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    • Sep 13, 2018
    • 2 min read

Rethinking Integration With Blackbaud CRM™: Best Friends Animal Society Integrates CVENT™ Ahead of N

Best Friends Animal Society is a national animal welfare organization focused on helping the U.S. become a no kill nation by 2025. From its roots as the largest no kill animal sanctuary to their many regional programs around the country, Best Friends has cultivated a strong base of supporters nationwide. This past July, Best Friends hosted its 20th Best Friends National Conference. The 2018 conference, held in Los Angeles, California and attended by 1,657 people, gave attendees the chance to learn, share, and connect with like-minded animal lovers from around the world.

For both attendees and staff, a seamless registration experience was a must. Best Friends Animal Society uses Cvent™ event management software for this purpose and engaged BrightVine in early 2018 to develop a direct integration between Cvent™ using their APIs and Blackbaud CRM™ using our BrightVine Data Loader (BVDL) tool.

After a short, collaborative project between BrightVine and Best Friends, the integration was up and running. The direct connection saved precious staff time since retrieval of files was no longer necessary; further, the events team could trust that the information visible in Blackbaud CRM™ was always up to date and accurate.

For Best Friends, the breadth of the incoming data was on the complex side, incorporating requirements that were not achievable using out of the box import in Blackbaud CRM™. These requirements included:

  • Creation of new constituents with contact information, relationships, and other biographical information along with updates to existing constituent data (such as new contact information)

  • Single event registrations

  • Group event registrations

  • Ability to use discount codes

  • Ability to add additional payments for things like bus fees, site tours, additional sessions or additional donations

  • Refunds, partial refunds, and other revenue updates

  • Full cancellations

One of the most exciting parts of this project is that it included training on the underlying BrightVine Data Loader technology which, when paired with the team’s SQL Server Integration Services knowledge, means the Best Friends application developers are now equipped to create additional integrations when the need arises. Next on their integration to-do list is to use the BrightVine Data Loader to import adoption and animal data into Blackbaud CRM™.

Learn more about the amazing work of Best Friends here and connect with us today for more information on how the BrightVine Data Loader can work for you.

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