Update Online Data Review's constituent search feature to include non-constituent relationships

Online Data Review's constituent search capability only returns constituent relationships when searching with the Search relationship records checkbox flagged. I was told by Blackbaud Support that this capability was intentionally designed to exclude non-constituent relationships. This makes the Search relationship records checkbox essentially useless because:

  • If a relationship record is linked to an existing constituent record, the relationship record is going to have identical Title, First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Maiden Name, Suffix, Constituent ID, Individual Import ID, Individual System Record ID, Preferred Address, Phone, and Email data entry as the constituent record it's linked to. With this in mind, a user is never going to not be able to find an existing constituent record when the Search relationship records checkbox is unflagged but find the existing constituent record when the Search relationship records checkbox is flagged

I think including non-constituent individual/organization relationship records in the search results when the Search relationship records checkbox is flagged would bring more value to users than the current functionality for the following reasons:

  • The constituent search feature in the web view omnibar pulls non-constituent individual/organization relationships when the Search relationship records checkbox is flagged; users expect core functionality, like constituent search, to function in the same manner regardless of where the user is working in the solution

  • It's not uncommon for an organization to receive a gift from a first-time donor who has an existing non-constituent relationship record in Raiser's Edge. For the sake of data integrity, users need to be able to search for and convert existing non-constituent relationship records when processing online donations

  • Currently, users have to use the omnibar's constituent search feature to locate and convert existing non-constituent relationships and then navigate back to Online Data Review to process the pending constituent information so they can complete their gift processing procedures. While the steps to accomplish this on a one-off basis is "commercially viable", it's not the best user experience...especially during high volume times of the year, like EOY

  • Currently, it takes 45 minutes - 1 hour for Online Data Review to refresh before the converted record appears in the constituent search, even if the conversion occurred in the web view. This slows down users' ability to efficiently process online gifts which is not viable during high volume times of the year, like EOY

  • Hannah Diaz
  • Nov 26 2024
  • Reviewed: Voting Open
Online data review
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  • Hannah Diaz commented
    28 Oct 16:37

    Just want to update this idea to inform the product team how problematic the inability to link to existing non-constituent records has become with the recent inclusion of event transactions into Online Data Review. This limitation cost me 19 hours of manual clean-up work for one event with an attendee size of ~300 registered attendees.

    When searching for an existing record in Online Data Review, not all non-constituent records appear in the search results when the "Include relationship records" checkbox is flagged. Only non-constituent individuals linked to spouse relationship records appear in the search results, even though we know a non-constituent individual record exists in this database and is linked to an individual relationship on an organization constituent record.

    This behavior is problematic for the following reasons:

    • Users must promote existing non-constituent records (who are not spouse relationships) to constituents if they need to link a guest's participant record to their existing non-constituent record. This adds unnecessary constituent records to their database, driving the organization closer to their subscription's record band, which financially impacts the organization.

    • If the user decides not to promote the non-constituent and continues to create a new non-constituent individual, they're left with duplicate non-constituent records and no clear way of tracking the individual's attendance history, should they decide to promote the individual to a guest in the future. Now that the Non-Constituent Merge Utility in the database view is no longer supported or available, there is no web view equivalent feature, and SKY API has no endpoints to build a customization for this type of data, users have no commercially-viable way to clean up these duplicate records.

    When I reported this behavior to Customer Support, I was told that this behavior is still "by design", even after the inclusion of event transactions in Online Data Review, and there are no upcoming plans to change this behavior.

    If this is considered "by design" and "expected behavior" and there are no plans to address it, then I think this logic should be clearly explained in the product documentation. I also think the following changes should be made within the solution:

    • The "Include relationship records" checkbox label in Online Data Review should be updated to "Include spouse records" or something that clarifies to the user that only constituent records and non-constituent spouses that match the search criteria are expected to appear in the search results when that checkbox is flagged

    • A non-constituent merge feature should be introduced to the web view so users can clean up the duplicate non-constituent records created due to the inability to link guests to their existing non-constituent record

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