Tag Archives: Gift

Creating a Donation Form through SKY API into Raiser’s Edge NXT – Part 3 (Server back end)

This follows on from the second part of my guide to creating a donation from through SKY API…

The source code for this and the other parts of this series is available on Github.

In this part we are going to actually doing something with the donor details and their credit card.

We are using .NET on our server. You could use any language to do this but I am mostly familiar with working with .NET. I am going to assume here that you are either familiar with .NET or you are able to translate the concepts into your own language.

I created a new project in Visual Studio 2017. I chose an ASP.NET Web Application and selected the WebAPI option without authentication.  I added a new controller to my project – “Web API 2 Controller – Empty” called DonationController.

Continue reading Creating a Donation Form through SKY API into Raiser’s Edge NXT – Part 3 (Server back end)

Creating a Donation Form through SKY API into Raiser’s Edge NXT – Part 2 (Web front end)

This follows on from the first part of my guide to creating a donation from through SKY API…

The source code for this and the other parts of this series is available on Github.

Now we are going to focus on the web page that captures the donation.

We are going to show the minimum here. You will want to include data validation to ensure that the incoming data is valid. You will also want some form of security to ensure that you don’t end up sending a lot of spam into your Raiser’s Edge.

On this page we are making use of some simple html, some javascript and the Stripe Checkout API which makes an easy and PCI compliant way of capturing a credit card.

OK, Let’s begin!

Continue reading Creating a Donation Form through SKY API into Raiser’s Edge NXT – Part 2 (Web front end)

Creating a Donation Form through SKY API into Raiser’s Edge NXT – Part 1 (Overview)

This post is in response to a thread on the Raiser’s Edge User Group Support Forum on Facebook. If you are not already a member then I can highly recommend it. There are some very talented individuals there who have been using Raiser’s Edge for a long time and have a wealth of experience!

The question asked was whether anybody had created a donation form on a website which would capture information and send it through to RE NXT.

There are a number of different possibilities here. You could create a complex web application that captures donations like ones that are already commercially available e.g. Classy, Crowdrise, OneCause, FunRaise, 4AGoodCause, WeDidIt, MobileCause, FundRazr, etc to name a few to name the ones that Importacular currently integrates with. From an end user perspective these have a lot of functionality that makes donating an easier experience.

Continue reading Creating a Donation Form through SKY API into Raiser’s Edge NXT – Part 1 (Overview)

Payment Type or Payment Method ID reference

Some time ago I wrote the mappings for gift type ids and their corresponding descriptions. This is useful in the API and also when interrogating the database directly. More recently I have needed to do the same thing with payment type. I find it very strange that in some scenarios this field is referred to payment type and other times it is payment or just pay method. Whichever you use the mappings are given below:

  Continue reading Payment Type or Payment Method ID reference

Small improvements that I like about Blackbaud Enterprise CRM

Blackbaud Enterprise CRM (eCRM or BBEC as it seems to be called interchangeably) is enormous. It is a big change to The Raiser’s Edge but then that is not surprising as it is not actually the replacement for The Raiser’s Edge 7. It is an application way beyond RE 7. Nevertheless you cannot help comparing the two as long as there is no RE8 to compare to. As a software developer it is a whole new paradigm. Of course even if you know how to develop software customisations for BBEC you still need to know how the program works from a user perspective. That is why I am not only learning a new development environment but I am learning a whole new program. Some of the concepts are very similar, some are different. As I learn I have come across some quite small changes that, for whatever reason, fill me with a “wow that’s great” feeling. These are not earth shattering improvements but just things that I am sure people will appreciate. So this post is dedicated to the small differences. Continue reading Small improvements that I like about Blackbaud Enterprise CRM

Recurring Gift Schedules

One of the harder imports that you may have to do in The Raiser’s Edge is importing recurring gifts with schedules. The regular help file itself suggests itself that it is tricky but then unfortunately does not offer any examples. Writing code to create various schedules is equally as difficult if not harder.  This post does apply to pledges with schedules but, here in the UK, recurring gifts are much more common than pledges with schedules so I will concentrate on that but the same principles apply. I have also noticed that there are more and more people developing in C# so this is for them (but is not that hard to translate to VB.NET) Continue reading Recurring Gift Schedules

Filling a .NET dropdown with static code table entries

In a previous post (Filling a .NET dropdown with code table entries) I described how it was possible to fill a .NET dropdown with dynamic code table entries such as title or address types, etc. When I tried to do the same thing with static table entries (e.g. gift types, payment types, etc) it proved a lot harder and a lot less intuitive.

Continue reading Filling a .NET dropdown with static code table entries