ImportOmatic Supports Consent Records and GDPR Compliance

If you haven’t heard, the European Union is implementing increased privacy and communication consent laws under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that takes effect in May of 2018. GDPR will apply to any organizations interacting with European residents, and Blackbaud is treating its supporting update to Raiser’s Edge functionality as a world-wide feature.

When your organization updates Raiser’s Edge to version 7.96 Patch 8, you will have the ability to add Consent records to your constituents, including supporting business rules and code table functionality. There are a few related features, such as global changes, import, and query, that will not be available in Raiser’s Edge until some time this spring.

That’s where ImportOmatic can help! With versions 3.5.1.0 and higher of ImportOmatic, you can import Consent records!

Before starting, know your organization’s strategy 

If you haven’t done so already, you need to sit down as a team to understand your strategy for GDPR compliance (if applicable) and how RE’s new Consent records fit into that plan. It’s possible that you’ll need sign-off from other teams at your organization, or even your board, before implementing new business processes.

If you’re using Consent records, we think the following steps will be helpful:

1. Find out when your database will be updated to 7.96 patch 8  

Blackbaud Hosting is updating data centers one at a time, then the update will be made available for non-hosted organizations. To ensure you receive notification of the updates, check your Blackbaud Subscription Preferences

2. Configure Consent in Raiser’s Edge 

Once you’re on 7.96 patch 8, you’ll be able to start configuring all of the settings related to Consent. This how-to page will guide you through those settings.

3. Practice adding Consent to a test record in RE manually

Adding a record manually is a great way to make sure you’ve setup all of your business rules and code tables correctly. Plus, it helps you think through what fields will be needed in your import.

4. Prepare and test your ImportOmatic data file and profile

– Confirm that all Consent fields you want/need are accounted for in either the file or virtual fields.

– Confirm that all Consent values match RE (or are translated to RE-approved values via dictionary)

– Test your import with a small set of records and verify the results. RE does not allow for query/global change based on Consent yet, so rectifying a large group of incorrectly-imported records will require either reverting to a backup copy or manually removing each record.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What happens if you don’t have the fields and values correct in the import?

Scenario 1: Fields don’t match a business rule

Raiser’s Edge will add the Consent record without adding/removing the solicit codes properly. This bug will be fixed in a future patch to Raiser’s Edge.

Scenario 2: Optional fields are blank (ex: Category)

If your business rules include a set to account for “blank” Category, the rules will apply properly. If your business rules do not include a set to account for a “blank” Category, and your import does not contain a Category value, Raiser’s Edge will add a consent record without applying a business rule at all. It essentially treats an unexpectedly missing/blank Category the same as Scenario 1 above. This bug will also be fixed in a future patch to Raiser’s Edge.

Scenario 3: Required fields are missing/blank

There are three required fields: Channel, Consent Date, and Response. If any of these fields are missing/blank, the import exception message will let you know which field needs correction:

“Cannot insert the value NULL into column ‘CHANNEL’…”

“Cannot insert the value NULL into column ‘CONSENT_DATE’…”

“Cannot insert the value NULL into column ‘RESPONSE’…”

What if I need to import more than one type of Consent record to a constituent?

You can! You may either include multiple rows of data per constituent, or you may map multiple Consent records using field grouping (like relationships, actions, etc.)

What if I need to edit an existing Consent record?

Raiser’s Edge does not allow an existing Consent record to be edited, by design. Supervisor users can delete the incorrect Consent record manually. Global correction functionality will be added in a future update to Raiser’s Edge.

Can I add Consent records to (nonconstituent) List Management records?

Yes! You can add Consent to any of your List Management profiles, just make sure to follow the same preparatory steps for Raiser’s Edge that we’ve outlined above.

For more information about this and other ImportOmatic improvements, make sure to follow the ImportOmatic Updates forum!