Event ticket items can now be private (not displayed on the web site)

If you are using Trail Blazer's event system for ticketing you may have had the need to be able to hide a ticket item from public view.  In the example below I want to hide the VIP complimentary pass ticket:  

 

When setting up the ticket I need only to set this checkbox: 

 

Your web page will not display the ticket item. 

Windows 10 fixes the large font issue

Many of our customers have their display setting to show fonts at 125% of "normal".  That has caused an issue in the Trail Blazer application where the attribute check boxes disappear.  This was a problem within the Windows operating system that was near impossible for us to correct without breaking many other things.  Windows 10 has come along and corrected their problem.  Since Windows 10 is a FREE upgrade from Windows 7 or 8, we HIGHLY recommend you make the upgrade.  We would recommend this regardless of the font size issue. 

 

Would you like to change your password?

 

When we provide credentials to our customers we assign the passwords.  We intentionally create random passwords to make guessing them more difficult.  Of course that also makes for a tough time remember the doggone thing.  If you have security access to your database, you can change your own password.  Click here to see how.  If you do not have security access you can request the change from us or from someone in your organization who does have that level of access.

Favorites - some of you have saved favorites with no criteria

In hunting down a problem for a customer earlier this week I found the source of the problem to be a saved search "Favorites" that had no criteria.  In effect it was saying to return ALL the records in the list as it had no filters.  

Yikes.  I wondered how many other saved searches had that same issue.  It turns out quite a few!

I have updated all my customers saved searches having this condition to include the following words:  

THIS FAVORITE WAS SAVED WITH NO CRITERIA - CONSIDER DELETING

Send Thank You Emails using Mass Email

I've learned that many of our customers are not aware you can use Trail Blazer to send thank you's en masse by email.  You can thank your donor for their most recent donation.

Some of your donors may have a preference for NOT receiving a paper thank you, but instead an email thank you.  The video below will show you how to do this.

 

Gateway search, fixes to the new financial system, search for allocation funds has been added to the contribution panels.

 

As more and more of you are relying on recurring donations initiated on your donation page (customers using Authorize.net or Vanco only), a means was needed for tracing the transactions back to the merchant gateway.

These column can be added to your format from the contribution list:

CustomerRef          
SettlementDate        
SubscriptionId        
SubscriptionIDString  
TransactionRefInteger
TransactionRefString  

 

The new search panel is shown here:

 

The get-next-check button is now working again in the financial system.

Printing of mailing labels from the contribution list has been corrected to work the INCLUDE column.

Searches for Allocation funds can be done from the contribution search panels.

 

 

Want to accept checks on your donation page?

If you use Authorize.net or Vanco as your merchant gateway on your donation page, you now have the option of adding payment by check (aka ACH) to your donation page.

   

If Vanco is your merchant gateway, you will need to complete a new application ensuring you only check mark the eCheck option:

 

 

 

Once completed you open your Payment Gateway configuration... 

  ...click the ACH eCheck checkbox and Save and Close.

 

Next you will refresh your website by opening the Website Configuration...

  

 ...and click the link to refresh your web pages.

Update to Invoices and Payments today

We have been working on a an update to the invoice and payment system for some time.  Our intention was to roll this out over time as customers needed it.  However, over the weekend we found an issue with the existing system that forced us to switch EVERYONE over to the new Invoice and Payment style.  We apologize for the abrupt switch.  The video below shows the new process:

 

DEFAULT FORMATS Yippee!!!!

I asked, I begged, I cried..

 ...and I finally got default formats.  

Now when you want a custom Format to be your default format, you can set it right from the Format button.

The new Format button looks like this when you click it:

<System Default Format> As it sounds.  This is the name of the format currently being displayed and is the system format.

Columns...  This is where you pick and choose your columns just as you did before.

Select pre-defined...  If you have saved formats in the past, you can load them from here.  Newly saved formats will also show here.

Save If you have a pre-defined report currently displayed and you make changes to it, this will save to the same format.

Save As... Select this to save to a new name an existing pre-defined report or the system default.

Assign as default... This is the really good stuff.  

 

 

A selected format can be set as your own personal default or the default for everyone.

 

This new feature is available EVERYWHERE the Format button is displayed, including from within a person's card (record). 

