What’s New In DonorQuest 7.7

DonorQuest 7.7 includes quite a few exciting enhancements as outlined below. If you are upgrading from a version of DonorQuest earlier than 7.6 (the previous release), you should also consult the various “What’s New…” documents, available under the, “What Was New In Previous Releases” topic of this User’s Guide. The version of DonorQuest you are currently running is always shown in the upper-left corner of the main DonorQuest window. Here’s an overview of the new features in DonorQuest 7.7:  Here’s an overview of the new features in DonorQuest 7.7:

New Graphing Capabilities

The graphing abilities of DonorQuest have been expanded considerably. Now you can graph counts of new Constituent and Memo additions over time, plus detailed count and dollar information for Donations, Pledges, and Contacts. These graphs are available both on the Reports menu, and when the Selection Results window is open. If you wish the graphs to operate on all Constituents, Memos, Donations, Pledges, and Contacts, then launch them from the Reports menu. However, if you wish to graph only the records of a particular Selection Result, start by opening the Selection Results window, highlight the selection you wish to graph, then click the new Graph button you will see on the left side of the Selection Results window. The graphs are particularly flexible when used with a Selection Result, as this allows you to apply any conceivable filter condition to the data table being graphed. For example, you could graph just the donations for a specific campaign by first running a selection to capture those specific donations.

Counts in graphs are shown in amber, and dollar totals in green. For example, here is what the Constituent Counts graph looks like for a typical nonprofit organization adding a few thousands constituents per year:

To the right of the graph is a two-column grid showing the exact values from the graph for easy reference. Also notice the drop-down options shown beneath the graph. For the above graph, the Interval option allows you to control the time interval (Calendar Years, Fiscal Years, Months, Weeks, or Days) shown on the horizontal axis of the graph. The Filter option allows you to restrict which constituents are counted for each Interval (you can limit by Year-To-Date, Quarter 1, 2, 3, or 4, or by a specific month within each year). The End Year drop-down simply lets you establish an end point for the horizontal time axis. It defaults to ending at the current year (showing a full 24 years), but moving the endpoint into the past allows you to see any 24-year segment in time. If you choose a small time interval (such as days or weeks), the End Year control will transform to an End Date control, allowing you to choose a specific End Date.

Here is an example of what the new Donation graphs looks like:

As with the Constituent graphs, there is a two-column grid on the right showing the exact values from the graph for easy reference. There are also drop-down options for Interval, Filter, and End Year. But in addition the Donation graph has options for the Gift Type (Money or non-monetary types such as volunteer hours), and a checkbox for seeing gift counts as opposed to totals. In the above example, we have the Filter option set to Year-To-Date, so the yearly totals reflect total donations for the current date (month and day) for each year.

The Contact graphs also share the basic Interval, Filter, and End Year options, but they also have two special options for viewing financial grant-oriented contacts. Here is an example of a contact graph showing dollar totals, by month, of all the grant request amounts made:

All graphs also include Copy and Print buttons. The Copy button allows you to copy the entire graph to your computer’s copy/paste area so that you may paste the graph into Word documents, Excel, EMails, etc. The Print button simply prints the currently displayed graph on your printer. There’s a whole lot more to the new graphing capabilities in DonorQuest than is shown in this upgrade overview, so consult the main User’s Guide for more details and most importantly feel free to open the graphs under Reports, Graphs, and just experiment!

