Community Building Tag Archive

HTML Formatting on Community Building Forms

CB Forms have historically had problems when a user copies data from a word processing document, pastes it into a text cell and then attempts to save or submit the form. The code validating information in the input fields has been modified recently to remove HTML coding — other than standard paragraph breaks — from the pasted text to reduce difficulties for customers and web users where logins were disabled due to “hack attempts.”

Read more in this project in Customer Support.

See Project

Community Building: Agency Level Volunteer Evaluation

Andar/360’s Community Building module now allows you to create volunteer evaluation forms at the Agency level. Previously these evaluation forms could only be created at the Program level.

Don’t forget to review the project in the Andar Support Center to see some great ways to take advantage of this new functionality and use these evaluations to improve your application process for funding your Agencies.

Thank you, United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, for assisting and helping support this enhancement.

See Project

Campaign Years (and Community Building Years)

Does your Andar database contain giving history for a campaign year that is more than 15 years ago – i.e., 2002 and earlier? Have you ever wondered how you can pull that ancient data into an Andar Report or a Data Mining Operation? After all, the oldest option available in a “Campaign Year” drop-down list is “*15 Years Ago (2003)” (assuming your system preference says your current campaign year is 2018).

Plus, have you wondered why your Community Building data gets stored as 2018 data instead of 2017 – or 2017 instead of 2018?

When you are running a campaign or finance report, and it asks for a Campaign Year, you are prompted to pick a Campaign Year from a drop-down list. That drop-down list typically contains options that start with asterisks (*) – such as “*Current Year (2018),” and “*Previous Year (2017),” and “*Next Year (2019),” and “*15 Years Ago (2003).” The years in this drop-down list are relative to the Current Campaign Year that is defined inside your System Preferences (Campaign – General). If your system preference Current Campaign Year is 2018, then the Previous Year is 2017, and the Next Year is 2019, and 15 Years Ago was 2003.

However, when your organization performs the Campaign Rollover process (typically sometime between January and May), the Current Campaign Year in system preferences gets changed – from 2018 to 2019, for example. From that point on, the relative years in the Campaign Year drop-down list have different meanings. The Current Year is then 2019, and the Previous Year is then 2018, and the Next Year is then 2020, and 15 Years Ago is then 2004.

If you Save a Report or a Data Mining Operation that selects a Campaign Year using one of the relative years, then after the rollover, that report or data mining operation will reference a different year’s data. The columns that formerly showed you 2018 data will then show you 2019 data. The columns that formerly showed you 2017 data will then show you 2018 data. Etcetera.

The answer (to retrieving data that is more than 15 years old) is to NOT use the relative years from the Campaign Year drop-down list. Instead, replace the value from the drop-down list by typing the desired 4-digit year right on top of the relative year. For example, highlight the “*Current Year (2018)” that is seen in the Campaign Year field (without actually clicking the drop-down), and manually type “2002” (if you want to see data from campaign year 2002).

That also means that if you want to Save a report or DMO that will always show you the data from campaign year 2018 (regardless of whether the current campaign year is 2018 or 2019 or 2020), simply type the 4-digit year 2018 into the Campaign Year field (before you save the report or DMO).

The same feature is used inside Community Building. The CB Package details contain prime examples.

In Andar’s system preferences (Community Building – General), there is a separate field for the Current CB Year. (It is different from the Current Campaign Year). When you place items into a CB Package, there is a drop-down field for the CB Year. You may either choose a relative CB Year from that drop-down list, knowing that it will mean something different after you perform the CB Rollover, or you may manually type a 4-digit year into the CB Year field on the package detail item.

As long as you are aware of when your Rollovers are performed, and aware of the impact of your Year selections, you can successfully use either method – the relative years, or the manually-entered 4-digit years.

Sign in to Customer Support to read more about this in a customer project.

Take Me There

Are You Using the Community Building Web Module?

Are you getting frequent phone calls or e-mails from Agencies, asking you to reset an item in their CB Package, because they accidentally Submitted it instead of just Saving it?

Are they pleading “Help!,” because they need to add more info, or update their answers?

You can easily put an end to those phone calls. Simply add a web option that allows the Agencies to reset the status of their own CB Package item from “Completed” to “Outstanding.” Then, as long as the Package Due Date has not passed, the Agency web user can make their desired changes, and you don’t even have to pick up the phone or reply to an e-mail!

The web option is named “Allow Reset Completed Item Back to Outstanding,” and it is found inside the Web Option Group named “Community Building.”

Tell Me More

Put Documents Into CB Packages

Community Building users: Did you know that you can add a Document INSIDE a CB Package?

You can specifically name each Document that you want your agencies/programs to give you. They can upload the document from their computer, and it can be stored on their account profile in Andar, on the General tab > Documents sub-tab.

Since the Document is listed inside a CB Package, the agency/program knows when you specifically want that document!

Get Step by Step Instructions

Why Does My Report Say, "Achieved: No"?

If you have the Allocations and Outcomes module (also known as Community Building), you may have seen some of your reports contain, "Achieved: No" in them.

The reason for that is because the value for "Achieved" is not automatically determined by, nor automatically updated by the software. It's also not a value that your agencies/programs can provide for themselves. It's up to you, and your staff, to decide if the program has achieved its goals (on a per-indicator basis). If your organization wants to use the "Achieved" field, it is up to you to set the answer on every Indicator from your agencies/programs.

Get More Details

Automate Your Volunteer Application Process

Organizing large groups of volunteers can be challenging if you don't have a system in place to help you process all the applications and the documentation that goes along with it. See how the United Way of Midland County in Michigan mastered the task and saved hours of time by using Workflow Plans.

Read Success Story

Which Font Should I Use?

The latest fonts used by United Way, according to the latest brand guidelines, are called ‘Roboto’ and ‘League Gothic.’ You can load these fonts using your styles to override other fonts for emails/Articles/e-Pledge etc. You will be able to load them into your Andar Stylesheets and apply them to almost any element. (Heading, Paragraph, List, etc.)

To download the fonts visit: 
http://theleagueofmoveabletype.com/league-gothic 
http://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto 
http://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto+Condensed 

Typography.png

Let us know if you have questions or need a hand!

Update your website look

Is your e-Pledge or other Andar web tools mobile friendly? Does your site match your public website? Core changes to e-Community and e-Pledge, specifically internal code structure, were made to accommodate more flexible mobile skin designs and to better support accessibility as well as multilingual design. We have released two built-in mobile skins based on the United Way Worldwide design, one in blue and the other in red.

Don't wait, we can help you migrate your old e-Pledge sites to the new mobile responsive look. Call our help desk today to schedule your move... call toll free (877) 479-3780.

Campaigns will come up fast!

New Red Look

New Blue Look

Project/Process Management and Andar/360

Andar/360 plans is a project management tool all users have access to. A plan is a group of things to do (tasks) that are required to reach a desired goal.

For example, an Employee Campaign Plan might consist of procedural steps (tasks) that are used to solicit donors within a workplace:  Introductory email, CEO Call, ECC meeting, Employee Rally, Thank You Rally, and ECC turning in Pledges. These tasks are often performed by different individuals and on different days. All of the tasks are attached to one account - keeping straight where in the process you currently are with one particular account.

See them in action.

Contact Eric to learn more and to find out how we can help you create plans.