Alumni Directory Import

Kathryn Stanhagen
Kathryn Stanhagen
Fifth Anniversary Blackbaud Certified Blackbaud Pro Certified
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions
We have engaged with a company to collect information for an Alumni Directory and received the data returns. Our policy is not to overwrite information, but to inactivate old information and import new information. The return files from the company link updates/new information to existing data in our Raiser’s Edge NXT database using the same import id’s for phone number, employment relationship records, etc. as what we exported for them. We are importing this information using Importomatic so that we can use VIP processing to exclude the records of our board members. Looking at the format of the return files, I believe that this data was intended to be imported using RE import and to overwrite existing information. Manipulating and segmenting that data so that it would not overwrite has taken a lot of additional time and effort.
Has anyone has a similar experience with a large amount of updates to constituent records? Thank you in advance.  

 
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  • Dariel Dixon
    Dariel Dixon Community All-Star
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply PowerUp Challenge #3 Gift Management
    I don't know if there is a way for them to return the data in any other way.  Granted, with regards to address and phone numbers/email addresses, it's only a matter of giving them new AddressImportIDs and PhoneImportIDs respectively.  No vendor is going to assume what you will do with the data, and there is no way they can create those IDs for you either.  The only thing they could do is return the IDs that you gave them, which it what they did.

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