Name: Develop a deeply connected Alumni engagement programme with Almabase
Uploaded: 2025-05-22T02:31:04.585Z
Duration: 28 min
Description: Develop a deeply connected Alumni engagement programme with Almabase

Transcript for "Develop a deeply connected Alumni engagement programme with Almabase": Welcome, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us for the fourth session of Blackbaud Pacific brand new webinar series on visualizing your single source of truth. So this series is all about helping you connect your data in more visible, actual ways by showcasing our powerful integrations available through through Blackboard's extensive partner network. So today, we are super excited to spotlight Almabase, which is a leading alumni engagement platform designed specifically for schools, universities, and advancement team and advancements teams. Almerbase helps organizations deepen relationships with alumni through personalized communication, event management, Giving Day tools, and a lot more, all while syncing seamlessly into your Raiser's Edge NXT database. So before playing the demonstration video provided by the lovely partners at Almabase, I'm gonna walk you through some really important housekeeping before we begin. Okay. So I would love for you all to pop your questions in the q and a tab rather than pop putting them in the chat section, only because I can then export all the questions and send them off to our partners and then they can then provide answers to those questions, which I'll share with you all in a follow-up email. There's a little cogwheel down the bottom if you need to put Goldcast into light mode. So light mode is great if you are having connectivity issues, so please do that if you have any, issues with audio stuttering or the slides freezing or anything like that. What you can also do is refresh your browser and log in and out of the Goldcast platform, which is a worst case scenario if, your platform has completely shut down and is not working. Okay. One last note is that this is being recorded, so if you need to revisit this content at any time, you absolutely can. And, yes, at the end of the at the end of the, session today, I would love for you all to pop your, questions in the q and a, which I'll then collect, and again, send off to our partners. Alright, everyone. Thank you again for joining, and I hope you enjoy the session today. Alright. So let's take a look at how Almabase, your user facing alumni engagement tool, is gonna integrate back to your database that is Raiceside Genex team. So for those who don't know, Almabase has three different modules that we offer. There is a digital engagement product that allows you to engage with your alumni, providing them access to an alumni directory, spaces, sending them emails. There's a whole lot of, functionality within the alumni engagement tool. There is also the events and event management tool that helps you host your events, build out those tickets, and make them live so that your constituents can, go on to the platform, provide their information, select the tickets and sub events that that they wanna register for, and then make their registration through the other base platform. And the third part is our fundraising platform where your donors can come in, look at all of the different funds that you have, and make a donation, to the different types of giving pages that you make, whether that's your, 247 3 60 5 give now button or whether it's your peer to peer fundraising campaign, like your Giving Day that you host through the Almabase platform. Now for each of these three modules that Almabase offers, there is a corresponding integration with TracerSet Nxt that moves all of the relevant information you're collecting on your constituents as well as the events that you're running back into your Racercise Nxt database. So let's take a look at how that works. So starting with how constituent information that you're collecting through the platform, whether that's your alumni logging into the platform and updating information about themselves, Or maybe while registering for an event or making a donation, they give you a new email address or a phone number that you don't yet have on your Asus Edge database. Let's take a look at how that information flows into entity. So that's gonna happen from our database settings where you as an admin have complete control over how data flows between the two systems that you have, which is Almabase and Placeside NXT. So this is a bidirectional integration where you can control data flow on either sides where you set up rules for how data is flowing with respect to each of the fields that you're bringing in from Razor Side NXT. So on the left side of your screen, you could see a list of fields that you choose to bring in from Razor Side NXT. So maybe something like address or emails need to be reviewed before it goes into NXT. You can go into those specific fields and specify what rules apply for that individual data data feed. So starting here, we have the review rules section. You you can also see the data flow direction right here. So the switch enables you to switch between the data flow direction. Right now, it's from Almabase to race to side n x t. You can switch it to Blackbaud to Almabase and set up the rules for that as well. What we see generally with our partner institutions is when data flow is from Almabase to Blackbaud, and when new address or a new information is collected on Alma Base, it's usually set to review before updating because you want the best data going into your database. And when it switched from Blackbaud into Almabase, it's usually set to create automatically. So that even if you were to go into your database and update a contact information on your constituent, it can automatically flow into Almabase and update their profile, here within the platform. If you do choose to review any of this information, you do have the data inbox where all of that data points are gonna be collected based on what fee was updated by the constituent. So maybe while making a donation, we have somebody maybe join here, give you a new address that you don't have on John's constituent record. The new information you're collecting on, the base shows up here on the left side, and any current values on John's constituent record for the address field is gonna show up here on the