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Turning off Attachments for all areas

Chris Zello

I've been discussing this with BB Support and need confirmation from others that there is actually no way to turn off the ability to add Attachments on records.

I heard that if I make Actions "View" only in DBV, it will prevent users from adding Attachments on Actions. Of course, our gift officers won't be able to add or edit actions, either. So this won't work.

Unfortunately there is no way to query and locate the records that have Attachments either.

Has anyone found a solution for these areas?

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Carlene Johnson

To my knowledge there is not a way to do this. Out of curiosity, what is the use case for eliminating the ability to add Attachments?

Elizabeth Johnson

I can only speak for my org but we (I) prefer to follow the way of Omatics old Magic Folder premise. We are a Google Shop and have a Google Drive Folder for each of our consistuents and keep scanned images and important documentation there. We don't keep images of sensitive information (ssn etc) so this works for us. I use Power Automate and App Scripts to create the folders for me and store them on the records as a direct link to their "Constituent Virtual Folder"

I'm uneasy that we may lose our media/attachments if we ever had to restore from a back up. If Blackbaud has solved that (I'd be curious if I missed the memo) - I'm honestly not sure I would change how we do things as we are able to use this with some of our key volunteers (trustees) who do not have access to the database.

The one exception is I love when we have a photo for our constituents records :)

Aldera Chisholm

I haven't heard anything about BB fixing the issue with restoring attachments from backup, I believe they offer it as an added fee service. For that alone, I agree with not using attachments, and going the link route like Elizabeth notes. @Chris Zello I recommend making it an org protocol to "link to a file" rather than attach the file. Permissions can only take us so far, solid training with a documented process is the key. Option B is looking into a third party RE plugin like AiryDocs that will manage attachments instead of the RE functionality.

Therese Morris

Back in July I asked Blackbaud how to turn off security for attachments because we use PaperSave and attachments can be added to Actions as needed. Attached is what support sent me.

Blackbaud Support Case 020376079 How to turn off security for attachments in NXT.pdf

Darlene LeVielle

@Elizabeth Johnson

Thank you for this information. For the Google Drive links you store on the constituent record, is the link name itself searchable or filterable within Raiser's Edge through queries, lists, or exports? I am trying to understand whether users can systematically locate all constituents based on the presence or naming of these links without manually opening records. Do you follow a defined naming convention for the link text or linked folder that communicates the general purpose or document type, for example stewardship, gift documentation, or correspondence? If so, may we hear how structured that convention is and whether it supports consistent reporting or user understanding at scale. When users need to locate all constituents with a specific type of documentation, do they typically rely on Raiser's Edge at all, or do they search directly within the Google Drive/ DMS storage system using folder structure or metadata instead? Just trying to understand where the system of record most effectively lives for discovery and retrieval. Thank you.

Chris Zello

To answer @Carlene Johnson, our reason for disabling Attachments is that we use PaperSave. Attachments at this point cannot be queried, which presents a problem when trying to locate the records for cleanup to migrate exclusively to PS. And despite training users, we have found that having the "Attachment" option available when creating an Action is just too tempting. In the end, users are then left to ask "I can't seem to find my document. Did I save it as an Action Attachment by mistake…which Action is it on? Wait, maybe I did save it in PaperSave?"

@Therese Morris I have worked with Support on this issue, and tried walking through things again with what you provided. I just had a user confirm what I'm seeing, which is: Users cannot add an Attachment on the Constituent. Users CAN add Attachments on the Action. Therefore, the settings cannot fully prevent a user from adding Attachments.

There lacks an option in webview for Actions and each area to "view only". And in DBV, Constituents has a Media option for granular control. For Gifts or Actions (Constituent), these areas lack a Media row. We need users to add/edit Action, simply not use Action Attachments.

I'm going to bring this up in the next PowerAutomate user group, because there seems to be some functionality to find the records. What I don't know is if it can locate records that have an Attachment on the Constituent, Action or Gift.

Thank you.

Elizabeth Johnson

https://community.blackbaud.com/discussion/comment/309557#Comment_309557

Great questions @Darlene LeVielle!

We can include the Google Drive link in output from database view (dbv) queries and exports, but we haven’t found a way to filter or work with these links directly through lists. All of our links are marked as primary, so they consistently appear at the top of the web view (wv) record for easy access.

Our naming convention for the linked folders is ConstituentID_Last First Name (or ConstituentID_Org Name for organizations). In hindsight, if I were starting over, I would use the System ID instead of the Constituent ID.

All folders live within a single parent folder in Google Drive, which makes them fully searchable there. In practice, our RE users almost always access documentation via the link on the constituent record, while volunteers are shared directly into the folders and encouraged to bookmark them. One helpful Drive feature is that if you open the folder before moving documents, Google Drive will often suggest the correct destination automatically.