It’s been busy @ the “ROI Labs”

You might think the summer months are quiet — vacations, sun, beaches, backyard cook-outs and all that “fun” stuff. But I’ve learned something in my many, many years of working with programmers. If I open the blinds on their windows, give ‘em a few iced lattes and a couple of tofu dogs, those guys think they’re on vacation and they don’t stop doing their development work.

As you can see from this month’s update, there’s been a LOT going on behind the scenes. I am very proud of these new features — all of which have been developed at no additional charge to our customers. In fact there’s so much to tell you — I might even re-send this update out a few times in case you are on vacation, although I would imagine these updates make great beach reading….

Enjoy!

Introducing FLEX Lists

This is gonna be big. Trust me.

Starting NOW, you will see a new little widget sprinkled throughout Revolution Online giving you the option to [SAVE AS FLEXLIST] and it looks like this:

And even inside the QueryTool, you have an option to do a query and save the output as a FLEXLIST.

When you select this option, you are prompted to name your list.

And then here’s where the magic happens. Once you’ve SAVED your FLEXLIST from anywhere in the database or via the QueryTool, you can now do some amazing things with these lists. Using the “Combine Lists” tool, we give you the ability to work with your own FLEXLISTS directly in Revolution Online. You can merge these lists together, find unique records that appear on both lists, as well as subtracting records that appear on one list from the other. You can then save the resulting records to another FLEXLIST.

But wait….there’s MORE!

We even provide you with a FLEXLIST TOOL that allows you to perform certain functions against these lists — such as: assigning flags, comments, contact history or assigning major gifts projects.

Ticklers to Outlook

In addition to setting up ticklers and getting reminders on-screen as well as via email, now you can set them up to go directly into your Outlook Calendars. Just click the Outlook Appointment button.

Now, you can get on-screen reminders, emails sent directly to the specified email address AND Outlook Calendar Appointments. (You know what that means, right? There’s no excuse for forgetting my birthday).

Job Management & Tracking – Full Transparency

The ROI world has been quite abuzz lately with our new Job Management & Tracking System. If you don’t know what this is, read on….

Because ROI Solutions operates as a full service provider in addition to application hosting, we offer our clients data extracts and programming upon request. In fact since our founding back in 1999, we’ve processed over 12,000 “job requests.” These requests have historically been sent to your technical account manager for implementation and logged into our internal Job Management & Tracking Database.

NOW the Job Management & Tracking System is ONLINE and located in the “Jobs” Tab including full history of every request every submitted:

Within this tab, you will be able to submit any requests directly through Revolution Online and track its progress to completion. There you can attach documents (such as mail plans and comments) and see Real-Time progress on your requests and as well pick up any files directly online.

In addition to being a nifty management tool, we offer full history of all request ever submitted to ROI Solutions – including your prior mail plans, counts, and extracts — all online! Full transparency and history in all of the requests submitted on behalf of your organization.

Secure Upload – PCI/DSS

You already know that you can process credit card and EFT gifts through Revolution Online. Those gifts can be keyed in or they can come in from your website using the ROI Open API. But what about those “other” places you get donations from…like from other Vendors? You know, those files they put on an FTP site and then you have to retrieve them and so something with them ???? Well, now you can use the ROI Secure Upload Feature to get them into your database — safely and securely — meeting all PCI-DSS rules and requirements.

Using the New Secure Upload Feature, we allow you the ability to upload sensitive credit card data directly into Revolution Online for immediate processing of payments.

Located in the Tools–>Commands Section of Revolution Online, select the Secure Upload option:

From there, the on-screen widgets will step you through the process of uploading your file allowing you to enter in the password protection and encryption information.

…And then depending on your organization’s business rules, once inside Revolution Online, these transactions can be handled in any way you desire — including automated processing of the donations and credit card/EFT processing.

Did You Know?

ROI has a Facebook Page and it’s a great way to keep up on the inside scoop on many development features. Click the below link to find us and become a fan.

You can also follow us on Twitter:

Who are the people in the neighborhood?

I got an email last week from one of my client pals saying, “Hey Mama G – wouldn’t it be cool if ROI could make something whereby we could enter in a zip code and find all the donors within a certain radius?” The thinking was if they were doing an event or planning a trip, they could locate all the people nearby and invite them.

In nerd-language, this is called “Geo-Coding” and it deals with longitude and latitude coordinates (which we happen to store in your database for every record) and a thing called “higher-mathematics” …and something called the Haversine Formula. You know the one that goes like this:

That helps you to answer this question:

Finally a use for algebra! …and well anyway, it’s so much better than having to know all the zip codes or that CBSA-data stuff, isn’t it?
So we got our shiny cool glasses and a couple of chalk boards and got to work right away.

Now, in the MG Console you will find this handy little ditty:

This feature was brought to you by The Haversine Formula & Letter R.

