Developing Business Processes/ RE guides for Staff Members

Payal Sen · June 30

Hi, I am looking for some suggestions/examples for business processes/Internal organizational RE guides developed towards constituent record maintenance for organizations who have used Raiser's Edge for quite some time now.

Example : We have defined understanding of how we use certain features like do not solicit/ do not contact/ what constituents as organization/ foundations? But those needs to be laid down and written under Raiser's Edge Guides that the team now and can use in the future. This document will help anyone who will join maybe 5 years later to understand how things were done and will be helpful to understand the data better.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Joe Moretti · June 30

@Payal Sen Below is our contents for our Raiser's Edge Database Manual for Institutional Advancement:

Contents

Section 1: OVERVIEW
Accessing Raiser’s Edge
Campaign, Funds & Appeals Overview
RE NXT Work Center

Section 2: BEST PRACTICES

Section 3: HOW TO
Looking up an individual or Organization .
Procedures for adding a new address and making the other former for Individuals
Adding an individual with a business address only (no home address)
Procedures for adding contacts in an organization record .
Procedures for adding a new phone/email & making the other former
Changing or updating phones/emails
Adding a constituent with two last names and proper organization names by alpha
Uploading documents to the media tab .
Creating proposals, actions & action reminders .
Solicit codes and other various coding
Procedures for annual report listings – programmatic donors and others
Procedures for annual report mailing
Procedures for Legacy Society
Procedures for estates & planned giving gifts
Using the map feature in RE NXT to get a list of prospects in certain areas

SECTION 4: REPORTS
Weekly Reports Schedule .
Action Reports
POP Reports (Opportunity/Proposal)
Weekly / Monthly Raised to Date Report

SECTION 5: GIFT PROCEDURES
How to Pull the Web Transaction Report
How to Create a New Batch in Raiser’s Edge and Enter Gifts

SECTION 6: FORMS

Dariel Dixon · June 30

@Payal Sen There are several posts covering some examples. I always start with @Spring Velazquez's phenomenal post. It's a great starting point, but your internal business practices will vary from organization to organization.

Payal Sen · June 30

@Dariel Dixon Thank you this is very helpful.

Hallie Guiseppe · July 8

Hi @Payal Sen

I agree with @Dariel Dixon that @Spring Velazquez's post is a fantastic resource. The only thing I’d add is to think about how your SOPs will be used once they’re created.

When I first brought up documenting SOPs, my V.P. pulled out an old binder and joked, “No one reads these anyway.” As the Director of Operations, I took that as a challenge to make sure ours would be used. Like Spring suggests, we house our “how-to” SOPs in SharePoint and embed links wherever they’re relevant, (i.e. Microsoft Planner tasks, work study assignments, and even automated emails) For example, our overdue opportunity audit automated email includes a link to the related SOP for quick reference. We’ve also added info buttons to our Power BI dashboards that describe each visual and link to the corresponding SOP.

Bottom line: consider when and where your team will need support, and serve up your SOPs in those moments. That’s what really makes them valuable.

Payal Sen · July 8

@Hallie Guiseppe, Thanks, Hallie. This is a very useful tip. The idea kinda crossed my mind, but I didn't know how to implement it so that it's available to the team.

Spring Velazquez · July 8

@Hallie Guiseppe
I love the idea of adding the buttons to your power bi reports!

Alex Wong · July 9

@Hallie Guiseppe
We also run into these issue, where staff does not take the steps to find the SOP and/or read about it.

I also believe in the approach that you mention, embedding “stuff” directly in RE NXT as they already “live” in it:

info-graphics for event process directly “baked” into event page
event custom tile that outline the process of the specific types of event and where they are now (i.e. package/pricing list finalizing and added to Appeal/Event record; registration form request and creation; “how-to” handle registration difficulty with non constituent spouse; seating module; etc)
requests form (mosting MS forms, but in future specific forms created using Adaptive Card as custom tile will be more streamline option) baked into RE NXT at its appropreiate location

This is a work in process, and just really need to “follow” the work process someone does in RE NXT and see where things fit naturally

Lucy Ruiz · July 9

@Payal Sen We have moved away from large binders and create small 1 - 2 page documents. Often just a workflow lives in a document and then we imbed a video. We find the video's are easier to consume and easier to create. If using a paid service is not in the budget consider using OBS which is a free screen capturing application. Each written document includes the 1)purpose, 2) who is responsible, 3) RACI information, 4) what workflows add data 5)what teams is impacted and why is this data element important to our organizations. For example, include two consistent codes because the membership team requires this value or used by report xyz.

Dariel Dixon · July 9

@Lucy Ruiz I've done the videos before using the teleconferencing apps that my org uses. I set up a meeting with no one except myself and recorded it as a screen share. The added benefit was that the video files I was using could transcribe as captions that were editable before downloading. The issue I did have was file size. Those video files were quite large and we did get a call from our IT folks about how much storage we were using.

@Payal Sen That said, it's important to determine if it's more important to create step-by-step guides or to formulate full SOPs. Obviously, how they are envisioned to be used will determine which route is best.

#protips If you are creating these processes, please for the love of all things good DOCUMENT WHAT INACTIVE MEANS. This will save you so many headaches.

Payal Sen · July 9

@Dariel Dixon Thank you for this input, especially for training new staff members.

Good point about what inactive means. Once in a while we have fundraisers asking this questions while encountering different fields in RE.

Developing Business Processes/ RE guides for Staff Members

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