 

 


 

Also in today's release you can now check for duplicate email addresses. 

 

On the Search tool strip, you can find this in the File drop down menu.  It under Utilities->Find possible duplicates...

 

 

Note, this works ONLY on the primary email address column.

Are you still on the OLD style of our donation page?

If your donation page looks something like this...

 

 

...then you are missing out on the new version:

 

 

You will need to add 6 letters to your existing donation page iframe.  

Example.  My old donation page iframe code looks like this:

<iframe id="tbzframe" src="https://www.trailblz.info/DemoNonProfitMark/Donations.aspx" style="width:500px;height:1200px" frameborder="0" scrolling="yes" onload="scroll(0,0)"></iframe>

 

To utilize the new version you would add the colored text to your existing iframe:

<iframe id="tbzframe" src="https://www.trailblz.info/DemoNonProfitMark/Donations.aspx?ver=2" style="width:1050px;height:1600px" frameborder="0" scrolling="yes" onload="scroll(0,0)"></iframe>

 

 

One benefit if the new style is we can color match to YOUR web page.  In the example below, the block headings have been matched to the page banner color.

 

 

If you would like your donation page color matched to your site, first, be sure you are using ?Ver=2 version of the donation iframe, second, email us your donation page URL and we can match the coloring for you.

 

 

Log Searches Have Been Enhanced

Until our most recent version (yesterday), a search of log notes based on multiple log types meant a series of OR query panels to select the multiple log types.  You may now do this with checkboxes on a single panel.

Mobile Base Camp (Canvassing) Has Been Enhanced


 

 

Numerous people have been asking to be able to enter comments from the mobile canvassing tool.  Now you can:

 

 

 

Numerous people have been asking for a way to update a voter's phone numbers and email addresses from the canvassing tool.  Now you can:

 

 

 

 

Numerous people have been asking for a way to copy the answers from one voter in the house to all the members of the household.  Now you can:

 

 

 

 

 

Do you take recurring donations online?

Do you ever wonder if somebody has dropped off by reason of expired credit card or change of credit card?

The query below when pasted into the SQL tab on the contribution list will produce a list of those people who have given a recurring donation in the last 90 days but have not made one in the last 30 days. It will provide a means for you to determine those folks who may have dropped off for one of the reasons above that you may need to make further inquiries about.

 

/*

CONTRIBUTIONS LIST QUERY

The list may not contain unique donors, but should be what we are looking for

*/

((

-- who had a recurring contribution in the last 90 days...

(((TB010611.CL010568>=  Convert(datetime, Convert(int, GetDate()))-90   )) AND CL047343 IN (49220,49230,49221,49227,49222,49228,49223,49229,49224,49226))

 AND 

-- that was on a credit card...

(CL010582=3)

) AND (

-- where the donor has NOT contributed in the last 90 days

(NOT (EXISTS (SELECT CL010562 FROM TB010611 WHERE ((CL010595=TB008485.CL005500) AND (((CL010568>=  Convert(datetime, Convert(int, GetDate()))-30  )) AND ((CL010568<   Convert(datetime, Convert(int, GetDate()))  )))))))

))

 

 

 

 

In my database, I found 3 people that meet this criteria and I need to check with the donor to see about getting updated credit card information:

  

Pivots on Contributor Type

If you have ever tried to run a pivot report of contributions by contributor type, you would find that instead of the contributor type being spelled out, you got a numeric value.  If you add the ContributorTypeName (below) column to your list, your results will be more readable:

 

 

In my sample database my 2014 contributions are summarized by type:

FEC updates today

Added functionality to add FEC memo notes to loans.  

Added functionality to forgive loans to the campaign by using memo entries.

You Can Now Resize Your Images for Email Inside of Trail Blazer

We have rolled out to a few customers the new email editor.  It has a much improved image management system.

The video below is an 18 minute education in creating and sending an eblast from Trail Blazer.

(RDC users will need to copy and paste this URL into your host machine's web browser:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAAvHVxFHww&list=UUl4iw1X17Z7A5mEYDa5LABg   )

 

If you are not currently using the new editor and would like to be converted, send an email to support@trailblz.com requesting the change.  Be sure to include your customer name in the email.