New: Set Gift Criteria to Automatically Apply a Workflow to Constituents

Kyle Gilbert

Rather than selecting a list for your workflow, you can now set gift donation criteria directly in the workflow to automatically apply the workflow to constituents who meet the criteria.


For example, if you'd like to apply your workflow to any constituent who donates any gift of at least $5, set the criteria to include anyone who donates any gift greater or equal to $5. Constituents who meet this criteria will automatically be included in the workflow within 24 hours. This is especially helpful for including new constituents.



How does it work? 


From Tools, Workflow designer, create a new workflow. When you add the first step, choose Select criteria and set the gift conditions to use.

Note: Workflows check for people who meet the criteria every night beginning the date you activate the workflow.




For more information, see Constituent criteria.

But wait... there's more!


To help track workflow performance details, you can now also view how many people a workflow applies to.


From Tools, Workflow designer, select a workflow's name to view how many people it's applied to since it was activated, how many it currently applies to, and how many completed it. You can also view when it was activated, who created it, and who last modified it.




For more information, see Workflows.

 

Tim Clark

When assigning fundraisers to a workflow in the step after setting the donation criteria, one of the assignment criteria is to assign to the "First active fundraiser for constituent." What is the criterion for selecting the "first" fundraiser? Also, active applies to the first active in the appropriate date range? Or the first fundraiser on the Assigned Solicitor relationship record who is designated as an Active Fundraiser? Or the first fundraiser assigned to the particular campaign? We have multiple levels of fundraiser relationships for many of our top-level constituents (one constituent can be assigned a Primary Solicitor, a Secondary Solicitor, and an Engagement Manager, for example) I'd like to drive the notification to the Primary Solicitor assigned to whatever campaign the gift came in to, but not sure if this is what this workflow will do, or if there is a way to ask it to do so. 

Cindy Erwin

This is a really exciting development, but I do have a question. If we enter gifts via database view, will the workflow still kick-in? I noticed when I set up the criteria that the gift type has NXT language (i.e. one-time gift) as opposed to database view language. Is this an impediment to the workflow process?

Kylee Long

Tim- The "first active fundraiser" will be the first fundraiser assigned to that constituent that is still active. So, for example, if Bob was assigned back in 2003, and Betty was assigned in 2014, but both are still active, the action would get assigned to Bob.  If you ever get confused about those labels there is documentation related to Actions in NXT that explains all of those fundraiser types.  As for assigning the action to the fundraiser assigned to the campaign that the gift was designated for, the only way that would work is if you focused the criteria on gifts that came in for that campaign only- that way you can assign all actions to that fundraiser. Does that make sense?  Right now, we don't have a way to "smart assign" or anything like that based on gift designations because we just follow what Actions in NXT does today.

Kylee Long

Cindy- Yes! When you configure the gift criteria talked about in this blog post, it will trigger off of web view AND database view gifts . Hope that helps!

Rachel Kave

Kyle Gilbert‍ how long does the workflow take to activate?

Kylee Long

Rachel Kave‍ The workflow should activate pretty quickly (within minutes), but can sometimes take a tad longer if you choose a list with a large amount of people.  I would say average is typically under 5 min though.


One thing to keep in mind for this criteria- even thought you activate the workflow, no constituents will be added to the workflow till we do our nightly "check". At that time we will grab everyone that meets the criteria and add them to the workflow.

Erin Jeavons

@Kylee Long Very excited about this development! I have a question when setting up a first time workflow using gift criteria. When choosing Gift detail of “any gift” and the workflow becomes active, will the system review every single historical gift based on the criteria provided or only those that have been added in the past 24 hours? I am worried I will have actions added to my fundraisers that aren't needed. Does this process prevent first time backlog issues?

Bert Garcia

Is there a way to set triggers to happen between a certain amount? Like adding multiple criteria? I.E. A gift comes is greater or equal to 500 but less than or equal to 5000.