Is your data backed up every day (at least)? Too many people think that's all that's needed. Very wrong! We have seen on more than one occasion someone trying to restore their data only to discover that their backup was not readable or critical information was missing!
If you have not tested your restore procedure,
you do not have a backup procedure!
You should test and document your restore procedure. This ensures that you know what to do when crisis strikes. You should practice a full restore at least once a year and make sure that you test all critical business applications to make sure they work in your restored environment. It's better to practice your restores now. Take your backup media, go to a completely isolated computer, restore everything on it, and test your applications.
Remember, eventually, you will have to restore. It will happen to you, count on it.
Read part 2...
In August, we will be releasing some very significant enhancements to the leadership reports to include detailed churn information. Not only will you see the number of givers, number of increasing, decreasing, and flat givers overall and specific leader levels, but you will also be able to see the number of new, lapsed, renewed, and recovered givers and leaders.
Furthermore, the above statistical numbers will also be available for RUM dollars. So donors who have been giving $10,000 for each of the last 10 years but were designating all of it to agencies will show as flat givers. But if they now leave their gift undesignated or designate it to an impact area, they will be classified as new RUM givers.
The reports have been expanded to support up to 9 years on paper and 20 years in spreadsheet format.
Read Project 53241... sample reports are attached.
Service Pack 2010.03 includes very significant enhancements to the account search widget used throughout Andar. With this enhancement, you can just start typing the name of an account and a dynamic pop-up (similar to Google) will list potential matches as you type. Recently used accounts and bookmarks that match will appear first. Simply press enter to select the first account or press the arrow keys to select other accounts in the list. The F4 key will display the traditional search window. Note that SQL/2005 or above with full text search features installed are required to support the new search function. Andar will automatically use the traditional search if the requirements are not met.
Read Project 41890... screenshots are attached.
Service Pack 2010.03 includes many enhancements to surveys and Community Building forms. Forms and surveys will now be much easier to create (specifically, no need to create a table entry). The survey question entry has also been reorganized and simplified. We’ve also added new answer types to include a single text line (for things such as a name or few word entries). We added a condition where a question will appear based on the answer to another question.
Completing surveys will optionally e-mail a printed copy to a staff person. And soon, you’ll be able to link surveys to Andar Connector. This means that completing a survey will create a Connector import from the answers of the survey and automatically update various account fields directly in the Andar database.
We’ll also be enhancing i-Access so that resource development staff can complete surveys and automatically update their account information through the web using laptops or handheld browsers.
Read Project 53709.
Make your life a mission, not an intermission.
Arnold H. Glasgow
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