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Crystal Reports, RE NXT · March 7, 2019

NXT Yourself

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“As a DBA, I spend 100% of my time in database view and when my Director or MGO have questions about NXT and I can’t answer them, I look like an idiot.”

What if — via an actual ‘single-click’ — you could get your database administrator and gift processor to start using RE NXT more and more by leveraging something as familiar as a Gift Detail and Summary Report?

Well, you can. All you have to do is grab your tenant id from your RE NXT url and mash it together with a system record id field and you’ve got yourself single-click links that launch directly into RE NXT in a new tab in your default browser.

It would look something like this:

The only code you would need would be three formulas in your crystal report…

Constituent links:
// Formula creates link to list donor's Constituent Record in RE NXT web view
// NOTE: Replace provided "?tenantid=526...." with your own
"https://renxt.blackbaud.com/constituents/"& ToText ({GfCnBio.GfCnBio_System_ID}, 0, "") & "?tenantid=5269d073-21a6-43fc-9b6b-122a9b547b37&svcid=renxt"

Gift links:
// Formula creates link to listed gift in RE NXT webview
// NOTE: Replace provided "?tenantid=526...." with your own
"https://renxt.blackbaud.com/gifts/"& ToText ({Gf.Gf_System_ID}, 0, "") & "?tenantid=5269d073-21a6-43fc-9b6b-122a9b547b37&svcid=renxt"

Assigned Solicitor’s Portfolio links:
// Formula creates link to assigned solicitor's Portfolio page of assignees in Work Center/Portfolio in RE NXT Web View
// NOTE: Replace provided "?tenantid=526...." with your own
"https://renxt.blackbaud.com/fundraising/workcenter/fundraisers/"& ToText ({GfCnRelSol_1Cn.GfCnRelSol_1Cn_System_ID}, 0, "") & "/portfolio?tenantid=5269d073-21a6-43fc-9b6b-122a9b547b37&svcid=renxt"

If I were Blackbaud and looking for a way to bridge the RE NXT vs. Database View divide, I’d think about programmatically adding these links (at least to constituent’s name) to every Gift Detail and Summary Report available.

The divide is real …

… and I think this type of custom report with live links to RE NXT could go a long way towards narrowing that divide.

How? Since Database View requires logging in via Blackbaud ID, the RE NXT links will open directly in new tabs in any user’s default browser. If you have two monitors, you could have the report open on one monitor (links work from inside embedded custom crystal report in database view and also from exported PDF version of report) and a browser open on a second monitor. Clicking a link on the report or a pdf immediately launches a new tab in the browser and opens the corresponding record in RE NXT. It would be faster than searching for the constituent in database view because you don’t even have to type a name.

Here’s a link to a PDF of the exported custom crystal report with active links:

Weekly Gift Activity Report – Custom RE NXT Links

! NOTE: You can hover and see the links in action, but when/if you click them, you will get the error message that you are not mapped to this tenant [naturally, hopefully?].

Here’s the gift export you would need to build in order to make this work:

Here’s a link to a public Google Drive folder that contains the Custom Crystal Report, the MDB file, a sample exported PDF, and screenshot of the gift export you need to build if you want to do this on your own:

Custom Weekly Gift Report Resources

! NOTE: A custom crystal report like this would normally cost $1,500 – $2,000 when all is said and done. I’m glad to give it away if it helps get more folks using RE NXT, but it and all these resources are free, provided as is, with no warranty or support. If you want a paid version with support, feel free to reach out but that is not the point of this post.

Lastly, if you are brand-new to custom crystal reports inside of Raiser’s Edge….

Here’s a screencast with an overview and a crash-course walk-through on how you can build this yourself:
(Watch full screen for 1080p HD)


! NOTE: Screencast above recorded in Environment in Blackbaud’s “Cloud Hosting” powered by Azure. If you are not already in Azure, get there as soon as you can.

Of course, if you’d rather this get built for you, just say the word.

RESOLVED

Filed Under: Crystal Reports, RE NXT

Graham Getty

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Matt Clemmens says

    March 11, 2019 at 8:28 am

    Love this Graham. Had been using this back door into NXT records for the past several months in a handful of reports, and I love the clear documentation you’ve pulled together. If only my end users could run these custom reports that I’ve spent hundreds of hours building from the NXT interface…

  2. Graham Getty says

    March 11, 2019 at 10:05 am

    Glad it helps. No way [yet? ever?] to run crystal reports from RE NXT the way you can from FE NXT (I wish you could), workaround is to use RE:Queue to run, email custom report as PDF. Since the RE NXT links continue to work in PDF, users can just get the reports every morning, every Monday, every whenever and then just click to view details in RE NXT – no database view need for readers – just original report builder / DBA.

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