I have just finished Paul Gibson’s Workflow workthrough. At the two Blackbaud conferences I attended recently there was much fan fair about Workflow and how it will blow our minds away. Having just started to look at it in some depth, why were they understating this technology implementation! This did more than blow my mind away. The potential is very clear. All of a sudden very complicated applications can be created without the need to write a single line of code. Move over SSIS and bring on Workflow.

What this space for some more customizations in the future using Workflow.

I have been working on a project to bring in a large amount of data into The Raiser’s Edge. Everyone else on the project has been using SSIS to do this and previously I would probably have manipulated the data in Excel, Access or for the most complicated data written a small application to convert the data into the format that I wanted before importing it into RE. Having used SSIS for a day now I am say that I am converted!

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A lot of the work that I do involves the integration of third party products with The Raiser’s Edge. It is not always right to develop a custom application to perform this integration. There are many factors including the volume of data transfer, the complexity of data, how quickly the data needs to be integrated and of course what budget is available. This article attempts to outline the options available to Raiser’s Edge managers who need to integrate with non-Blackbaud products.

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