Happy Friday everyone!
For today's tip we are talking about how to add attributes (questions) to your Trail Blazer donation form. This can be very useful for asking any number of questions from your donors, such as:
- How did you hear about us
- What would you like to volunteer for
- What type of email correspondence do you wish to receive
- What program(s) are you interested in
It's pretty easy to set this up and modify it over time. First, you'll create the attribute folder (question) and the attribute items (answers). This article shows how. Once the attribute folders are create, you'll need to right-click each one > select Properties > check the box for Display on Website.
You'll then go to System Manager > Settings > Website Configuration > Donations. In the lower-right of the Donations tab you can select which attributes to display, ex:
You'll then click the blue link at the top to refresh your website settings. Here's an example of the finished form:
As always, please don't hesitate to give us a call if you need a hand setting this up: 1-866-909-8700
Today's Pro Tip: accessing your 'saved search queries' on the Trail Blazer Basecamp app.
First: save a search favorite in your database.
Second: download our free app on your iPhone and Android devices.
Third: log in and access the 'favorites' section on your phone or tablet (example below).
Check out our new help video on how to geocode your address data in order to plot houses on a map 📍: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFKzMfqQU94
Check out our latest help video to learn how to configure email notifications for online web occurrences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7USh2wfoq6A
Householding your data is a very important piece in maintaining the relationships in your database. There are a few steps involved to complete this process. The video below walks through the preliminary steps to get your data in order, prior to running the household utility. Watch now.
Learning how to built and save Formats in your database is a critical tool for reporting purposes. This article walks through the steps: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=272&cat=0&qq=format
It's that time of the year again where many organizations need to update the default cycle / calendar year in their database. Here's how: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=312&cat=0&qq=cycle
Happy 2021! You'll soon be receiving an email from us with a checklist of items that you may want to dig into for the coming year. Here is the list if you would like to get a head start.
- all users have attended the free into training (register here)
- everyone has access to Trail Blazer on all devices (Mac, PC, tablets, and smart phones) (download center)
- integrate the Trail Blazer donation form directly with your website
- build an email template and send a mass email
- build a custom dashboard
- sell tickets and products with the event system
- schedule follow up training in any topic (free!)
Our hours of operation for this week and next:
- closed Christmas Eve (afternoon)
- closed Christmas Day
- closed New Year's Eve (afternoon)
- closed New Year's Day
Wishing everyone a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season.
It's been a couple of years since we've kicked off a reviews campaign with our customers. Many of you have already taken the time to write reviews on some of our different online listings, and we greatly appreciate that!
You can expect to receive a few emails over the next week or so from the team at Gartner Digital Markets. They will also be sending along an e-gift card for those that post reviews. If you would like to get a head start, here are the pages we are requesting both our political and nonprofit customers to write a review on. Thank You!
Capterra (Nonprofit): https://www.capterra.com/p/101648/Trail-Blazer/
Capterra (Political): https://www.capterra.com/p/55438/Trail-Blazer/
Software Advice (Nonprofit): https://www.softwareadvice.com/nonprofit/trail-blazer-profile/
GetApp (Nonprofit): https://www.getapp.com/nonprofit-software/a/non-profit-manager/
GetApp (Political): https://www.getapp.com/marketing-software/a/trail-blazer-campaign-manager/
For our nonprofit customers, it's time to start preparing your year-end tax statements. Getting a head start with building your templates with the appropriate text, merge fields, and images, will save you a lot of time when the time comes to generate and mail the letters to your supporters. These resources should help to get you from A to B, but please don't hesitate to contact our support team if you need a hand.
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUVSUTciwaU
- Article #1: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=313&cat=0&qq=tax
- Article #2: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=246&cat=0&qq=tax
We are migrating to a new server this weekend. The new server will improve performance and increase security (all good things).
You will not be able to access your database starting 9pm CENTRAL TIME on Saturday evening (12/12/2020). Assuming all goes well (there won't be any issues, right?) you will regain access around midnight.
ADVICE:
- Be sure EVERYONE is logged out of your database prior to 9pm CENTRAL TIME on Saturday.
- Be careful about eblasts scheduled on Saturday. The reason for this has to do with how the emails interact with our server in real time:
- Tracking of email opens will not work.
- Links will not work.
- Images will not display.
If you need an email to go out on Saturday, sending early in the morning will mitigate these issue.
Thank you for your patience as we make these changes.
We hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving!
Today's tip: take advantage of our NCOA refresh services to get the most up-to-date address record for contacts in your database. This can be done on your entire universe of contacts, or a specific segment. Our Additional Services page details the cost: https://www.trailblz.com/Support/AdditionalServices
To put in a request for this, please send an email to our Support Team: support@trailblz.com
We'll be able to provide you with a cost / time estimate, and an invoice.
Our office will be closed next Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving.
Wishing you all a safe and happy holiday season.
We have successfully replaced our phone system.
We ask for your patience as we work out the kinks and adjust to this new structure.
We are always available via email as well: support@trailblz.com
In observance of National Cyber Security Month (October): https://nationaldaycalendar.com/national-cyber-security-awareness-month-october/
We wanted to provide our customers with some tips for securing your database.
If you aren't yet taking advantage of our integrated donation form, we would love to help you get it setup! This form has many benefits:
- money is processed directly into your bank account
- the donor can stay on your website throughout the entire process
- the donor will receive a custom thank-you email
- the data will automatically be collected into your database
First, you'll need to activate a merchant gateway account that we integrate with: https://www.trailblz.com/Credit-Card-Payment-Merchant-Gateway
Second, you'll need to generate the iFrame code and insert it into a donation landing page on your website.
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYJOszM9CoU
- Article: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=214&cat=0&qq=iframe
Third, create a custom thank-you email responder:
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQhVau54b48
- Article: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=329&cat=0&qq=responder
Here's an example from our nonprofit demo site (feel free to test it with a fake credit card number): http://www.pandamonium.us/donateV2.html
The upcoming election is just a few short weeks away for many of our customers. Take advantage of our mobile poll watching app to track who has voted: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=304&cat=0&qq=poll
This will allow you to pull up your different precincts:
Flag a voter as having voted:
And search for them in your database by the attribute that gets created:
Give us a call if you need a hand setting this up.
For customers located in Colorado: the state voter database has been updated.
Tutorial for importing from a state db: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=335&cat=0&qq=state
This Knowledge Base tutorial walks through the steps to access your Trail Blazer database on your Mac computers via the free Microsoft Remote Desktop 10 application: https://www.trailblz.com/kb/?action=view&kb=1384&cat=0&qq=mac
It also digs into important configuration steps so that you can import and export between your Mac and Trail Blazer, as well as how to print to both your local printers and as PDF files.
Has your organization taken advantage of our free training program? If not, we highly recommend that every person that needs to learn the Trail Blazer software on your team attends our Intro Training Class: https://www.trailblz.com/LearningResources/Events
After you've completed intro training you will have access to ongoing tech support and further training in any topic of your choice.
The latest iteration of the Trail Blazer IQ web app is now available. Your team can access the login page here: https://trailblazeriq.com/admin/#/workspace
Please contact tech support if you need your workspace name.
Sneak peak:
