[odb-help] Lots of Questions Answered!

[Rich Cowan]

Dear ODB Users:

   It was a busy week, because OC is about to have our
   annual BIG EVENT.  This means that we are really not
   changing the software much right now.  The version we
   have available works pretty well, and most people are
   happy with it.

   If you want to go to our BIG EVENT in New Haven, it
   is taking place in just TWO weeks.  It is the 4th annual
   conference on "Grassroots Use of Technology."  Details:
    http://organizenow.net/conference.html

   Below is the news for this week.

   Read down to the bottom for answers to 4 ODB questions.

-rich cowan




ODB NEWS

1) Last week, our intern Jennie Charoenpitaks completed an update to the ODB
"Frequently Asked Questions."  This is the first of several documents that
Jennie and volunteer Tim O'Leary will be updating.  The FAQ had a number
of references to "future" features which actually are "history" right now.

Please use the following URL to view the update:
http://www.organizenow.net/odb/odbfaq.html


2) We verified with 2 groups that the 0.9.3 version now available works on
Windows 95 again!  This means it should also work on Windows NT.

3)  We made an second important fix to the software on May 29.  We
noticed that when importing large files, if you held down the Enter key
to skip lots of duplicates (instead of clicking the OK button or slowly
pressing the Enter key), the import function would restart from the
beginning.

The new version no longer has this problem, which has driven a few people
batty trying to import their files.

4)  A big new feature added with the initial 0.9.3 release was the
ability to edit a gift in the payment history window (by double clicking
on it).  However, an astute user noticed that ODB would reset the
donation category when you did this.  On June 3 this was fixed.  We
verified with the user that it now works!

5)  Two people reported difficulty installing ODB in Windows XP.  It
appears that both of these problems were a user error that could be
fixed pretty easily.

6)  One person had difficulty running the program to install database
drivers needed by ODB on their Windows 95 system.  We would like to
redo the database driver installation program so it does not fail on old
versions of Win95 (our initial attempt needs some testing and debugging).
If anyone has expertise in this we could use some help. This only
affects 1% of ODB users but 1% of 3500 downloaders is significant.


ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

1)   I'm wondering how to select the payment history option when using
the groups category.  I know you can do it for people, but this button is
not available on the groups setting.  is there any way to enable this function?
thanks,
Olive (fundraiser, North Shore Women's Centre)

A:  The answer is that we assume that any payments entered will be
associated with people, even if the people entered are really contacts
at an organization.  And the other part of the answer is that the linking
between people and groups will become much more defined and
user-friendly in version 1.0 of ODB, to be released in final form this fall.

You can associate a group with a "sponsorship" payment, but this
is just a single field and you cannot record a sponsorship history this way.



2) I set up a template with issues codes like "AB" and "CC" and it
did not work.

A:  Normally templates in ODB are created by modifying codes from
within ODB.  If you edit templates in NotePad you must take care
to observe the same restrictions that ODB enforces on tracking
code format.  One of these is that all issue, constit, and activity
codes must consist of a letter followed by a number.


3)  I tried importing comma delimited data and it did not work.

A: We are aware that comma delimited importing is not as reliable
as tab delimited importing.  We are going to address this soon,
now that other import issues have been resolved.  Feel free to
send us sample data from your files so we can make this feature
better.  As a workaround, try to save your data in a tab demited
form before importing.


4) I noticed duplicates after I imported data.

A:  The 0.9.3 duplicate checking is not good about catching
duplicates that are consecutive in the file.  As a workaround, you
can sort your file (if it is a spreadsheet, for instance) in a fairly
random order, not by zip code and last name.

Or you can request version 0.9.3x, which is an already-developed
and tested version of ODB which does not have this problem.  But
since the change to the import area is quite significant, we are not
going to release this until several people have tested it.