I implore Blackbaud to postpone turning off the database view Tables features until summer 2024.

@Deb Dressely Job Assignments, like Campaign and Fund, are record-based and aren't tied to tables. You can search and modify those from Records. In the General tab of the Job record, the only table-based fields are Category (Job Category table) and Volunteer Type (same table name), both of which are available in web view tables to modify.

@Austen Brown Good idea to speak to our Account Managers about this issue, but Blackbaud got rid of our Account Managers in Australia more than 6 months ago - we dont have them anymore!

@Deb Dressely, I reached out to Support to try to clarify (it took a few days of back and forth). She confirmed, as we knew, that the Job Assignments no longer show up in the db-view and webview listings because they are not true tables (despite what the KB article said). I asked if the tables would continue to be editable from the constituent record, and received this reply: “I was not able to find any upcoming changes on that part.” Hopefully that means that your current work process will continue to be unchanged for the time being.

@Karen Diener I've finally taken Friday afternoon to catch up on some updates, including this one. I've just tested some very light table cleanup with some old action notepad types in webview, while also have DB view open on another screen to compare.

I will say that, overall, the same functionality seems to exist as is in database view, so I'm inclined to agree with your overall assessment that there doesn't appear to be a loss of functionality at a glance. I was able delete a action notepad type that must have been entered in error at some point, but never used (cll- typo for call would be my guess) with no issues. I was also able to use the cleanup feature to replace an action type that was used twice with another action type, and delete the original one in the process.

For the system record ID, my understanding after having reviewed some of these comments and having tried to query on the system record IDs that appear under the “view uses” is that the system record ID in the webview tables does not correspond to anything that can queried on (namely the constituent system record ID in DB view). Maybe I am misunderstanding, but this seems to be contradictory to the explanation in the August 8 “What's New” update about tables which states “Next, select View uses from the menu next to the entry's name in the table entries list. If any records include the entry, a list of system IDs for each record type appears. In the database view, from Query, you can use the system IDs to search for and update the records as necessary.”

Since it appears we can't actually search using the system ID, it does put me a put more on guard about this change- again, while not a loss of functionality compared to before, it seems to contradict some of the earlier messaging, and makes me a bit wary about what other issues or unintended hiccups might lay hidden beneath the surface in this change. (There's also a chance I've gotten some of this system record ID piece entirely wrong in my Friday experiments, in which case I'd love to be proved wrong- if there was a way to know exactly which records had it via that system ID, that would move the needle to calling this an improvement in my opinion.)

@Alex Wong and @Jaclyn Whitelock thanks for your insights and responses! I completely agree that the ideas of “loss” and “change” and “we're taking something away from you” are probably what people are reacting to more than the actual changes themselves.

My organization is doing more and more work with the connector, and agree that what is being done by developers is of very little use to end users. There definitely seems to be a continued lack of understanding at Blackbaud about what end users truly need.

I'll be able to continue my currently style of table cleanup with minimal disruption. Identify the table that needs to be cleaned, do a query for records with the value to be cleaned, and do a global change to remove the value. Then delete in webview instead of database view. That's it.

To me, the ability to change the order of the entries by dragging and dropping them is the biggest improvement.

Karen

@Alex Wong, how nicely explained! That makes complete sense.

I am looking forward to doing more things in webview, and I think BB has been adding some definite improvements in their processes. For example, I'm delighted at the creation of Portal, where donors can update their own gift info, and I like how email marketing in webview also provides more consent options than in OLX. I'm just waiting for the bugs to be worked out so we can actually use the features, and I like having the option to wait rather than things being “turned off” suddenly in database view without a chance for much transitional testing, as they are doing here with Tables. And they need to add table export functions, webview backups, etc so we can “own” our data better.

But I don't think your take is “unpopular” at all; and overall, as others have said, it seems like work processes won't change much for this particular feature.