VIP Processing is Your Fast Pass for Importing into Raiser’s Edge™
When I first heard that ImportOmatic® now offers VIP Processing, I was really excited. Finally, a way to say some of my records can whiz right past the interactive screens!
But then the reality sank in…when would I actually use this? Here are a couple scenarios I thought of, that could apply across a wide variety of organizations:
Post-NCOA updates
Address processing is one of the areas that can really slow down an import. This is especially true if you recently ran a change-of-address screening on your database, but your incoming data has not recently been updated. There may be old addresses coming in through the import, or matches based on messy formatting in the source data. We know we will always trust Raiser’s Edge in this scenario, so why not use a query to avoid it altogether? I can build a query of all addresses updated by the NCOA or validation screening, by either date last changed or attribute, and include that in my VIP settings. Then, I can set the address processing to skip any address changes on those records:
When only some records in RE can be trusted
One big advantage that universities have is that they can be confident that their student/alumni data that comes from the registrar is clean. Students are using their full names, birthdates, etc. to enroll, so there’s really not a need to review or even entertain such changes coming through later from another source, such as online giving or event registration. By using VIP Processing with an alumni query, I can tell ImportOmatic to skip over biographical changes on anyone flagged as an alum. All I have to do is make sure I’ve opted out of all bio changes:
This same logic can be used for any specific group of donors in your database. Perhaps your board members should never have their bio info changed in Raiser’s Edge, or your volunteers should always be updated to the latest information you’re importing. Don’t forget we also have Auto-Pick options for VIP Processing. This means we can set a particular group of constituents to always be either included or excluded from the duplicate matching Auto-Pick rules.
Finally, don’t forget – when you enable VIP Processing, you need to double-check all of the settings contained within it. For example, you may want your VIP options to only apply to the addresses. In that case, you’ll need to make sure your Constituent Field Updates and Auto-Pick rules match what you set for the general population of records.