right side. Even if John has multiple addresses that you've saved on John's constituent record, all that information can be accessed directly from Alberbase, giving your database manager, side by side comparison of the new information that they're collecting with what's already there within your database. And with a click of a button, you have the option to simply approve those changes and send them across into basic site gen x t. You also have a few different options like making any edits. Maybe there's, a space that the constituent has forgot to put in. You can add those and make those changes right here within our base before sending it across. So that is how that constituent flow is gonna work. And just to demonstrate how that actually flows in and how quick it is, I have my personal profile here within the Almabase platform. I'm just gonna quickly update this profile with a new email address that is not there on my Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT record. So quickly jumping into Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT and onto my record, you'll be able to notice that the same email addresses that's there here within Almabase, is also here within racist edge NXT. Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna add another email to my profile here on Alberbase. So let's just say with a random number, and let's save these changes. So right now, you can imagine this as a constituent going into their profile and seeing some outdated email addresses and, you know, just adding those new email address, onto their profile on Almabase. You can see right here the new email address has also been added in here. Now if I jump back into the sync settings, do a quick refresh, I should be able to see the new email address, that I have added here. So let's do a quick search for my name. And you can see here under the email addresses section, the new email address that I just added on my profile right here. And you can see all three email addresses that I already have on my RazorSec record. I can simply click on the approve changes button, and this new information just flows into NXT. So if I jump back into NXT and refresh my record here, the new email address should be there on my record. And you can see right here, the fourth email address that I just added on our base flows right in as soon as somebody from your team reviews that information and approves it, to go into your database. So that is the flow of constituent information from Almabase into NXT. Now let's take a look at how donations that you receive through Almabase flows into Blackbaud NXT. And in order to do that, I have already set up a a gift list on our base. Like, before we actually sync that gift list, let's take a look at how a gift list is created on our base. So jumping into our giving module here, we have something we call the gift dashboard that gives you a three sixty degree view of all of the donations that you're receiving through all of the different pages that you build through the, base platform. And you can narrow down this group into the specific donations that you want to move into a payment batch by using one of the filters that we have right here. So maybe it's a giving day that's happening, and you want all of the donations that came in for the giving day to be added into one single payment batch. You can apply that filter, and the table here gives you a list of all of the donations that match that filter. You can also use the date range filter like some of our partner institutions do, where they sync all of the new donations that come in for a particular day into races at the end of that day. So there's a few ways in which you can group those gifts, or you can do them manually as well by selecting individual gifts to be added into a payment batch. But once you have a group of gifts ready, then you create what we call a gift list within our base. So what I've already set up right here. So we have a giving day, that had 10 different gifts come in, maybe during the initial hours. And you can see this gift list has a sync status of 0% right now. Those 10 different gifts also have a mapping status right here. So you can see each of those gifts have already been mapped to the relevant record. Now let's understand what mapping means on Almabase. So Almabase does have the option for, auto mapping, but if a donor or an event registrant uses the same email address that's there on that constituent record to make their donation, then the donation gets automatically mapped to the right constituent record, within your database. So right here, you can see there is John's donation, and it's been mapped to John's constituent record. So what happens when somebody uses a different email address? So somebody who does not have a record within Almabase, makes a donation. Or somebody who does not have a constituent record itself makes a donation through the Almabase platform, then those donations are gonna show up within the system as on app right here. So you as an admin will be able to click on the unmapped button where the system is gonna give you certain recommendations based off of other information that the donor has filled out. So if there's a match on the phone number that they filled out or the the address information, then the system can surface those records as recommendations right here. Or if you know that this constituent has a record on your races at n x t, you also have the option to simply use their name or email address to do a quick search within your database for, relevant constituent to to map that donation to. And, finally, if it's a new constituent altogether that's making a donation and you want them to have a constituent record, you can use this plus button right here that adds a new record to Almabase. And once somebody from your team reviews that new constituent information, it can go into Blackbaud NXT as a new constituent record, into your database. So that is going to be how you map a donation or an event registry on the Almabase platform to constituents within Blackbaud NXT. But to get into actually, syncing some of these donations back into NXT, you have the sync data button right here at the bottom. And once you click on it, you can see, these, system shows you, an option to add these gifts into an existing batch within races at NXT or if you'd like to create a new