez

@Dariel Dixon I understand that 100%. And while they didn't give a finite deadline, dbv will be going away. I am happy to see what they've been working on though to bring functionality into NXT that is missing

Spring Velazquez

@Allison Reville but don't you enter a schedule in dbv? A pledge is a promise to pay a specific amount of money by a set date with payments occurring in a set schedule. Otherwise how can you send reminders, analyze income etc?

Spring Velazquez

@JoAnn Strommen agreed as someone who has had to "break" the PDF reports because they weren't exactly as someone wanted ???‍♀️

JoAnn Strommen

@Carrie Powell “track each pledge on my calendar” ??? Do you schedule the payments? I'm confused.

JoAnn Strommen

@Crystal Bruce While watching the demos in the update I realized one of my biggest ‘unlikes.' Web view is designed to be so clean and pretty on screen that it shows such limited data compared to database view. I'm thinking the list of appeals, the list of gifts, the list of actions, the list of attributes/custom fields, the list of relationships. I like being able to see in one view and not have to click thru multiple pages as a dba. ?

Carrie Powell

@JoAnn Strommen, since we can't automate the pledge payments, I have to manually run them each month, quarter or year. So I have calendar reminders to do so.

Karen Diener

The biggest difference I noticed from this PUB is the approach to developing webview.

I think one of the reasons the shift to webview has taken so long is that all processes were reimagined before being built in webview. There were some very big misses with that approach, which resulted in incomplete webview functionality. This is why I - and so many other people - reacted with “I'll believe it when I see it" and “it's great in concept, but let's see how Blackbaud handles it”.

The approach now seems to be “don't change much, just shove it into webview as is". Honestly, I'm okay with that.

I hope that Blackbaud will continue to iterate areas that are clunky and overthought to make them more efficient, but is doing that after moving to webview and not before.

Lee Grisham

@Rachel Bailey I got an answer when I asked that. They said it would be showing up under Config and they were supposed to cover that later in the presentation. I had to miss the last half, so I don't know if it actually happened. ?

Gwen Williams

2025 is definitely quite the goal to have everything available in web view. I was excited to hear about pledges, fund management, appeal management, and campaign management in addition to tributes. There are two things I didn't hear anything about. 1) Custom Reports and 2) Planned Giving. I currently have a lot of custom reports that run automatically on a weekly basis through the Queue module. In addition, we use the Planned Giving module and I'd like to know how that will factor into web view.

Rosalyn Galloway

An ambitious undertaking. It would be helpful if tasks for current functionality were completed before starting another workstream. Functionality is definitely missing for gifts entry in web view. My preference is not to fly the plane as it's being built!

While I'm excited for the future, my concern is what's going to be permanently sunset that we depend on from DBview and we are left to figure it out for ourselves (remember merge letters - some still have not recovered).

Amy Dana

I'm really fascinated by the sudden urgency to finally have complete functionality in web view. I hope everything goes according to plan.

Alex Wong

@Crystal Bruce
Missed the PUB on RE NXT, waiting for the recording to be available.

end of 2025 is an aggresive schedule based on the replies i am reading. I only hope Blackbaud doesn't “drop” database view functionalities b/c they feel it is not needed. (i.e. hint participant attributes)

Dan Snyder

@Rachel Bailey:

Everything done by Dec 31, 2025? I'll believe it when I see it, Blackbaud ? I am very excited for the following RE NXT features, though:

• Online data review in Online Giving. We've been anxiously waiting for this feature to go live before switching from OLX to Optimized donation forms!
• Pledge Management. Our gift officers will no longer have an excuse NOT to enter sponsorship pledges now!
• One-off acknowledgement emails. I could care less about the Generative AI messaging, but the ability to quickly send a one-off acknowledgement via email is huge! Will potentially save me from having to program this solution.
• Gift Batch in Web View. Does anyone actually use the current web view batch functionality if they can help it? We certainly don't. Glad they are working to duplicate what we know and love from DBV--the tabbed grid experience!
• Query, Query API, and Reporting. Excited they're FINALLY rolling out some of the stuff us “power users” need every day and preserving/enhancing some of the best features like exporting to .csv.

