Tips From The Pros About Using S-Tags In Luminate Online

Kathryn Hall

Did you see the recent post about S-Tag magic in this blog? Our friends at Cathexis Partners thought a “101” on S-Tags would be a helpful companion to that piece, as one of the frequently asked questions they hear from Luminate and TeamRaiser customers is: What are S-Tags and how can they help my organization?

 
With that in mind, the Cathexis team shared some S-Tag basics and best practices to apply as you start creating your own magic.

 
What are S-Tags?

“S-Tags are Luminate Online’s unique way of communicating based on information that is specific to a user's record and actions taken within the system environment. You can use S-Tags for simple things like inserting personal information, such as someone's first name or amount raised for an event.” — Daniella Dowiak, Account Manager

 
“S-Tags can be used in conjunction with Luminate Online conditionals to create "dynamic" content within a page wrapper, donation form, page, or email so that the content can change based on the viewer (in the case of PageBuilder/CMS pages, donation forms, emails, and Action Alerts) or based on the details of the constituent being viewed, or TeamRaiser personal and team pages.” — Jeff Rineer, Developer

 
Why should my organization use S-Tags?
“The two main benefits of using S-Tags are that they can save time and add a personal touch. They allow you to personalize content and enhance your communications by inserting information about that particular constituent.” — Daniella Dowiak, Account Manager

 
“S-Tags save time. For instance, if you have a bunch of corporate sponsor logos that must show up in various places, like your home page, a TeamRaiser greeting page, and an email, you can use S-Tags. Place all of the logos in one reusable page and then use an S-Tag to display the images everywhere they need to be. So, you don’t have to edit individual pages each time there’s a change.” — Christina Relacion, Account Manager

 
3 Best Practices to Consider When Using S-Tags

1. Test, test, test!
   Just like with sending an email or launching a TeamRaiser event, when using S-Tags it’s just as important to test. Pull in a few of your colleagues or other stakeholders to add another set of eyes to ensure it looks just the way you want it.
   
    
2. Consider situations where you don’t have data for constituents.
   
   Let’s say you want to use the S-Tag to enter someone’s first name in a salutation of an email but you don’t necessarily have that info for everyone in your housefile. You can configure the S-Tag to enter something generic, like “Dear friend” so it doesn’t show up as a “Dear [blank space]”.
   
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3. Multiple constituents.
   It’s not a best practice for constituents to share email addresses, but it does happen. In this case, S-Tags sometimes will have issues if two or more constituents share an email address. Just one more reason why it’s so important to test!

 
Want more help with leveraging S-Tags in Luminate Online? Cathexis Partners helps nonprofits use technology to raise more funds and engages more supporters. Find more tips in the Cathexis blog. You can also find out more about S-Tags in Blackbaud’s S-Tags documentation.


-- Christina Relacion, Account Manager, Cathexis Partners  

Allison King

At Blackbaud University, we recently launched a new class new course that teaches the basics of how to use S-Tags, called Luminate Online: S-Tags and Page Wrappers.

Meghan Christiansen

Great tips!