Actions versus Notes versus Attachments

Alicia Van Straten
Alicia Van Straten
Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

We are having an internal conflict as we have progressed through RE NXT on when to use/add an Action, versus Attachment, versus Notes. Historically this has been our “practice”:

Actions: when one of us has a touchpoint with a donor (call, email, meeting, sent a proposal, follow up on proposal sent…); when there is a deadline assigned to one of us (grant application due, final donor report due…).

Notes: used to “store or record" general information or overall constituent updates (deceased, company went out of business or renamed/merged…)

Attachments: paperwork upload (grant proposals, grant agreements, signed donor docs like scholarship/endowment agreements, used to upload contribution forms noting donor designation)

We are noticing confusion now over where to put what, most particularly with Actions/Media. We use action to track our proposals as we don't and won't be getting the prospect module (small office, small budget) so when one of us sends out a proposal we upload it in the action and when we get a grant agreement we upload it to that action as well and trigger the action from open to awarded or declined. But, we have also uploaded these items in media too…..

If anyone is willing to share their procedures/thinking behind what you do and why that would be greatly appreciated!!

Comments

  • Karen Diener
    Karen Diener
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    I think you're definitely on track with the way you are thinking about how to use Actions, Notes, and Attachments.

    I would recommend that your policy is to only upload attachments to the Action itself. If it has to do with the Action - which is a change in status - then put it on the action. If it had to do with a gift (such as an image of a check, any backup material associated with it) then you would upload it to the gift. No need to upload it to multiple places!

    Karen

  • Faith Murray
    Faith Murray Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 First Reply Name Dropper

    It sounds like you have an overall solid system in place. My warning with Actions and Attachments is in where you upload them. If you are uploading in webview, Action Attachments are not protected by data backups. If you ever have to restore your data from a backup, you will lose all your webview attachments to that record. Grant agreements sound like important documents, so I would advise either sticking with Media or else uploading as a document under the database-view Action record.

    I also agree that multiple entry is not desirable. However, I also know that Actions can get very crowded after a long relationship, and it can become hard to find information. If you have ever had to dig around in Actions in webview, you know how hard it can be to find an Action that is five years old, buried in dozens of other Actions more current. That is why I encourage our staff to delineate:

    • An Action records just that: the interaction. This includes documents that are part of a communication effort of any type: proposals, emails, etc.
    • Any important information that affects our relationship in a fundamental or legal way should also be noted in either Notes or Media, so that anyone can quickly find it.

    There will be crossovers at times, and that's okay. A solicitation letter would not need to be in Media because it is not fundamental to our long-term relationship. But a bequest testamentary really ought to be in database-view Media or Notes, where it retains a dominant place in the donor record and is preserved from future data loss.

  • Alicia Van Straten
    Alicia Van Straten
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    Thank you both for responding, truly appreciated. So I think what we have is a pretty good start, but I like some of the points you both gave. I think including examples are always helpful too. In regards to backing up the system, I thought since we are hosted and now on Azure, we didn't have to worry about any of that… am I misunderstanding?

  • Alicia Van Straten
    Alicia Van Straten
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    Question for you Karen on the don't upload to multiple places… Ex. - my boss has an email conversation with a donor who is going to add an additional 15K to their scholarship endowment. The donor in email commits' and states they will be sending in additional 15K. My director then forwards that email to our gift entry person telling them to upload as a pledge and use the email as “gift backup/documentation”. I am the scholarship coordinator on staff. So I need to know that this is happening as it will increase their amount that they can award. So to me, that needs to go in as an action with that email as well so I see that. So that creates duplicate attachments…. thoughts, am I looking at this wrong or is there a better idea?

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