In the meantime, if you are looking for a distraction watch this video

QTool queries….Set ‘em & forget ‘em

I know, try as you might, it’s hard to forget queries. But now, when you have a query that you like to run on a regular basis, you can use the new schedule function. This allows you to run a query on whatever interval you chose.
Just click the schedule icon:

Pick your desired schedule:

And sit back and relax. We’ll take care of the rest for you.

You will soon notice, that if your query uses any date selections, if you use the schedule option, we will prompt you to see if you want “relative” or “absolute” dates. This gives you the option of advancing your date criteria into the future with relative dates — or using the same fixed date each time you run the query.

Promotions

The promotion screens have some pretty nifty features that are worth highlighting. First of all, if you don’t know, the Promotional Screens are nothing more than groupings for your source codes which can be grouped by campaign, source type, contact type, and contact year — to help keep them organized. And what’s unique to Revolution Online is that rather than having a hard-coded display that you can’t change, we allow you the ability to customize this so you can change the view:

Like perhaps, let’s say you want to see it organized by Promotion:

…Or by Year (Calendar or Fiscal):

And within that, you can even select which years and columns you want to see:

The reason why this is nice is because then at whatever level you want to see, you can click on the branch in the tree-view navigation, select the summary or donation buttons to get a real-time view of your results.

Did You Know? >>MG Actions

Revolution Online gives you an easy way to manage your Major Gifts Projects & Actions. In addition to setting up Projects for groups of records through the Major Gifts Project Wizard (see Major Gifts Project Wizard) you can also mark Actions as completed through the MG Console. To do this, simply go into the Console, view your actions and use the handy little drop down wizard as shown below:

ROI Releases QTool2…

We’ve introduced a new Query Tool for our users that allows you the ability to create more dynamic and comprehensive queries and outputs through Revolution Online. For more information, please see the Revolution Online Help Menu (and there you will also find an online video tutorial).

In addition to building queries for you, this new Tool offers other features such as:

1. Personal “Tool Box” – providing an easier way to save elements or portions of any query for later use and re-use in building additional queries.
2. Online summary information – displaying everything from the details of the query itself to when it was last run.
3. Online file pick-up or email output with notification.
4. Exposed raw SQL statements – providing you the “behind-the-scenes” detail (for those of you who like to “see” the SQL behind the query).
5. Enhanced layout and file retrieve functions – giving you more flexibility in your outputs.
6. Global “Exclusions” – providing client administrators the ability to set organization-wide exclusions to be applied to all queries.

And all of the features that existed in the Original Query Tool such as Copy to and Sharing Options as well as super fast results.

Just a reminder: This feature is provided to all ROI clients at no additional charge and specialized training is also free. Please contact your ROI Technical Account Manager. (And a special thanks to our Beta-Testers!)

We call them Flex Notes!

When you go to the donor account screen, in the commands section in the top right corner of the window, you will see a new icon that looks like a note tacked to a bulletin board:

Click the “note” icon to open an edit box where you can enter a note for the current donor account.

As you see. you are given the choice to show this note to just yourself, or to everyone in the client domain.

When you are done, click “save” — or click anywhere else on the page to cancel editing.

When you open an account that has a note on it, the donor name at the top of the screen is double-underlined the same way that the list items were underlined, indicating that the account has a note. You can see this indicator from every sub-function on the page, and from both the EDIT and VIEW screens.

In addition, you can manage all Flex Notes through the Tools Folder. There you can also create multiple Flex Notes for several accounts at the same time.

Introducing ROI Analysis

As a ROI client, you know Revolution Online can store as much information as you can gather, no matter what that information is. Having this kind of data warehouse — the ability to access all of your information simultaneously — makes analysis faster, easier, and more comprehensive than ever before.

Toward the goal of helping you understand the health of your file, ROI Solutions has developed a special suite of Client Analysis Reports that gets at the heart of your file – from every angle, encompassing all of the data elements you currently store directly in Revolution Online.

1. Campaign, Contact, Contact Type and Demographic Analysis
2. Donor File Key Health Analysis
3. Loyalty/Retention Analysis
4. Donor/Member Reactivation
5. Upgrade/Downgrade Analysis
6. Giving Summary Analysis
7. Lifetime Giving by Acquisition and Source Type Analysis
8. Upgrade/Downgrade
9. Universe Analysis

And more!

ROI is offering a special one-time full file analysis to you and your organization at no charge. ROI Solutions and its team will provide your organization with a full picture of the health of your file from every angle. Contact your ROI Technical Account Manager for more information.

Did You Know? >>Online Video Tutorials

There’s a slew of online video tutorials located in the Online Help menu.



If you go to the Help Contents to the item called “Show Me” there you will see the video tutorials we’ve created.




Just sit back, relax and enjoy the show!