Best Practices in Raiser’s Edge Data Integrity Management PRESENTED BY NADINE FRANCIS

Gartner Group: “Data integrity must be viewed as a

strategic business issue, not an IT problem.”

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Pomona College • Liberal arts college established in 1887 in Claremont, California (35

miles east of Los Angeles) • 1,500 undergraduate students • Member of The Claremont Colleges (5,000 students) • Pomona College’s Advancement shop converted to Raiser’s Edge in

August of 2010. We now use the following: • Raiser’s Edge • Blackbaud NetCommunity • PaperSave • Blackbaud Business Intelligence (data warehouse) • ResearchPoint • Audit Trail and Validatrix • O-matic Software (Import-o-Matic and Record Radar) • Cognos • Tableau

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Why Worry About Data Integrity? • Impact of Poor Data Integrity:

• Trust issues

• Lack of confidence in data, systems, and staff • Poor relationship management • Inconsistent reporting

• Bad or delayed decision-making

• Low confidence in forecasting • Missed opportunities

• Loss of productivity

• Increased workloads • Decreased output • Decreased end-product quality

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“More than 50 percent of business intelligence and customer relationship management deployments will suffer limited acceptance, if not outright failure, due to a lack of attention to data quality issues.” Gartner Group, A Strategic Approach to Improving Data Quality

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“Poor data quality is threatening to undermine the massive investment being made in IT projects. In an environment that is increasingly based on information, institutions need to understand that the value of their enterprise relies on the successful management of their data. The key to this is an ongoing data quality strategy.” Tony Rodriguez, Avellino Technologies, Why Data Quality is Undermining Business Success

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“Individuals need to understand that accuracy is important to the institution and therefore, people who are responsible for data entry are important.” ERP: Making it Happen: The Implementers’ Guide to Success with Enterprise Resource Planning

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Have You Made These Mistakes? • Mail sent to Mr. Jane Johnson • Mail sent to a parent whose child was just dismissed • Record excluded as a result of an outdated or incorrect

constituent code • Pledge payment booked to an incorrect fund (and different from

the original pledge) • Child recorded as a parent • Email failed as a result of missing @ • Mail sent to France with a state of TX • Birthdate or deceased dates entered as dates in the future • Gift from donor advised fund recorded without soft credit to the

donor(s) • Individuals recorded with same mailing address, but are not

connected via relationship

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10 Steps to Developing a Comprehensive Data Integrity Program 1. Make a commitment to “perfect, clean and immaculate” data. 2. Recognize that there is significant potential for data entry errors

in Raiser’s Edge. 3. Develop guiding principles, sound business processes, and

clear data entry standards. 4. Embrace Murphy’s Law. If anything can go wrong, it will. 5. Audit your database changes. 6. Enforce standards at point of entry. 7. Identify a tool (or set of tools) for reporting errors. 8. Develop a suite of error-checking reports. 9. Implement a data integrity and error-checking program.

Determine how often each report will be run and by whom. 10. Organize and publish your reports.

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Step 1 MAKE A COMMITMENT TO

“PERFECT, CLEAN AND IMMACULATE” DATA

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Step 2 RECOGNIZE THAT THERE IS SIGNIFICANT POTENTIAL FOR DATA ENTRY ERRORS IN

THE RAISER’S EDGE • Redundant data • Multiple entry/detail screens • Few out-of-the-box audit reports • Few forced data entry requirements

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Step 3 DEVELOP GUIDING PRINCIPLES, SOLID BUSINESS PROCESSES AND DATA ENTRY STANDARDS

There are two types of errors: • Records that are just plain wrong

• Records that are wrong by your own definition

• What fields should never be left blank? • How will you format addresses, names, etc.

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Step 4 EMBRACE MURPHY’S LAW:

IF ANYTHING CAN GO WRONG, IT WILL

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Step 5 AUDIT YOUR DATA ENTRY CHANGES

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AUDIT TRAIL

Step 6 REINFORCE STANDARDS UPON DATA ENTRY

VALIDATRIX

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Step 7 IDENTIFY A SET OF TOOLS FOR

REPORTING ERRORS Look for: • Presentation options and flexibility • Exporting capabilities • Easy to deploy for others • You can do it!

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Step 8 DEVELOP A SUITE OF

ERROR-CHECKING REPORTS

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Field Possible Errors Last Name Last name in all capital letters Last name starts with a lower case letter Last name is one character in length Last name ends with a period Last name contains a period and the period is not followed by a space Last name is the same as first name Last name is the same as middle name Last name is the same as informal name Last name contains more the one space Last name contains more than one period Last name contains a comma Last name contains a special character Last name fields is embedded with the suffix Last name field is embedded with the title

BIOGRAPHICAL TAB 1

Click here

Click HERE for a sample list

Step 9 WORK WITH OTHERS TO IMPLEMENT YOUR

DATA INTEGRITY PROGRAM

• How often should the reports be run? • Who should run the reports? • Who is responsible for cleaning up the data? • Who will enforce compliance?

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Step 10 ORGANIZE AND PUBLISH YOUR REPORTS

• By subject area • By frequency • By staff member

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