Spring Cleaning Time

Spring Cleaning... many of us look forward to the results, but not to the effort involved, and anything that makes it a bit easier is a welcome addition to our toolkit.  In FundRaiser Basic, the Query feature allows us to gather records together, so that we can work with different segments of our database, and this feature can help with our database cleanup, as well.  In this month's newsletter the lead article features some suggestions by a leading consultant on "When to take names off your mailing list", based on various criteria.  And, while there are no methods to mark records globally in FundRaiser Basic, creating Queries can certainly help by focusing on only those records that need to be marked in one way or another.

You may not have noticed, but when you are on a particular tabbed page within a name record (Address, Codes, Notes, Gifts, or Statistics), you can still use the VCR-like buttons in the upper left of the screen (where you set the display order) to move from the current record to the next, or to the previous, record, while staying focused on the tabbed page you're currently viewing. Try it out, and you'll see. Notice, too, that you will move through the records in the display order, so Name Order usually works best to keep things in a natural alphabetical listing of names.

What this means is that you can focus on the page where you'll need to make a change, without having to go back to the Master List after every change.  For instance, let's say you've identified, through a query (and using some guidelines similar to what Kim Klein suggest), all those people who should no longer receive your mailings.  In another article some time ago, I suggested that you can mark records to be excluded from mailings by placing a period at the beginning of their zip/postal code (which allows you to subsequently exclude them by always including the criteria of postal codes 00001 thru 99999 in mailing queries).  If you have to do that to many records, simply set the query for those who should be so marked, then, starting with the first record in that list, go to the Address tab, put your cursor at the beginning of the Zip field, and enter a period (.). Save the change and use the right arrow next to the Display Order to move to the next record. You'll discover that the cursor is right where you need it, at the beginning of this new record's Zip field. Enter a period, Save the change, move to the next record, and repeat. This may not be a "global" change, but it's the most efficient way to change a lot of records in Basic.  

This can be used to stay on the Codes tab, for coding records that may need some future changes, based on responses (or lack of them) to targeted mailing. It can be used in a similar way for any tabbed page. Again, it's not a global change mechanism, but anything that can save a few keystrokes, or mouse clicks, can be a real time-saver when you have many records to modify.