Include inactive constituents in Online Data Review's constituent search capability

Problem Statement:

Online Data Review is excluding inactive constituents when performing constituent matching and when users use the constituent search capability.

Repro Steps

  1. Configure the Online Giving settings to Review and match all transactions

  2. Flag an existing constituent record Inactive

  3. Submit a donation using the same biographical information as the inactive constituent record to an Online Giving form

  4. Navigate to Gifts>Overview

  5. Click the Review unmatched constituents from online donations

  6. Select the biographical information from the transaction you submitted during Step 3

  7. Notice the existing constituent record does not appear under Possible matches

  8. Click the Search option

  9. Search for the existing constituent record using the constituent’s first name, last name, and Constituent ID

  10. Notice the existing constituent record does not appear in the search results

  11. Reactivate the existing constituent

  12. Navigate back to Gifts>Overview

  13. Select the biographical information from the transaction you submitted during Step 3

  14. Notice the existing constituent appears under Possible matches


Workaround

  1. Navigate to the constituent record

  2. Select Mark as>Active

  3. Navigate back to Online Giving and link the transaction to the constituent


Why the Behavior is Problematic

  • Inactive constituents can still donate

  • Many organizations have data management practices that are in alignment with their moves management practices; they require constituents to be flagged "Inactive" after periods of inactivity but still might send fundraising campaigns to the inactive constituents with the intention of potential re-engagement

  • The user experience of the workaround requires too much work of the end user. For each transaction that should be linked to an inactive constituent, the user must navigate to the constituent record to manually flag them as "Active," then return to Online Data Review to link the constituent to the transaction.

  • For organizations processing high donation volumes or those with a large number of inactive but living constituents (who may still receive solicitations), the current workaround is not scalable. Manually re-flagging inactive constituents as "Active" across individual transactions creates excessive administrative burden, increasing the likelihood of user error, delays in gift processing, and poor data hygiene.

  • Historically with BBNC/OLX/RELO integrations and RE7, users were able to match transactions to constituents flagged as "Inactive." The current behavior is a functional regression that may confuse long-standing users accustomed to this logic, creating friction in established workflows and reducing user trust.

  • Ultimately, isn’t one of the core goals of Raiser's Edge NXT’s moves management framework to help organizations not only capture new donors and retain active/at-risk/lapsing donors, but also recapture non-donors/lost donors? If so, then why introduce functionality that penalizes successful re-engagement by adding unnecessary steps that slow down the user and increase operational risk?

    Desired Behavior

  • If the biographical information of the transaction matches the biographical information of an existing constituent record, then Online Data Review should flag the record as a potential match

  • Inactive constituents should be searchable when using Online Data Review’s search capability

  • There should be some sort of indicator/prompt informing the user that the transaction is matched to an inactive constituent and offer the user the opportunity to flag the constituent as "Active" within Online Data Review

  • Hannah Diaz
  • May 1 2025
  • Reviewed: Voting Open
  • Attach files
  • Emily Marshall commented
    25 Sep 15:54

    I'm currently working in Online Data Review and noticed that the honoree already exists in the system as a constituent, but Online Data Review matching could not find them.

    I ended up having to open another instance of Unified View, search for the constituent and found that the constituent was deceased and marked inactive. I reactivated the constituent record, waited several minutes for Unified View to catch up with syncing, and then finished the Online Data Review process. If I had not done so, we would have had a duplicate constituent record with a duplicate tribute record that would all have to be merged.

    If Online Data Review also had a checkbox to 'include inactive' that also worked in conjunction with the other search parameters, it would better catch possible duplicates coming in.

  • Emily Marshall commented
    25 Sep 15:51

    I'm currently working in Online Data Review and noticed that the honoree already exists in the system as a constituent, but Online Data Review matching could not find them.

    I ended up having to open another instance of Unified View, search for the constituent and found that the constituent was deceased and marked inactive. I reactivated the constituent record, waited several minutes for Unified View to catch up with syncing, and then finished the Online Data Review process.

    If Online Data Review also had a checkbox to for 'include inactive' that also worked in conjunction

  • Melanie Schoeneck commented
    15 May 16:09

    This would be SO HELPFUL in avoiding duplicate records!

  • Brent Reed commented
    15 May 15:28

    This should also be the desired behavior for gift batch entry in web view.