Blackbaud eTapestry

Kommentare: I have been working in communications and development for non-profit organizations for more than 15 years. I have been using eTapestry for 2 years. I have experience with a variety of other donor management tools including Blackbaud's The Raiser's Edge. eTapestry is strong in regard to contact management, processing online gifts, and the reporting/query tools. The expense as well as the email communications and analytics are where it falls short.

Vorteile: Entire system is very easy to learn no matter the experience level
Managing donor records and online gifts is very easy
Reporting and query tools are easy to use even for those without a lot of experience building queries
clean, user-friendly interface
excellent customer support
simple data entry & gift processing
online giving pages import gifts directly to database, helping teams avoid manual entry & the pages can be reskinned to match your website design
easy to mass import records

Nachteile: expensive, especially having to pay for Advanced emails & paying an hourly fee for minor changes
eTapestry support must be requested for an array of minor tweaks to giving pages for example and it usually takes several days to up to 2 weeks to get changes finished
communications templates are inflexible and look extremely dated, often the preview of a communication you see on your screen is not how it looks at delivery, very limited analytics tools and delivery/testing options
as far as I know there is no ability to export from eTapestry to QuickBooks which means gift processing team must reenter gifts manually into QuickBooks
while it has the ability to provide personal fundraising pages, they are highly inflexible and the layouts look so dated they are almost not worth using

Kommentare: Overall, it's a good program for the price we pay, but if it was any more we would change to a more user friendly system. The most important thing with eTap is to make sure that you have an employee who is familiar with database administration otherwise it is very easy within eTap for data to be misrepresented. In summary, if you don't have a big budget, it's a good way to get your feet off the ground, but I wouldn't look at it expecting a 5+ year/long term solution.

Vorteile: First of all the price for our organization is fantastic, after shopping around for a new database management system, we have found nothing close to what we are currently paying. eTap has decent functionality after you learn how to use it; once you master the basics, it has the flexibility to store just about any data that you need as long as you are willing to get a little creative in how you organize the data. The ability for the data base to be directly integrated into our website and Quickbooks is also a great feature that minimizes potential lost memberships and corrupted data.

Nachteile: The hands down most frustrating part of the program is that you can't have multiple tabs open within the same browser with eTap. In order to have eTap open on two different tabs, you must use a different web browser and a different login ID, which becomes a complete and total pain. It is also not the easiest program to learn and train new people on. Often we want volunteers to work on data management for us but that is really only possible if the volunteer or intern is with us for at least three months so we an spend the time training them on the program.

Kommentare: I have been impressed with the solid support team eTapestry has. The online chat has been very helpful to me, and the specialists I have chatted with have always been knowledgeable.

Vorteile: eTapestry has lots of power to get things done. It is cloud-based, so there is no need for the user to worry about upgrading the software or backing up the data. Queries are very easy to produce, and exporting the results in reports, PDFs or excel is a snap. You can design your own forms so that your website can talk to eTapestry easily. eTapestry works equally well on desktop computers, tablets and cellphones. This is very helpful for fundraisers who are on the road.

Nachteile: If you are downsizing from a more robust package such as Raiser's Edge, be prepared for a loss of flexibility - for example, queries in eTapestry lack some of the power that Raiser's Edge has. When comparing what you get "out of the box" with some other solutions, you will find that in order to keep costs down for the average user, eTapestry is very basic. To add in eCommerce, donor logins, advanced email, etc these are available, but as an add-on pricing. This can make it more expensive than other products that have all these features to start with, so you should be aware of what your real needs are before committing to eTapestry.

Vorteile: The eTapestry system is by far the best we've ever used. There are many things to like including: the dashboard with its sophisticated look that integrates all of the important information in on place, which makes it simple to focus on important things like delivering programs. Our old system didn't work well, especially when we needed to pull information from it. Reporting in eTapestry is quick and it looks really professional. So far, everyone we've had to provide information to, such as accountants, counselors, and so forth, are really impressed with how the information is presented to them. Last but not least, the diy forms are a godsend. They've raised us to a whole new level in regards to our tax receipting, registration forms, and mail outs! Perhaps the greatest thing we've enjoyed using eTapestry is the caliber of service we've received from every member of the team.

Nachteile: So far there's nothing we don't like, but I do have some suggestions. First of all, for the diy forms, we are using one for program registrations that have a fee - the donation form seemed to be the best fit. It would be ideal for us if we could either change the wording from "donation amount" and "donation frequency" to "payment amount" and "payment frequency", or provide us with the options for wording because we don't want those who are registering to be confused about the fee because it's not a donation. Secondly, in the diy forms, where we have multiple options for users to check off, it would be ideal if we could create columns so that the form isn't too long. Finally, because we are using some of the diy forms for program registrations and we deliver programs to families, it would be ideal for us if we could have a form where participants could put in the names of their family members and those names would generate separate constituents in the database. For instance, a mother signs up for a program with her two kids. All have the same contact information, but the health information is different for all three. Currently, people have to do the form several times - once for each family member.

Vorteile: Data conversion from ResultsPlus was excellent. The specialist worked with us to make sure all the data was correct and matched or improved upon how it was organized. The process also helps you become familiar with the software. So, once completed, we were able to start using without much disruption.
We've been successfully using it for over a year. Overall, it is user-friendly, with great support. Our account manager is wonderful and helps with issues/questions; checks up from time to time. Online resources/tutorial great and help navigate some of the learning curves with reports, mailings, etc.

Nachteile: We got an odd impersonal e-mail with a link to view our invoice.It would be nice to be able to pull it up online via our Blackbaud Account Site. Support was slow when we had a question with invoice and not easy to manage/review.
Not the best for e-newsletters - it's a little clunky to design with limited templates. We stayed with Constant Contact, but there are good integration features with eTapestry.