This is perhaps more of a rant than anything else but after being so pleased with the way Blackbaud introduced Batch into the RE:API I now found myself stuck with another piece of Raiser’s Edge functionality that I am less than pleased with.In the UK Gift Aid is big business. In the States (and possibly elsewhere) the donor can claim tax back from charitable donations. In the
Continue reading Adjust that tax claim at your peril
At one time I was very keen on working with VBA on import. I now steer clear of this wherever possible! There are many reasons.
Continue reading VBA in Imports
I normally keep up with the latest changes in the Raiser’s Edge version. I thought that the jump from 7.81 to 7.82 was not that great. I knew that there were fixes so that RE would work with Office 2007, there were some more changes to optional modules (I was only really familiar with events), there were new names for items in query and export, another change to Gift Aid and that was about it. At least that was it until I saw an item on the conference pages talking about the new Batch API code that had been made available. What?? Batch API! This is something that I have been asking for forever and it completely threw me when I just stumbled across it. Continue reading API 7.82 – The Silent Revolution
If I have often wondered if I were in charge of the API at Blackbaud how I would change it. Well unfortunately I don’t wield that kind of power and secondly I am not sure that a major overhaul is required. It is clearly not a modern API being COM based but for the main it works well. However there are still quite a few areas that I would improve upon. I don’t suppose that these will ever happen. Changing the API is no doubt lower on Blackbaud’s list of priorities. With the imminent arrival of the Infinity platform (and, yes, its name does seem to have influenced the pace at which it is being released) , the ability to develop any interface into the system seems a real possibility. RE API by comparison appears somewhat staid and limited. I would imagine it no longer commands the attention at Blackbaud those of us using it would like.
That being said I would love to be proven wrong so Blackbaud if you are listening here are the areas that I would change: Continue reading How I would improve the API
I get a lot of questions asking me if a certain change to The Raiser’s Edge can be done. Here is a typical (if somewhat abbreviated conversation)
Them: “We would like to add an attribute every time a constituent is saved. Then we want to synchronize our online giving application with Raisers Edge. Lastly we want to validate fields when entering gifts into Batch.”
Continue reading Is the API really that expensive?