Blackbaud CRM™ Attribute Cleanup: Giveaway

Alesha McCann, Selena Fowler, and Susan Hines

Custom Giveaway Global Change

If you that read our earlier “Best Practices for Attributes” blog (Part 1) may remember that we raised the issue of attributes becoming the junk drawer, so to speak. They’re easily created, easily added, and are often forgotten.

If you are interested in optimizing database storage, you may not be aware that when you delete an attribute from the front-end of Blackbaud CRM™ the attribute value remains in a backend table. The end-user may think that they’ve deleted the attribute, that it’s gone for good, but it’s actually still sitting in the back-end tables which continue to grow and may cause space issues down the road.

We have created a free global change that can be run to delete these attributes and their values thus cleaning up your database and helping performance over time.

The global change can be run on all different attribute record types, cleaning up the orphan attributes values that are left behind when parent records get deleted.

We may be in August now, but it’s never too late to do some spring cleaning. Take a look at the video tutorial to see the process in action.

How do we create an Attribute Clean Up Global Change?

• In the Global Changes section of CRM, add a new global change. The one you’re looking for is the “Attribute Clean Up Global Change”.

• Enter a Name for the global change process.

• The cleanup can be performed on specific attributes or all attributes:

• To run it on a specific attribute select an Attribute Record Type from the drop-down menu, and then choose the attribute from the Attribute Category menu.

• To run it on all attributes check the Clean up all box instead of choosing an attribute record type.

• Save the process when finished, and then process the global change.

And that’s it, in the blink of an eye the leftover attribute values are gone.

In our three-part Attribute Blog series, we’ve covered Best Practices for Attributes, Attribute Form Extensions, and the Attribute Clean Up Global Change. If you are interested in this Global Change giveaway, please contact us today.