Telosa Newsletter
Tech Tips

1. Alternate Greetings/Names

The Alternate Greetings/Names feature in Exceed!™ Basic is an unassuming, yet powerful tool that allows greater flexibility in the way you address your constituents and hopefully, will increase donor satisfaction. The two main functions of this feature are, to customize names for special situations, such as donor recognition lists, and to override the default way Exceed! Basic builds the name that appears on labels and merge letters. Let’s look at two examples of how Alternate Greetings/Names can be used.

Creating an Alternate Name

Suppose John and Jane Smith are major donors and they want to be recognized in the donor listings of your newsletter as The Smith Family. However, they want all regular correspondence to be addressed as John and Jane Smith. To create this alternate name to be used for donor recognition lists, follow these steps:

1) Select Master Bio from the Tasks menu.

2) Click on the Edit button, then click on the blue link labeled Alternate Greetings/Names.

3) In the Alternate Greetings/Names window, type the name as you want it to appear in your donor list into the Donor Recognition Name box, then click on the OK button and click on Save in the Master Bio screen.

You can now use that name when creating your donor recognition list. To learn how to use Alternate Greetings/Names while creating a donor recognition list, see the tech tip about the Size Category List function in Exceed! Basic.

Use Alt Name to Customize Name Block

What if one of your important donors, Mr. and Mrs. Jake Anderson, want their name to always show as ‘Mr. Jake & Mrs. June Anderson’? You can have full control over the way a name displays on labels, letters and any other mailing by simply following the steps below.

1) Select Master Biographical from the Tasks menu.

2) Click on the Edit button, then click on the blue link labeled Alternate Greetings/Names.

3) In the Alternate Greetings/Names window, type the name as you want it to appear in your letters and labels into the Donor Recognition Name box, then select Donor Recognition under the Primary Greeting/Name section.

4) Click on OK then click Save in the Master Bio screen.

When setting an alternate greeting/name as ‘Primary’, that alternate greeting/name will be used for all mailing functions.

2. Size Category List

Have you spent hours trying to create a list of donors, separated into different giving levels, for your newsletter or annual report? If so, the Size Category List feature in Exceed! Basic will make that task much easier. The Size Category List in the Mailings screen will allow you to create a list of donors, sorted by user-defined giving levels, that can be easily inserted into another file, such as Word or PageMaker document.

For example, if you have a quarterly newsletter that lists donors by giving level for the current year-to-date, follow the steps below to create the list.

1) Before starting, go to the Tasks menu and select Year-End Processing to make sure the dates in this screen reflect the current fiscal or calendar year. If the dates in the Year-End Processing screen are not your current fiscal/calendar year, update the dates and click OK to recalculate year-to-date totals for all records in Exceed! Basic.

2) Make sure the amount ranges for the giving levels are defined correctly by selecting Application Setup under the Setup menu and clicking on the Gift Size Table tab. In this tab, make any necessary changes to make the amount ranges reflect your organizations donor recognition levels.

3) Exit the Application Setup screen and select Mailings under the Tasks menu.

4) Select Export Files on the upper-left of the screen, and then select Size Category List on the right.

5) If you are taking advantage of the alternate names feature, select the alternate greeting/name type that is used for donor listings on the lower-left of the screen.

6) If you want to include people in your donor listing that are not OK to Mail, check the Include No Mails box.

7) If you want to give the donor list file that Exceed! Basic creates a unique name, change the name ‘MERGE’ in the Mail Merge Output area to a different name. Avoid spaces and special characters, such as a ‘/’, in the name.

8) Check the Extract a Group box.

9) Click on the Giving History tab and then click on the Amounts1 tab.

10) Check the Year-to-Date box and enter $1.00-$9,999,999,999.00 in the amount range boxes, then clicks Next and OK.

11) Click OK on the Mailings screen to create the list.

12) A Gift Total Selection screen will appear. Select ‘This Year Total’ from the drop down list then click OK.

You should now be able to find the file Exceed! Basic created in your Exbasic folder, or whatever directory you exported it to, and open it in Microsoft Word or another text editing program to view the donor list.

3. Reindexing

What is a Database Index?

A database index is similar to an index for an instruction manual or a book. When you want to locate something in a book it isn’t necessary to read the entire book from cover-to-cover every time you want to find a specific piece of information. Instead, you just look in the index and go to the page that contains the information you’re looking for.