batch, altogether. If you do create a new batch, you can give that batch a name. So I'm just gonna call this, analytics giving day. Let's just add a few numbers in there so that there's no, there's no batch that has already been created under the same name. But, essentially, once you've given your batch a name, you also have options that allow you to, assign any attributes that you use within NXT. So whether that's appeal, package, campaign, gift type, gift subtype, payment method, receipt status, all those different default attributes that are available on NXT are also gonna be available here within the Almabase platform. And the best part about having two systems that are integrated together is all of the appeal codes or packages that you've already set up on NXT will be available on Almabase as a drop down list for you to choose from. So you're essentially just selecting the right, appeal code and applying them to donations that you have within the AmoBase platform. And the same goes for any custom fields that you use within NXT. Any custom field available on the NXT side is also gonna be available here within the AmoBase side for you to assign to any of these donations that you want to sync into NXT. And one last thing is that it is not mandatory for you to assign these right here on the Almabase platform. You can always wait for the donations to be synced into NXT and then apply these attributes on the NXT side or on the database view side. So that is gonna be how you assign your attributes and give your batch a name. Once that's done, you can go ahead and hit the start sync button, at which point, the system is going to start syncing these kits into the access center x d. This process usually takes a few seconds for the system to, complete this batch creation and moving those donations in. Since there's just 10 different gifts, it shouldn't take all that long. And you can see right here, the system has completed, sync into an XT. So if I jump into XT, head to gift batch entry, we should have the batch that we just created on our base, with those 10 different gifts within within races at NXT. So let's do a quick search for our batch name, and you can see right here, the batch shows up with the name that you give on our base as unapproved so that an admin can review that information and do financial reconciliation, before it's approved and committed into your database. And you can see all those donations assigned to the right constituent, all the information regarding those donations, like, what fund it was donated to, the amount, payment method, all those different options, shows within payment batch. So that is how you move donations that you process through Almabase back into races at GenexT as a payment batch. And for the final part of this demonstration, let's take a look at how events that you create on our base, flows into an x t, using the events integration. So for this, I've already set up an event, here within the our base platform. It's called the Regency Alumni Reunion Weekend twenty twenty five. I'm just gonna quickly jump into RacerSide NXT here just to show you guys that this event currently has not yet been synced into NXT. If I do search for the event name, you can see there's no record, in here right now. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna make a quick registration for this event. So this is an also an opportunity for you guys to see the auto mapping functionality. So here, I'm gonna use the same email address that was there on my constituent tracker to make registration so that the system automatically that, you know, understands that this is, the constituent so that the system automatically understands the, the constituent that's making the registration. So let's quickly fill out this information and make our registration. Let's also add in a company guest, to our registration. Let's bring Penny shirt, and also book a few tickets. Alright. So we have a $450 registration amount. So let's make a quick payment here. The reason I'm doing a registration right here is to show you guys how not an event, but also the registrations and the payments that you receive as part of those events close into NXT. Let's quickly make a payment here using a credit card. Awesome. So now we have a new event that we've set up on our base and the registration associated with it. Now if I jump into the guest tab here within the admin side, you can see my registration along with my accompanying guest showing up on the guest, tab here within the admin side. The reason I wanted to show this was because my registration, as you can see, has been automatically mapped by the system to my record within Blackbaud NXT. This is because I use the same email address. This goes for both your events as well as, the, the giving pages that you set up on our mobile base. Now before we sync this event set up, there's a few configurations that give some control to the admins on how you sync those events into NXT. So starting with the event configuration, this for this this is for those larger events that you do through Almabase. So where there's, like, multiple sub events, associated with the same event. And you want each of those sub events to also have its own individual record created, when it syncs into NXT. In such cases, you can tell the system to sync the main event and sub events as separate events into NXT. You can also use a different name for the event for, the user phasing side, which is on our own base. And when you sync it back into an x t, where you have a certain nomenclature process that you follow, for the events that you're running. The most crucial configuration, though, is the ticket configuration. So, there's both ticket registration fees as well as donations that you can process through the Almabase events platform. So how do you want these payments to flow back? Do you want all payments within a single registration to be pushed as one single donation? Do you want each ticket payment and gifts to be separated out? So if I make a $450 payment where $400 is a ticket payment fee and $50 is a donation. You can have that as two separate line items, where there's a line item that says a $400 ticket registration fee, and there is a line item that says, there's a $50 donation associated with that registration. There's a few others here that also gives you some more control. So if it's just