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REAL solutions for The Raiser's Edge™

How To

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How To, Raisers Edge™ ·

How To Run Meaningful Parent Class Analysis Reports

The standard Parent Class Analysis Report in The Raiser’s Edge is fantastic. It quickly gives you statistics and donation totals for each group of parents based on their child’s class year. Unfortunately, the report is purely parent-based. When parents divorce, the report now treats each parent as a separate household for percent participation.

This is problematic because you have no way to remedy divorced parents (married parents can either have the spouse entered as a non-constituent or be soft-credited for the gift of the other parent).

To resolve this, and return the report to participation rates and funds raised based on if either / any parent of a student gave, you need to be able to exclude non-donor parents if the non-donor parent’s former spouse has given. It takes two three queries and a nested VLOOKUP formula in Excel, but here’s a screencast that shows how to remove those “extra” non-donor divorced parent households…

 

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How To, Raisers Edge™ ·

Install SQL 2008 R2 Express to work with Raiser’s Edge

! 4 Important Disclaimers !

1. I know next to nothing about SQL, Network Administration, and Windows Security, but a lot about Raiser’s Edge and getting a test environment up and running. Proceed at your own risk, but you really should be able to do this without your IT Department or paying a consultant (even me — but if you want to spend the money, just say the word).

2. The instructional how to video is looooong (1 hour) but shows exactly how SQL 2008 R2 Express with SP1 can be made to work with Raiser’s Edge on a Virtual Machine in the cloud (instructions would also work for physical machine).

3. If you end up using the Amazon EC2 method for a virtual machine in the cloud and you STOP and START your instance, be sure to Detach the RE database from the Blackbaud Management Console (BMC) before stopping the Amazon instance as stopping and starting the Amazon Instance causes the machine to be renamed and thus your sql server instance to be renamed and will not work on restart if left attached in the BMC.

4. Some of these instructions were originally from Blackbaud, some from Microsoft, I’ve edited and compiled them here to try to put all the resources in one place. Omission and editing errors are, no doubt, mine.

Step by step how to video [click view full screen by clicking computer screen icon when you hover over bottom-right of video for best view] is at the end of these instructions…

How to Install SQL 2008 R2 Express SP1 on Windows Server to work with Raiser’s Edge

1. Make sure Windows machine has .NET framework 2.0 or higher – you can download for 3.5 SP1 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=22

[Download and install – if you’re not sure if you need it Windows 7 already comes with .NET 4 or you can always go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Program [xp] or Uninstall Program and look for the .NET framework there. It will be alphabetized under “M for Microsoft .NET framework. ]

2. Download SQL 2008 R2 Express SP1 with advanced tools here:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=26729

[Download and install as follows:

–> Name instance something useful like SQL08ER2

–> Use mixed mode SQL and Windows

–> Create and Write Down the sa [SQL Administrator] Password

–> Once installed go to Services on machine [START –> Computer (right click and select manage, then select Configuration –> Services] and change all sql services to run locally (not under NT)

–> Launch SQL Server Management Studio and make sure you can log in to your instance and that version number is 10.50.2500 (or higher)

–> Make sure both NAMED PIPES AND TCP/IP are enabled

 

SQL Server 2008 R2 Express:

  1. Go to Start, Programs, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, Configuration Tools, SQL Server Configuration Manager
  2. Expand SQL Server Network Configuration, and highlight Protocols for <InstanceName> (where <InstanceName> is the name of the SQL Instance which you created earlier “SQL08ER2” )
  3. Verify that TCP/IP and Named Pipes are enabled. If they are not, right click on each protocol, and select Enable

–> Enable xp command shell:

SQL Server 2008 R2 Express:

  1. Connect to your SQL Server 2008 R2 Express instance using SQL Server Management Studio.
  2. Right-click the SQL Server 2008 R2 Express instance and select Facets.
  3. In the Facet drop-down list, select Surface Area Configuration.

–> Grant view Server state to all users groups in SQL

    1. Go to Start, Programs, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, and select SQL Server Management Studio
    2. Connect to the appropriate SQL instance, and open <servername>, Security, Logins in the Object Explorer pane
    3. Right-click on the appropriate user or group, and select Properties
    4. Highlight Securables on the left-hand pane
    5. On the right-hand pane, click Add [for 2005] or Search [for 2008]
    6. In the Add Objects dialog box, select ‘The server <servername>’ option and click OK

  • Scroll to the View Server State permission, and check the box in the Grant column

  • Click OK

    • ]


    3.     Download Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility Components here (scroll down page to find):

    http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=3522

    [Download and install with all defaults]

    4. Install Raiser’s Edge 7.91.50

    5. Install latest Raiser’s Edge patch

    6. Launch Blackbaud Management Console and browse to .BAK file or .ZIP file to attach.

    ! NOTE ! : BE SURE TO USE THE OPTION “ANOTHER SQL INSTANCE” AND NOT THE BLACKBAUD DEFAULT / RECOMMENDED.

    7. Reattach and adjust file locations if necessary, then wait for attach / restore to finish.

    8. Launch RE and Log in!

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    Crystal Reports, How To, Raisers Edge™ ·

    Crystal Reports 11 Database Same As Location

    Note: If you are looking for my article about The Womyn of Blackbaud click here.

    For years I stayed with Crystal Reports version 8.5 instead of moving to Version 11 for two reasons: [1.] I hated having to manually change all my links to left outer joins. [2.] More importantly I thought version 11 removed the ability to set a relative reference for your database file to make it the same as your report location.

    Well, shame on me — at least for the second part. Crystal Reports 11 DOES let you set a relative reference to make your database file the same as your report so you don’t have to worry about everyone having the same network resource mapped to the same drive letter on her/his computer.

    Here’s a how to video showing how to set your database (MDB file) to be the same location as your report (RPT file). Enjoy….

     

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