New Dashboard Display

The new DonorQuest Dashboard offers a live view of what’s going on in your donor database from minute to minute. All of the displays within the dashboard are updated in realtime, so you may simply leave it open to continuously monitor the information which most interests you. The dashboard can be kept open along with other DonorQuest windows, allowing you to do your normal activities in DonorQuest while still monitoring events. It can also be resized to suit your preferences and to fit nicely with whatever else you may have open in DonorQuest. Any preference changes you make to the dashboard will be saved under your user account, allowing you to have your own customized dashboard. The dashboard display consists of grids and graphs. Some are donor-specific, and others are more statistical in nature, showing realtime totals across many donors. You may open the DonorQuest Dashboard at anytime by clicking the icon for it on the DonorQuest toolbar, which looks like this:

Here is a brief overview of the various displays within the dashboard:

Recent Donation Activity

The Recent Donation Activity display is a running track of donations as they are entered. If you have multiple data entry people at work entering (or importing) donations, you will see them here as they hit the database. Below the grid are some controls – a horizontal slider to control the font size of the grid, and a couple buttons. The Visit Donor button will automatically position you at the donor’s record in the main data windows so that you can see full details about any of the donors who just had a donation added. The dashboard window will stay open alongside the main data windows so that they may be used in combination. There is also an Email Donor button which will allow you to compose and send an email right on the spot to a donor if you wish. If you are a campaign manager and you happen to know a donor who just gave a large gift, you could thank them immediately and personally! In total, the Recent Donation Activity grid has the following columns: When Added (actual date donation added), Date (date assigned to donation), Amount, Stimulus, Appeal, Who Added, Donor Name, Donor ID, First Gift, Gift Count (lifetime), Life Total, Address, City, State, Zip, Phone, Primary Email, Donor Type, Fund (for donation), Type, Account, Thank-You Letter, and Comment. Here is what the Recent Donation Activity display looks like:

Daily Donation Totals For Current And Past 30 Days

This dashboard display is intended to give you a summary of daily revenues for the current and past 30 days. It provides a quick way to get a handle on your day-to-day entry volume and revenues. It shows a daily total, gift count, and average by actual entry date (not the given donation date, though they are typically the same). Also shown is the top stimulus for each day by revenue, along with a gift count and average amount for the top stimulus. Here is what the display looks like:

Recently Added Or Updated Constituents

This dashboard display will show you all user actions affecting constituent records in realtime as they happen. If you need to investigate an event in more detail, simply click on the Visit Donor button. Here is what the display looks like:

Top One Hundred Donors

Initially this dashboard display will show you your top 100 donors based on lifetime giving. But using the Stimulus selector, you can monitor your top 100 donors for a specific stimulus code. There’s also a Rank By selector which allows you to choose between Total Giving and Largest Single Gift. This is used in combination with the Stimulus selector to filter the donors who makes it into your top ten list. You may also order the display by any column by clicking on the title for the column you wish to order on. Clicking repeatedly will toggle between ascending and descending order. There is also a Visit Donor button which you may use to view all information about a specific donor via the DonorQuest Main Information windows, which can be open at the same time as the dashboard, working together to keep all information at your fingertips. Here is what the Top One Hundred Donors display looks like:

Campaign Watch

The Campaign Watch is a combined grid and graph display showing campaign (stimulus) totals. Note that campaigns are driven by stimulus codes in DonorQuest, and there is normally a one-to-one correspondence (so when you see Stimulus, just think Campaign). The graph is linked to the grid so that any changes you make to your preferences in the grid are immediately reflected in the graph, including when you order the grid in ascending or descending order by any of the columns. You may use the Add and Remove buttons to add or remove rows from the grid, and the drop-down arrow in the stimulus column can be used to change the stimulus being monitored. After adding a new row, you need to select the Stimulus it should display information for. Directly below the Campaign Watch grid is the companion graph, showing totals by Stimulus. The horizontal axis of this graph will always show all chosen Stimulus codes from the grid, but you may control the vertical axis via the drop-down control you will see beneath the graph. This control will let you graph by any of the numeric columns of the grid for each Stimulus. Specifically you may choose to graph by Goal, Gifts Received, Pledges Received, Combined Total, Percent of Goal (achieved), Revenue To Date, Gift Count, Average Gift, Pledge Count, Average Pledge, Combined Count, and Combined Average.

