Report Request Form Template RE/NXT

Altina Hripacov

Hi, everyone!

Our organization is thinking about developing a request form to produce reports/lists.

I was hoping to get some feedback from organizations who utilize request forms to produce reports/lists for RE/NXT:

• How does it help in improving your activity ? (for example allows the user to refine and specify details... etc)
• What works, what doesn't
• What medium you used (we use Monday)
• Can you please share a template or link to develop this request form?
• How large is your organization?

All comments are appreciated ?

Austen Brown

@Altina Hripacov - Welcome to BB Community! When thinking through your data request form I recommend keeping it as straightforward and as simple as possible, do not spend a large amount of time creating this process. Additionally, the form will never replace the necessary conversation that needs to happen between the data team and report/list requestor - make sure to build time to talk into your overall process.

Cautionary tale: at my last org, I build a comprehensive form that had conditional questions built in based on requestor responses and covered every possible angle of a request; it was a beast. In the end, all my time and effort was wasted because no one used the form.

Alex Wong

@Altina Hripacov
report request can be basic or complex, so trying to make a request form that is “tailored” is not efficient in my opinion, a lot of wasted time thinking all possibilities that no one uses.

Instead we create custom reports using SKY API and Power BI, such as a donor report or gift report, where it gives them the option to look at various filter and output options that is more friendly than query and export and is tailored to our org's data coding. For example, the report itself can filter on specific “group” of constituent code we categorize as “chatper” the donor belong to, total annual giving filter for last 10 years in contribution (includes pledge) and cash (includes pay-cash, but not pledge), filter on address, etc.

So most of the time on basic reporting need (i.e. I want everyone who donated $1K and up last year who is in my chapter) can be easily done by the fundraiser themselves.

for complex report or report that we did not build custom for, they are just emailed to our ticket system, and will be handled by CRM team, any report that is deem reuseable by others will be consideration for custom build in the future, so it can be done in the future by themseelves.

Altina Hripacov

@Alex Wong Thank you!

Altina Hripacov

@Austen Brown Thank you! really helpful!

Karen Diener

@Austen Brown:

@Altina Hripacov - Welcome to BB Community! When thinking through your data request form I recommend keeping it as straightforward and as simple as possible, do not spend a large amount of time creating this process. Additionally, the form will never replace the necessary conversation that needs to happen between the data team and report/list requestor - make sure to build time to talk into your overall process.

Cautionary tale: at my last org, I build a comprehensive form that had conditional questions built in based on requestor responses and covered every possible angle of a request; it was a beast. In the end, all my time and effort was wasted because no one used the form.

This is a perfect answer, IMHO. The discussions that need to take place are critical, and my guess is that skipping a form and having a conversation will save more time in the end. Staff won't be able to find the form, they'll struggle through filling it out and submitting it, and then the person pulling the data will need to review the form, etc. Conversations are more efficient.

That being said, it might be helpful to provide prompts to staff about how they can best prepare for the discussion. For instance:

• Is this for a mailing list? For an email?
• Is this an internal report for general information, or something that will be shared with external stakeholders?
• Is this something that they will need on a regular basis?
• If it is a report, what are they hoping to learn from it, and what action will they take?
• What information do they need to see, and in what format?

I also like to remind people about some of the things that you will automatically account for too, such as:

• You will automatically remove people who are deceased from any external communications. Constituents with no valid address will be removed from mailing lists but may appear on email lists.
• You will remove appropriate solicit codes.
• Reports may include deceased people, because if you want to know how much was donated in the last fiscal year, they need to be included.

Christine Robertson

@Altina Hripacov I agree with @Austen Brown and @Karen Diener - as much as I would love to have a form to make my life easier, I find that I still have to ask a lot of clarifying questions even when there is one. As a result, I have never really settled on a process to be honest.

Dariel Dixon

@Austen Brown:

@Altina Hripacov - Welcome to BB Community! When thinking through your data request form I recommend keeping it as straightforward and as simple as possible, do not spend a large amount of time creating this process. Additionally, the form will never replace the necessary conversation that needs to happen between the data team and report/list requestor - make sure to build time to talk into your overall process.

Cautionary tale: at my last org, I build a comprehensive form that had conditional questions built in based on requestor responses and covered every possible angle of a request; it was a beast. In the end, all my time and effort was wasted because no one used the form.

This is very typical, and very sad at the same time. @Altina Hripacov, I think you need to consider what the goal of these forms will be. I'm not a big fan of them, but they are great for showing how many requests you will be doing and the complexity of those reports. They can be great starting places for the subsequent conversation that will be needed afterward. It might be a good idea to ask when can staff contact the requestor to go over the submitted form so that there is an expectation of a conversation.

Altina Hripacov

@Karen Diener Thank You !

Amy Hentschke

Hi @Altina Hripacov!

We have a very small shop of 2 fundraisers and 1 database manager for our 6-12 school of 800. We use a basic google form for our requests. Often it isn't used by our fundraisers, but then I enter the information so it populates the google sheet of requests. It is very basic including date needed, purpose (mailing, internal review, financial report), format, search categories, constituents you need included, who should be excluded (deceased, specific solicit codes, organizations, etc), what specific information should be included in the report. This is followed up with a conversation after receipt of their request. I add to the google sheet of the responses to track names of queries I made for this request and any other information. We have had a lot of turnover in this department, so when someone asks who we included 3 years ago in our Christmas card mailing I can use the google sheet of responses to look back and provide that information.

Altina Hripacov

@Amy Hentschke thank you for your detailed answer Amy !