A database index is a file that functions in much the same way. When you perform a lookup of someone by First Name, Last Name, House/Org, and so on, Exceed! Basic searches the index file for First Name or Last Name, and then displays the results.

Exceed! Basic finds these records in just a fraction of a second because the database index file contains pointers that point to the location of the records in the database. This is why it’s so much faster, to search an index than to have Exceed! Basic search the entire database one record at a time.

Updating Indexes

Every time you change and/or add a record in your Exceed! Basic database, the index files are changed. These changes are usually added to the end of the list. For this reason index files need to be put back in order every once in a while. This is called reindexing.

Reindex Once a Week

As part of your regular database maintenance, you should reindex at least once a week. This will keep your indexes in order and reduce the probability of a database failure or crash. This is how you reindex your Exceed! Basic database:

1) Before reindexing, make sure you have a recent backup of the Exceed! Basic data.

2) Select Reindex Files from the Utilities menu.

3) Click the Start button in the Reindex Files window.

Warning: Never stop the reindexing process before completion.

Always Backup your Data Before Reindexing

If there is any corruption in your database or you have a system glitch during the reindexing process, reindexing can fail. If this happens, your database may be left in a state where the program will not function until the data is repaired or restored from a backup. Therefore, never reindex without first making a copy of your database. Please see our tech tip article on backing up your data if you need help on how to do this.

Reindexing may take only a few seconds, or it could take 20 minutes or more. The speed of reindexing is largely dependent on the size of your database, although the speed of your computer and using Exceed! Basic over a network can affect speed as well.

Reindex your Exceed! Basic database on a regular basis and you’ll spend more time raising money, and less time on the phone with Telosa Technical Support.

4. Backing up Your Data

The Importance of Backups

The data that you enter into Exceed! Basic is very valuable to you, and therefore precautions should be taken to protect it from being lost or damaged. The threats to your data are numerous; viruses, hardware failure, software failure and power outages are just a few. The only way to truly protect your organization from data loss is to have a good, current backup of that data, preferably on removable media that is stored either off site or in a fireproof box. In this article, we’ll discuss the risks to your data, what to backup, and how to backup.

One of the features of Exceed! Basic is integrated backup and restore. Exceed! Basic gives you the ability to more easily backup and restore your data. A component of this utility is a message box which will automatically pop-up at a frequency you determine – reminding you when it’s time to backup your data. This is intended to help prevent the loss of your valuable data. You can find more information on how to use this new feature in Exceed! Basic Online Help.

The Risks

Hardware Failure

Hardware failure can take several forms, and with many nonprofit organizations using donated hardware, the risk of hardware problems is even greater. The most typical problems with hardware are, hard drive failure, memory errors, bad network adapters or bad network components (cables, hubs, etc.). If you do have a hardware failure, data loss can be severe and potentially unrecoverable, so a good backup is your best, and possibly only protection. Telosa recommends always using quality hardware from reputable manufacturers. This may cost slightly more, but the cost of maintaining low quality hardware can be much greater.

Software Failure

It is possible to lose data because of software not working properly. Software may cause your entire computer to freeze, forcing a reboot of your computer, which can cause data loss in other applications that were running. Also, software that controls hardware, known as “drivers”, can conflict with other software, or the driver itself may have bugs that cause the hardware to work improperly. The operating system has bugs as well that may make other applications freeze or crash.

The best way to protect yourself from software failure is to use an operating system that has a feature called “protected memory” which allows each application to run in it’s own memory space. This way, if an application crashes, the operating system and other applications don’t crash with it. Some operating systems with protected memory are Windows NT/2000/XP and Mac OS X. Keeping your driver software up-to-date is also a good practice.

Power Failure

Although rolling blackouts in California seem to have subsided, some parts of the country experience seasonal power outages due to natural events, be it tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and ice or snow storms. Databases can become corrupted and data could be lost if the power is interrupted while using an application. Fortunately there is a relatively inexpensive solution, an Uninterruptible Power Supply or UPS. A UPS will allow your computer to remain on even if there is a power outage. The UPS can even safely shutdown your computer if the power remains off for an extended period of time. We highly recommend the use of a UPS in areas where the power supply is not stable.

Viruses

Unfortunately, computer viruses are a constant threat, particularly now that the Internet has made them so easy to propagate. A good virus protection program, such as Norton Anti-Virus, is the best defense against such threats. However, installing anti-virus software is only half the battle. Because new viruses are made daily, you will also need to regularly update the virus definitions of the anti-virus software to be truly protected. This can be done manually or automated using the Internet. Please see your anti-virus program help for more information.