+1 for this. Excited to see each of these features and having been able to preview a couple I like where they are headed and their gathering of feedback.

Kathy McDermott

@Crystal Bruce I attended but wondering if there is a recording of this update. So many updates to look forward to for NXT!

Deb Dressely

@Crystal Bruce Interesting meeting. Heard about exciting offerings coming. We don't use many of them. Looking forward to Query in NXT. Not quite confident we will be able to move all necessary functionality to NXT by 2025. I would like to see Opportunities as a table - like gifts, actions, etc. so we can actually query and see Opportunities on the portfolio tab instead of living in a world of their own. We also need to be able to see/filter Fundraisers by type instead of a blob of names with every fundraiser type in the Portfolio tab. Good data, but functionally unusable without a lot of outside work.

Christopher Horn

@Crystal Bruce
Obnoxiously Long Feedback Essay:

Short version: The demonstrations on mission critical features like batch and query were mostly encouraging. A forum for specific questions about functionality would be helpful. I'm concerned about Blackbaud's goal to rush the rest of RENXT workflows.

The demonstration on queries was helpful. I would appreciate more in depth demonstration of the feature when it's further along in development. For a couple reasons: One, web view has often been unwilling compared to database view features to give access to important data fields as search tools and it will be a load off my shoulders as a DBA to see with my own eyes that that's fixed, and two, the lack of dynamic queries in web view has been a serious limitation to using RENXT marketing and reporting tools, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the query tool works to improve other parts of RENXT like email and lists and dashboards. Dynamic queries will really make a lot of things about web view fall into place for my org, as long as they work with other tools.

(related: would love to see map view and address mapping worked into query! (Tangentially related: Map view would be really great to have as a feature on action and gift lists! The maps are really helpful for fundraising and board meetings.))

I was excited to hear that queries can be sent to people: being able to send an automatically updating report to staff members is super helpful as a DBA, but lists often hasn't had the filters necessary for staff needs, and dashboards/report builder is a bit toddler-like: it wants to help, but doesn't always know how to follow instructions, and sometimes has a meltdown. Having a straightforward “just show me any records that fit these conditions” reporting tool in web view that can also be easily shared with staff will be a huge improvement!

Suggestion: would be great to be able to have RENXT be able to remind staff to look at a dynamic query on a schedule (i.e. email a fundraiser every other week, put a notification on the executive director's RE page, etc.)

I was also happy to see that the batch feature is being reworked with the needs of gift entry staff in mind. It's considerate to data entry staff to redesign the gift entry tools around efficiency. They do a job that's often unglamorous and often unnoticed, but when it isn't done well, it creates problems for everyone.

It makes perfect sense to pick up the pace on RENXT web view development now that FE web view is pretty much up and running, but the end of 2025 timeline makes me nervous. I would encourage Blackbaud to work extra time into their work schedule for reworking tools after they're released, and to leave time in development for consulting with non-profit staff, so that tools work as expected, have all the features a reasonable non-profit would expect, and don't require database view, third party software or self-coded solutions for standard workflows.

Deb Dressely

@Crystal Bruce And can we please address required fields in NXT?

Deb Dressely

@roger berg I posted a question that also went unanswered. You are not alone.

Patti Posey

@Crystal Bruce

We've had NXT for about five years now and only our MGO use it sparingly. I tried doing what I do in dbview and can't get it done. We use Luminate for all our event registrations, donations, emails, teamraiser and website. I would like to know how that data will come into NXT. Will there be a connector? I'd like to start switching some of our work to NXT but the events module in NXT is missing the table seating part and we use that all the time. Waiting for the query to be completed. It will be a very slow transition for us as we are spoiled with dbview and have to figure out how our current processes will work in NXT. I have so many questions!!!

