By: Ashley Hansen
It is often prudent to mark a constituent record as inactive to easily exclude constituents who have not given or engaged with your organization from marketing efforts, mailings, or prospecting lists.
While you may have your criteria defined for inactivation, you may struggle with finding a way to update multiple records at once. By surfacing a data list on a page where you can execute the record operation, you can globally mark constituent records as inactive.
Below you will find the steps to set this up.
Please note, to complete the steps below, you will need the security access to work in design mode within Blackbaud CRM™.
1. Create your data list
Once you have defined what your organization defines as inactive, build that out in a data list. Data lists can be created from a query or can be created within Shell Design.
While the fields to display may vary, it is required that you output the Constituent record or System record ID field. This is how your data list will know which constituent records to make inactive.
Determine which fields you would like to have visible or hidden or if there are fields you would like to allow to be used as a filter and save your data list.
2. Find a place for your data list
You will need to surface your list on a page. If you do not have an existing page where you would like your data list to live, create a new page and add it to the appropriate functional area as a task.
3. Edit your page
Your data list will reside within a tab on your page. In design mode, you should see Edit tabs as an item at the top of the screen.
Once you have clicked Edit tabs you will want to add a tab and create a section to house the list. A tab can allow multiple sections, but if you would like your data list to be the only list on your tab, simply keep them one-to-one.
4. Add a data list to your section
Within your section, you will insert your data list. Update your Section Type to DataList. In the DataList option, find the data list that you created in Step 1.
Update the ItemsPerPage option if you would like to update more than 50 records at a time.
5. Create an action to execute the record operation
Add an action to the section. Give the action a name, as this is the text that will surface next to the icon you will click to mark records as inactive. Update the ActionType to ExecuteRecordOperation.
In the RecordOperation field, search for or enter “Constituent: Mark Inactive.”
Update the ContextType to SectionField and select the System record ID.
To allow multiple records to be made inactive at once, set RecordOperationAllowMultiSelect to True.
Save your action, section, and tab.
6. Globally inactivate records
You are now ready to globally mark the records in your data list as inactive. Select the checkbox at the top of your list to select all records surfaced on the page and click the icon next to the action you created in Step 5.
Continue the process of selecting all records and making them inactive for each page of records. How many pages you have will depend on how many records you chose to surface on the section.
There are many record operations that may be executed in a data list to maintain clean data, save you time, and allow you to better manage Blackbaud CRM™. To find this list, navigate to Administration>Application>Features and click on Record operation search to browse all options. If you'd like more info or training on how to complete these tasks, please contact us today.