Human Error

What to Backup

What you backup depends on what is important to you. Assuming your Exceed! Basic data is important, we’ll just discuss that for now.

The Exceed! Basic program directory, usually on a server and being shared to all Exceed! Basic users, contains the Data folder. The Data folder contains all the information that’s entered into Exceed! Basic. At the very minimum, the Data folder and its entire contents should be backed up, but preferably the entire Exceed! Basic program. You may also want to backup any files used in conjunction with Exceed! Basic such as mail merge documents.

How to Backup

The basics of how to backup involve timing, software and media storage.

The timing of your backup, or how often you backup, is up to you. However, the frequency of your backups should be as often as you are unwilling to lose your data. The ideal scenario would be a daily backup, executed at night when everyone is out of the office, although for some organizations with a lower volume of data entry, this may be overkill. Remember, if an employee leaves for the day but does not exit the Exceed! Basic program, all the Exceed! Basic data files may not be backed up because files that are in use by Exceed! Basic cannot be backed up.

The type of backup software you use will vary depending on your size and budget. Some organizations simply copy their Exceed! Basic data to a ZIP disk manually or burn the data to a rewritable CD. The ideal setup is to use backup software that can be programmed to execute backups automatically every night with no human intervention except maybe changing the backup tape, although that can be automated as well. Companies such as Veritas sell backup software from the inexpensive to the very expensive, depending on your size and needs. For those with a limited budget, Backup MyPC, by Stomp, Inc., is a very inexpensive, yet full featured backup program.

Telosa recommends always doing a “Full” backup of your Exceed! Basic data, not an “Incremental” backup. Incremental backups only backup files that have changed since the last backup and occasionally, backup software may interpret a file as not changed when it actually has. Consult your backup software documentation on how to configure your backup routine to be Full versus Incremental.

Your backup is only as safe as the media you are storing them on. Tape drives such as DAT, DLT or Travan, are the safest backup media. Floppy disks and ZIP disks tend to be the least safe media to backup to. Either way, unless you are backing up to a CD, tapes and disks are magnetic and are prone to damage, so keep your backup media away from sunlight, moisture and magnets. A plastic box on a sunny windowsill above the stove is definitely not a good idea. Storing the backup media either offsite or in a fireproof firebox will protect your data, even if your building is devastated by fire, flood, or worse.

Backing up Articles:

Backing up Your Data: From ONE/Northwest's tech toolkit.

http://www.onenw.org/bin/page.cfm?pageid=8

When Good Data Goes Bad: You've deleted data, fried your files, and hosed your hard drive. How can you recover?

http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,13859,00.asp

Be Safe, Not Sorry: Our Expert Tips Will Make Sure Your Data Outlives Your Drive

http://www.macworld.com/1999/02/features/backup.html

Backup Software:

Veritas, Inc.

http://www.veritas.com/

Stomp, Inc.

http://www.stompinc.com

Dantz Corp.

http://www.dantz.com/

Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) Articles

New Shapes of UPS Protection: Safeguard your PC from power outages and surges with a UPS.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,17741,00.asp

How does an Uninterruptible Power Supply work on a PC computer?

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question28.htm

5. Year-End Processing

Where is It?

Are you nearing your fiscal year-end? Since all nonprofits do not operate under the same fiscal year, Exceed! Basic gives you the ability to define your fiscal year within the program. Simply go to the Tasks menu and choose Year-End Processing. If this menu option is grayed out, you’ll need to close any open screens within Exceed! Basic before opening the Year-End Processing screen.

How do I Run It?

Once you’ve selected Year-End Processing from the menu you’ll notice it is asking for a date range in the From and To boxes. Whatever fiscal year you are currently in is the date range you should enter in the From and To date fields. For example, if today is 11/1/2002 and I decide to check my Year-End Processing date and find it’s defined for 07/01/2001 – 06/30/2002, I’d want to update the dates to 07/01/2002 – 06/30/2003. Once the correct dates have been entered, click OK to run Year-End Processing.

Why Should I Run It?

This process will recalculate the Year-to-Date giving and prior years giving for every entity in the Exceed! Basic database. It is very important to run Year-End Processing at the beginning of your new fiscal year, otherwise, the YTD giving and prior years giving fields for each entity may be incorrect, causing reports and extractions to be inaccurate.