Feel free to customize the display as much as you like since all changes are saved under your user account. This allows all DonorQuest users to have their own custom viewing preferences for all dashboard displays without interfering with the preferences of other users. Here is what the Campaign Watch display looks like:

Appeal Watch

This Appeal Watch display within the dashboard is just like the Campaign Watch display, but deals with Appeals instead. Otherwise it has the same grid columns, corresponding graph, and functionality.

Support For Custom Pledge Payment Scheduling

Up to now the DonorQuest pledge payment system (and associated reminder statement reports) required regular pledge payments of equal amounts. It was based on monthly, quarterly, semester, or annual payments for each pledge. A donor could proactively pay more than was due in a payment period, and that would correctly adjust the remaining balance of a pledge on reminder statements, but the payment schedule itself would not change – the donor would simply be “ahead” of it. Now in DonorQuest 7.7, you may schedule pledge payments down to the day for any amount. All that’s required is that the sum of the payments add up to the total amount pledged, within the Start and Stop date range of the pledge. This new scheduling is optional, and any existing pledges you have will continue to be serviced normally with our invoicing statements. The new Payment Schedule is an optional feature you may now use with pledges as needed to accommodate any custom payment requirements a donor may have.

In the following example, we have a basic pledge which spans a year using quarterly payments. Since the pledge is for $1,200, the donor would normally be sent a reminder to pay $300 at the start of each quarter, and that’s the only option you had previously. However, in this example the donor has asked that his first pledge payment be $500, his second $100, and the remaining two $300 each. Here is what his payment schedule would look like:

We could also have accommodated irregular payment dates in the above example, or even more than four payments. All that really matters are that the Start/End Dates, and the sum of payments equals the total amount pledged. The Payment Frequency now acts simply as a guideline for initializing the schedule of payments when you click on the “Auto-Set” button inside the Payment Schedule. There is also a new stock report layout named, “Pledge Statements: For Scheduled Payment Pledges” designed to be used universally for all pledges with a payment schedule. This single stock pledge statement report essentially replaces the series of statement reports we have which are based on calculating a payment due amount based on Payment Frequency and Start/Stop dates. However, the older statement reports will be kept in DonorQuest for backwards compatibility. Going forwards you should use the “Auto-Set” button to set a payment schedule when creating a new pledge, and then make manual changes to the schedule only as needed. This will allow the single universal reminder statement we now have to work for all of your pledges.

Automatic Tiling Of Main Windows

Historically DonorQuest has allowed users to open, position, and resize data windows, and DonorQuest simply remembered each user’s preferences, opening windows again to the same state they were last in when closed. Of course DonorQuest will still do this if you wish, but now there is a new Personal Settings option called Automatic Tiling. This optional feature can be used to have DonorQuest automatically resize and position data windows as you open and close them, always making optimal use of available screen space within the main DonorQuest program window. This is particularly helpful if you use DonorQuest on multiple workstations with different screen resolutions. You can access the available automatic tiling settings by clicking on User, Change Your Personal Settings. You will see the new option at the bottom of the Personal Settings dialog, as shown here:

When first trying this option, use the, “Fit To Screen” setting, as shown above. This will arrange windows vertically, making optimal use of screen space each time you open or close a window. For example, if you open only the main name/address window, it will fill the DonorQuest program window. If you then open the Donations window, the two open windows will each take half of the available space. Opening a third window will divide the space in thirds, and so on. As you close windows, the process is reversed, automatically allowing the remaining open windows to reclaim optimal equal space. Of course any changes to column widths and positions you have made within data windows will still be preserved just as they always have. It is only the window sizes and positions which are automatically changed. Give it a try!

Rename Button Added To Stored Files Window

DonorQuest can store files of any type in a donor’s account, such as audio files, picture files, or PDF’s. The list of stored files for each donor can be accesses by clicking on the Files icon on the DonorQuest Toolbar. Previously there was no way to rename a file once it had been stored (other than retrieving it, renaming it in a folder on your computer, deleting the original, and adding back the renamed file). Now there’s a new Rename button in the Stored Files window, as shown here:

Move Button Added To Donations, Pledges, Contacts

Mistakes happen and sometimes a donation, pledge or contact gets added to the wrong donor account. Previously you would have to delete the incorrect entry and re-enter it. Now with the new Move button you can easily correct such an entry. Simply highlight the donation, pledge, or contact which needs to be moved and click the Move button. DonorQuest will then allow you to interactively search for the correct donor account, and offer a final confirmation before completing the move. When searching for the correct account, you may search by any column of the Main Information Window, including names, addresses, email addresses, etc.

Real-Time Updates For DonorQuest Event Log

DonorQuest stores detailed tracking information for the activities of all users. Everything from when each user logged in, to when they logged out is chronicled. The DonorQuest Event Log, accessed by clicking on File, Open, The Event Log, has always been a valuable resource for administrators to monitor activity in a multi-user environment. Now, whenever the highlight is left positioned on the first row of the Event Log window, new events will automatically be added as they occur, scrolling older events down in the display grid. If you have a number of users all doing things at the same time in DonorQuest, it can actually be very informative (as well as entertaining) to just sit back and watch all the activity just roll into the log as it happens.

What’s New In DonorQuest 7.6

DonorQuest 7.6 includes some significant enhancements as outlined below. If you are upgrading from a version of DonorQuest earlier than 7.5 (the previous release), you should also consult the various “What’s New…” documents, available on the DonorQuest website. The version of DonorQuest you are currently running is always shown in the upper-left corner of the main DonorQuest window. Here’s an overview of the new features in DonorQuest 7.6:  Here’s an overview of the new features in DonorQuest 7.6:

Ability To Favor Selection Results

As you may know, DonorQuest allows thousands of Selection Results to exist, and they are in a single window shared by all users. Now within the Selection Results window, there is a new button which allows you to personally mark a selection result that you would like to have quick access to without having to search for it. Essentially, you will be able to maintain a personal list of the Selection Results you use most frequently, and this list is tied to your DonorQuest user account, so each user can have their own list. When you favor a Selection Result, it will turn blue and remain blue between sessions until you unfavor it, as shown here:

Ability To Filter Selection Results Window

The Selection Results window now has a new, “Filter View By” option allowing you to filter the results which are shown. You may choose to see only your favorite selections, favorites for all users, favorites for a specific user, or all the results not favored by anyone, as shown here:

Here is how the display would look showing, “Your Favorites” when user Paul is logged in:

Flex Find Added To Selection Results Window

The Selection Results window now has a new, “Flex Find” option (shown above) allowing you to filter the results based on keywords or phrases which occur in the Selection Description, User Name, or Table columns. This serves as a complement to the Find and Next buttons which also allow you to search for keywords and phrases in selection descriptions, but do not filter the display.

First Letter Search In All Columns Of Data Grids

Now you may do simple searches on any column of any data grid. Simply move the highlight to the column you wish to search and type a letter or number. This is a very simple search, only looking at the first letter of data values in the column you’re searching. It’s not meant to replace any of the advanced forms of searching, such the Flex Find or the Progressive Search of the Main Information window, but rather it is a quick way to navigate the grid windows which do not have an explicit way of searching reserved for them. For example, if you are looking at a donor who has a lot of donations, and you would like to browse through any donations with a Stimulus code of SPRING, simply place the highlight in the Stimulus column and repeatedly press the “S” key. The donation display will scroll as the highlight moves from row to row, jumping from one Stimulus code starting with “S” to the next.

Titles And Suffixes Now In Salutation1 Autofill

The auto-fill formula built into DonorQuest for Salutation1 (the formal salutation) now includes the primary and secondary donor’s title and suffix if present. As always, you may override the auto-fill as needed on a case-by-case basis, and DonorQuest will keep your changes.