a simpler simple event, maybe like a webinar, you can just move the RSVP status for guest or just the donations that you see as part of those events. If you do use attributes for your events as well, you have the option to assign appeal codes, packages, and campaigns directly to an event so that any payments that come through for that event has those attributes auto assigned for them. And finally, the guest configuration helps you choose how you want your accompanying guest to flow into NXT. We do understand that not always does accompanying guest have their own constituent record within the system. So even if they don't have the constituent record, you might still want that accompanying guest data flowing into Raiser's Edge, to the events module. So in such cases, you can tell the system the same guest even if there is no constituent record, at which point the system is just gonna create a guest record, for those users. So that is some of the configurations. Now let's take a look at how we can actually sync this event into Nxt. So similar to how we saw with the giving module, we have a guest dashboard for our events module, where you have the option to apply the filter for the events that you want to sync into NXT. This is a multi select field, so you do have the option to apply multiple events at the same time and then sync them all at once, into NXT. So as soon as I apply the filter here, you can see the table shows my registration and my accompanying guest right here. So the sync status right now is 0% complete. Let's go ahead and start sync by hitting this button right here. And you can see the system has started pushing guest information into NXT. Let's give this a couple of seconds so that the system generates that event as well as moves any registrations, associated with that event back into NXT. And you can see right here it's already complete. So if we jump back into NXT and do a search for our event name again, we should have a record right now. So you can see, the event record itself that you set up on the base side with all of the tickets and details, shows up within NXT with the same name, the date and time that you've set up, all of the tickets that you set up, and what their sale prices, how many of them have been sold yet. You can jump into the attending information and see who exactly have registered, who you invited, who checked in for the event. All that information you're collecting through our base is right here within NXT using that events integration. Now you can see my registration. And Akash, even though he does not have a record, his his details still comes into NXT as part of the guest record. If I open up my registration record here, you can also see information about my RSVP status, the total fees that I paid, what are the different kits that I purchased, and in what quantity, all that information, within that event. But you can also notice here that there's no payments right now. So the reason is that we do payments as separate steps. So, to do that, we have our gift dashboard right here. This allows you to sync any payments that you receive for events back into an x d as a payment batch, gives some more control, of those batches and those payments that are being committed into your database. So it's a fairly simple process. You just need to apply the filter for your event. And corresponding to the $450 that I paid as my registration fee, that is payment, when you apply the filter right here. So you can add these kits into a batch. Again, the same process for moving any donations that you receive, on the Almabase platform. If you have any attributes that you want to assign to any of these payments, you do have all of those options right here. But the process is fairly easy. You can add these to an existing batch or create a new batch altogether. I'm gonna create a new batch with the same name as our event, and let's go ahead and start sync. Now once this gift has been synced, it's gonna jump from new gifts to gifts awaiting approval, and it's already been synced. So let's go into n x t, into the gift batch entry, and we should have that payment batch with the $450, payment we made for our event. And you can see right here, the batch with, the right constituent assigned, with the payment that I've made for the event. And the process ends with you approving that batch, on the NXT side. That's when a link between the payment that you've synced into a payment batch and the event that you synced in the first step, has a connection made within the egress.gen x t system. So that is how Almabase and braces.gen x t integrates together for each of the modules that Almabase offers. There is also a few different other options where all of the emails that you're sending through the Almabase platform can be based off of a query that you're building on races at n x t. You can create dynamic or static queries and pull them into Almabase to send out your event invites, fundraising, solicitations, and newsletters. There's a bunch of options, there. And any engagement that you get on these bulk emails are also gonna be transferred back into NXT as actions so that when somebody opens an email or clicks a link within an email, that's being stored on their constituent record. And US Database Managers have the option to use those data points and build queries and use that data within your database. I think that helps give you a picture of how, base can push data into n x t and pull data from n x t to use on our base. I hope this was helpful. Thank you all. Alright. So a big thank you to our partners at Elmerbase for sharing that in-depth view on how the integration works. I hope you found that very helpful. We are very close to time, so any questions, please drop them in the q and a. You can also email your customer customer success manager at Blackbaud, or you can, contact Almabase directly for any questions that you have. Hope you really enjoyed today's session. We have plenty more coming. So please do register for the next couple of sessions that are rolling out in the following weeks. And again, if you need to revisit this content, you absolutely can. You'll get a recording in around twenty four hours. And then, of course, don't forget to check out the resources in the documents tab. Thank you all so much for joining. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks, everyone.