Today's tip: you can easily summarize the different columns in your database by clicking on the column header and selecting 'Summarize'. See the two images below for a how-to.

Step 1

Step 2

When working on an email it's useful to make sure your spelling is correct before hitting send (especially for large email campaigns that you're sending from your database).  To enable a spell checker you can follow these steps:

Step 1

Step 2

Have you cleaned up your duplicate records in a while?  If not, it's a good thing to do on a regular basis, especially if you have a lot of new data being added to your database.  Here's how:

Articles: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=search&qq=dupe&cat=0&con=0

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yue7DjNA_8

A new version of Trail Blazer is available for download: https://www.trailblz.com/software/ 

You'll need your Database Name the first time you login.  Please contact your database admin or tech support if you need yours.

Note: This is a special download, the first time, going from Version 6 to Version 7 because of some security changes requires a new download.

Today's tip: learn how to utilize a pre-build dashboard "metric" to track your donor retention rates.  This video shows how: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhECm2BpyF8

Important: We'll be rebooting our RDP server at 11:59 PM CT tonight.  This reboot should take about 15-30 minutes.  This will affect users running Trail Blazer on a Mac or through a remote desktop connection on a PC.

Trail Blazer turned 18 years old over the weekend.  We've come a long way since the company's inception back in 2002, and we're looking forward to what's to come!

You can read a brief history here: https://www.trailblz.com/About

Important: We'll be rebooting our RDP server at 5:00 PM CT today.  This reboot should take about 10-15 minutes.  This will affect users running Trail Blazer on a Mac or through a remote desktop connection on a PC.

It's that time of year where organizations that run on a calendar year will need to update their default cycle in their database, here's how: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=1358&cat=0&qq=cycle

Happy New Year everyone!

To kick off the new decade, we want to make sure that your entire team is setup for success with your Trail Blazer account.  One way to ensure this is to verify that all of your new hires, volunteers, etc., have been setup with their own unique login account, and that they've attended our free introduction training class (offered twice a week).

Setup a New User: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=67&cat=0&qq=user

Signup for Free Introduction Training: https://www.trailblz.com/LearningResources/Events

Happy New Year everyone.  Thank you for a fantastic year!  We look forward to even better things to come in 2020.

Note: Our office hours will be limited this week.  We'll be closed Tuesday afternoon (12/31) and all day Wednesday (1/1).

Have you configured your donation auto-responder so that your donors get a custom email acknowledgement when they donate through your website?  If not, learn how to do that here:

Article: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=329&cat=0&qq=responder

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQhVau54b48

Did you know that the owner of Trail Blazer is an avid table tennis player? Jim and his wonderful wife are also highly skilled ballroom dancers. Here's a video by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of MN that features them (Better With Age) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnc-uwRD-J8

It's that time of year for our nonprofit clients to begin preparing for year-end tax statements.  These resources should help to get you from a to b, but as always, please lean on our support team if you need a hand.

Article No1: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=246&cat=0&qq=year

Article No2: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=313&cat=0&qq=year

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUVSUTciwaU

Thanking supporters (whether that's donors, voters, volunteers, or anyone else) is absolutely critical to an organization's mission.

We have a variety of tools built into your Trail Blazer database that make this process streamlined.  You can learn more by watching the video and reading the article below.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj36El_dj00

Article: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=1379&cat=0&qq=thank

Good luck to everyone that has an election today!
We have a variety of tools and tips that will help you track votes and GOTV efforts.  Learn more here: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=search&qq=poll&cat=0&con=0

Read this article to learn about our company's roots, as well as a brief bio on our team members: https://www.trailblz.com/expert-articles/post/who-we-are-trail-blazer

Learn the ins-and-outs of attaching PDF documents to your mass email campaigns: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=search&qq=pdf&cat=0&con=0

It's national "Get To Know Your Customers Day" (yep, that's a real thing..), and we want to hear from you!

We hear from a lot of our customers on a regular basis as you dig into different parts of the Trail Blazer program.  Please make sure to reach out if there's something you need a hand with (or if there's something you wish we had in our desktop app or mobile apps)!

Support Phone: 1-866-909-8700 (9-5 M-F)

Support Email: support@trailblz.com

About a year or two ago we had a request from a customer to be able to add a primary contact person on an organization/company record.  This video shows how you can do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7niz44LmcQ

Tracking relationships in your Trail Blazer database has many uses. Learn how to link records together, and how to create your own custom relationship types: https://trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=343&cat=0&qq=relationship

Dear valued customers. Please give us a like and a follow on our social media accounts. This way you'll stay in the know while you're on the go.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrailBlazerCampaignServices/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrailBlazerSoft