Nothing is more satisfying than doing the impossible. Often we are asked to find a way to create a query in Raiser’s Edge when either the records don’t have anything in common, or when the only thing they have in common is a field that is not available to select in the Query module.
The screencast below shows how you can “trick” the database into building a query for you by going out and back-in through the easiest import ever. Video is 9 minutes, but once you get the hang of this trick, you can set it up in 5 minutes and save yourself tons of time.
Best watched in full-screen mode — just click the four arrows in the bottom-right of video controller bar.
Though we love Viddler for our screencasts, there’s a new free + easy tool called Jingfrom TechSmith that may become our default choice for quick screencasts and support.
Previously, we used Camtasia or Camstudio (free) to record and edit (adjust audio, add callouts, narrations, etc.) and then we would upload the finished file to Viddler to paste into our Tips + Support blog, here.
Jing turns a multi-hour process into multi-minutes. The trade-offs for ease of use (and no-cost software) are:
1. Limited to 5 minute screencasts.
(but if you can’t explain something in a five minute screencast, a screencast may not be the right medium for the task in the first place)
2. Cannot edit audio or video.
(again if it is under five minutes, not such a deal-breaker, given that re-recording a 5 minute how-to is often easier than recompiling audio, adding callouts, etc.)
3. Overall limit for hosted videos on screencast.com (Jing’s partner) is 2GB for the free account.
Just to show how easy it was below is a mock screencast that was done with Jing. Total time from downloading Jing software, registering email to embedding on this blog = 9 minutes.
How To Video below shows how you can put data points on Google Maps for free (you really should make a donation to the gang at batchgeocode.com, though).
Jing rocks!