At the Blackbaud Conference (#bbcon) for the past two years, many clients grumbled under their collective breath that they feared Blackbaud would soon abandon their beloved Raiser’s Edge 7 and force them, kicking and screaming, into some new, more expensive, less suitable, horrible, evil platform. I must admit, I was a little fearful myself after #2012BBCon, as my life’s work wagon is now hitched to the Raiser’s Edge 7 star. This is not just my job anymore; as goes the Raiser’s Edge, so goes the Leading Edge -and my career. I wondered if my knowledge and expertise would become irrelevant, sooner rather than later.
Blackbaud heard those grumbles at #2012BBCon and shortly after the conference, addressed them head-on with a series of webinars, professing their continued, undying love for and commitment to the Raiser’s Edge 7. Still, I remained a little fearful. My fears began to subside late in 2012 with the release of the Raiser’s Edge 7.93. Blackbaud’s commitment to its flagship product seemed reignited. As a consultant (and a stockholder!), I was starting to breath a sigh of relief.
My breathing exercises continued as signs of eternal life for the Raiser’s Edge 7 appeared throughout 2013, including:
- The launch of Blackbaud Certified in the Raiser’s Edge (bCRE) program at #2013BBCon-why would they invest so heavily in a program to certify people in something they were secretly planning to abandon?? (I’m bCRE Pro, by the way
) - Continued patches and new functionality, including the long awaited mobile app-why waste their considerable talent on it if the Raiser’s Edge were a dying breed?
- The release of AppOmatic by Omatic Software -again, why would they waste their valuable resources enhancing a has been? These are smart people we’re talking about!
And now, with Blackbaud’s release of Patch 4 yesterday,for those of us who love the Raiser’s Edge, the good news continues into 2014 🙂 Highlights of this patch include:
- fixing something that was broken by the initial release of 7.93
- improving something that was added incompletely in the initial release of 7.93
Something that was broken by 7.93
Those of you who have heard me speak-and certainly all of my little lambs (my clients)-know that I am a gi-NORMous fan of using output queries from Reports and Mail as a starting point, then using that Query as a basis for a new Query to drill into the database further (Tools, Query Options, Record Processing, Select from query). Well, when 7.93 was originally released, for reasons known only to the code gods and underground gremlins, query on a query quit working.
Patch 4 reportedly fixes it!!!!! ♪♫♪ Hallelujah!!! ♪♫♪
Something that was added incompletely in the initial 7.93 release
At #2012BBCon, there was much fanfare about being able to rename headers in Export. (What? You don’t sit around calling your donors by their CnBio_Name?? Or thank them for giving CnSmryGft_1_Total_Gift_amount last year??? LOL). Well, with this latest patch release, Blackbaud admirably takes a mea culpa (that’s a “my bad” for you under 30 types), admitting that they missed the mark initially when they failed to invite Summary fields or one-to-many fields to the renaming party.
Patch 4 reportedly invited all fields to the renaming party!!! ♪♫♪ Hallelujah!!! ♪♫♪
Check out the further details of what Patch 4 addresses using your Blackbaud log- in here. These 2 fixes and enhancements are, in my humble opinion, the biggest news of the day!
So, a tip of the hat to Blackbaud for continuing to keep their finger on our collective pulse, and my heartfelt thanks to them for adding a few more years to the life of my career.
Keeping you on the Leading Edge,