Patti Posey

Kristen Martin

@Kathy McDermott If you have not already, you should be receiving an email from “Blackbaud Events” with a link to the recording. Anyone that registers gets the link, regardless of if they attended or not. Thanks for coming!

Faith Murray

@JoAnn Strommen, I think you have hit it on the nail, regarding the reason DBAs like db view so much better than webview usually:

Web view is designed to be so clean and pretty on screen that it shows such limited data compared to database view. ... I like being able to see in one view and not have to click thru multiple pages as a dba.

Db view is designed for instant information assimilation, seeing as much pertinent info in one box as possible. It is also designed for rapid keyboard use. In db view, everything on one screen (like Bio 1) can be entered using the tab key to progress between fields, without having to switch your hand back and forth between the mouse and keyboard or move a mouse around. Until that is changed in webview, it will always be slower to access info and enter data. Kudos to BB for enabling tabbed batch entry in webview. I wonder if they will also be offering the constituent batch entry? I missed the live webinar and have yet to watch the recording.

Who knows, perhaps after the grand rollout, when they have more time for additional development, they can create a “preferred view” for webview, which would pull all pertinent data onto a more compact screen for those who want it that way…? ?

Faith Murray

@Alex Wong, glad to know we're not the only ones having issues with participant attributes! I have had an open ticket on this for several weeks now. I gather they are having to patch something on the back end to resolve.

Devan Bessinger

@Crystal Bruce If we asked a question in the live PUB that did not get answered, will someone be reaching out to us with an answer? One of the things I'm curious to learn is what fields and/or functionality is NOT going to be brought over from database view to web view. The sooner we learn that, the sooner we can begin figuring out how we will manage the loss (track data in a different field, get a 3rd party plugin for a feature, etc).

Kyla Graff

@Crystal Bruce There are so many comments in the below responses that I second and third - queries, better batch approval and functionality online etc…. One thing I'm not seeing addressed anywhere is that in OLX you can allow people to write in their own fund if you choose and in NXT donation forms they have to use pre-selected funds. Is that being addressed at any point? Should I be asking that elsewhere? I'm curious to see if all these functions can really be pulled over to NXT by the end of 2025, very ambitious.

Alex Wong

@Faith Murray
I believe the answer from Blackbaud was “we dropped the support for participant attribute because we have reinvented it as participant option and it is better". So unless their direction have changed, they are not planning to support participant attribute on webview.

This is absurd in my opinion as well as Online Express exclusively use participant attribute, not participant option, and historical data of parrticipant attribute is still very much important.

Kriste Buck

@Crystal Bruce I watched the LIVE BPUB yesterday for RE NXT and I love they are working on Query and Reporting as well as Gift Batch. The timeline seems very ambitious but we have all been waiting for NXT to get to the level as database view for YEARS. I am 100 percent in Database View as well as my colleagues and only one person on staff uses NXT occasionally. I was wondering as we are a school and I use the Connect RE button to bring data over from CORE how this will work in NXT. I asked about this during the session and told to attend the product briefing for CORE but it was at the same time. How can I get that recording? Thanks!

Aldera Chisholm

@JoAnn Strommen Well said! The visual presentation is a key factor - NXT's look and feel is pretty, but it does feel aimed at a front line fundaiser, or a person looking to dive into a constituent, rather than a data manager who is looking at larger scale data changes and review. I do like the presented batch changes in NXT which seem to lend themselves more to quick data entry.

Aldera Chisholm

@Crystal Bruce
Overall, I was happy to see what felt like defined timelines as some of the past updates felt more vague. I like what I'm seeing in NXT for batch gift entry, reviewing gifts, and the integrated reports. Duplicate management is a challenge in NXT, I didn't see in the update if the changes would allow things like running data health on a list/query, or being able to output a list of duplicates but I know those are in the idea bank, so hopefully they do happen!

Spring Velazquez

@Dariel Dixon maybe not a date yet, but they'll be removing functionality so that (to me) would definitely be incentive to get speed with NXT