Contact/Call Report Best Practice

Tioga Anderson

Hello,

I'm curious how other RE Institutions handle Gift Officer Contact/Call Reports.

We currently have a BBNC Common Form that they fill out after a visit that has all kinds of questions on it. They also have to add an action with the contact notes in RE Webview. I've heard complaints that this is “double work” since they have to essentially enter it twice (and I see their point) and they would like to be able to just add the contact report directly in RE. The problem on the prospect management side is the BBNC form asks for all kinds of additional information that is not available in the default action fields (such as, Org Connections identified, next steps, Proposal needed, request assignment, request un-assignment, etc.). Do other orgs just have any additional contact report questions as Action Custom Fields? I would like to make it as simple as possible for the MGOs so that they actually do them, while also keeping the needs of the Prospect Management team in mind.

Thanks for any input!

Christine Robertson

@Tioga Anderson If you add those fields as custom fields on the Action, you can set up queries/lists for your team to see when a new Action requires their attention. I think that might be helpful for all team members since that reduces data entry and it keeps everything in RE.

Dariel Dixon

@Tioga Anderson, it sounds like this additional information is needed for the PM team. I'm not sure how your process works, but this is double work. I mean, there's no question about it. But, the RE action should take precedence. I would imagine that there are actions that may not need a form to be filled out or the PM team to take action. Perhaps a situation where the PM form is filled out only as needed, and references the information in the already filled out RE action. Then there is only supplemental info in the form, and it only has the new data.

Susan Fioribello

@Tioga Anderson
I wonder Power Automate could be used to automatically upload the results of the form to RE as an Action on the constituent record. I don't know if it is possible, but I am curious.

Dan Snyder

@Tioga Anderson Are you tied to the BBNC form, or would you be able to move this to a Microsoft Form or Google Form? That way you could still have all the required fields, but as the information is collected with one of these other forms you could set up some additional fields in those files (Excel for MS Form, Sheets for Google Form) so the actions are ready for import or at least readier. Then maybe have a process to import them at the cadence that works for you and your team.

Might reduce some of the double work talk.

If you were so inclined, you could skip the native RE import process and set up a Power Automate flow to automatically add this information into RE.

Tioga Anderson

@Dariel Dixon Thanks Dariel. That is basically the case now. The form is only filled out when there is a “substantive" conversation had. This is how we count their metrics for “visits”. All other actions are just entered into RE without the need for the additional information.

Tioga Anderson

@Dan Snyder Thanks Dan, no I'm not tied to the BBNC form. In fact I hate the BBNC form lol. We have a lot of forms here on BBNC that were setup before I came aboard and I would like to move every single one of them to Microsoft Forms eventually. Ideally I would set this form up so power automate adds the action automatically, but they usually entered the action first, and then wait 3-6 months to fill out a bunch of contact reports at once. So power automate would just end up creating duplicate actions. Unless I can train them to do otherwise.

Tioga Anderson

@Tioga Anderson Thanks for all your replies. Thinking about this some more, I think I may just dispense with the form and tell the PM team that they need to just read the contact report action (so I'll need a new action types called “Contact Report - Qualification”, “Contact Report - Solicitation”, etc.) and infer from there if there is any follow-up they need to do with the Gift Officer. 90% of the time the additional questions are left blank anyways.

Dariel Dixon

@Tioga Anderson: 90% of the time the additional questions are left blank anyways.

You should have led with that. LOL ?? But I agree. It doesn't sound like the process was working as is, as the PM team was probably already using the form as a tickler to remind them to go to look at the action. I think you made the right call.

Dan Snyder

@Tioga Anderson Kudos that your PMs even add actions, ha! Training is a big big issue but I think you are on the right track in trying to reduce the effort to get the data that you want into RE.

On the Power Automate route, you could create an add-in on the constituent page for Contact reports specifically that would use the Public Forms Host SPA to display your Microsoft Form? Again, would take some development and then training for them to select the add-in for those specific actions, but would be a cool project.

Tioga Anderson

@Dan Snyder Oh that is pretty cool, I knew about adaptive cards but I didn't realize we could embed other types of forms. I might have to give that a try.