Autofill For All Salutation Fields Now Customizable

While DonorQuest still has the built-in formulas it uses to auto-fill Salutation 1 and Salutation 2, and they work well for most organizations, now those formulas may be replaced with your own, and you may even set an auto-fill formula for Salutation 3 now. To customize the Salutation auto-fills for your organization, click on Configure, Program Settings, which looks like this:

Notice that we have a single formula for Salutation 2 auto-fill, and we left the formula for Salutation 1 blank so that DonorQuest will use its internal formula for that. The new “Name Joiner” option allows you to specify the joiner to be used between the primary and secondary donor. Normally “And”, “Or”, or “&” is used here. If left blank then DonorQuest will default to using the “&” symbol with its internal auto-fill formula for Salutation 1.

Easier To Customize Your Window Preferences

It has always been possible to adjust column positions in the various spreadsheet-style windows in DonorQuest by clicking and holding down the left mouse button on a column header and dragging left or right. You could also do a right-mouse-click on any column title and turn on or off the display of a column using the resulting pop-up menu. While this is fine for simple on-the-fly customizations, making wholesale sweeping changes was cumbersome using this method. Now there’s a new way to easily edit your window display preferences. When you click on User, Change Your Window Column Preferences, you will see the following:

 
The, “Configurable Windows” pane shows all of the windows in DonorQuest which allow customization. As you scroll through the window names, you will see the, “Available Fields” pane update to show all of the available fields (columns) for the currently highlighted window. The, “Selected Fields” pane shows the fields (columns) which will actually be displayed for the window. You can use the Add button to move Available Fields to Selected Fields. The <Easier To Customize Your Window Preferences

The User’s Guide now has samples of all 400+ standard report layouts we offer, along with a description and tips for how each report is meant to be used. This helps you to visualize how reports will look without actually having to run them. The report samples are grouped into separate topics by the DonorQuest table each report is designed to be used with. You’ll find this all here in this section of the DonorQuest User’s Guide:

User’s Guide Also Updated With New Sample Screens

All of the hundreds of sample screens in the User’s Guide have also been updated to reflect the great look and customizations possible in Windows. While the online (cloud) version of DonorQuest always presents a uniform appearance whether it is run on an Apple Mac, Windows PC, tablet, etc., the in-house version will adapt to the look and active theme of the version of Windows it is run on. While DonorQuest is fully compatible with Windows 10, Microsoft has chosen to severely limit customization options in Windows 10.

New DonorQuest Icon

Last but not least, DonorQuest now has a new icon which looks like this:

What’s New In DonorQuest 7.5

DonorQuest 7.5 includes some significant enhancements as outlined below. If you are upgrading from a version of DonorQuest earlier than 7.4 (the previous release), you should also consult the various “What’s New…” documents, available on the DonorQuest website.  The version of DonorQuest you are currently running is always shown in the upper-left corner of the main DonorQuest window. Here’s an overview of the new features in DonorQuest 7.5:  Here’s an overview of the new features in DonorQuest 7.4:

Optional Alpha Ordering For Field Menus

This has been a long requested feature.  You now have the choice of seeing field menus ordered as they appear on the data entry forms as they have always been, or you may choose to see them in alphabetical order.  To change your preferred view, click on User, Change Your Personal Settings.  For there you will see a checkbox labeled, “Field Menu Order” with an associated drop-down list allowing you to set your preferred order, as shown here:

This is a personal setting, so it will be for your DonorQuest login account only and will not affect the way other users see their field menus.  You may also change field menu ordering on-the-fly when running Selections by doing a right-mouse-click anywhere within the Field Name column in the Range tab or the General Conditions tab.  Doing so will also have the same effect as making the change in your personal settings options, and your preference will be remembered between sessions:

Flex Find Is Now Available In Batch Donation Entry

Flex Find is the amazing new way to search for constituent records in the Main Information window which was added in DonorQuest 7.4. Now it is also available when doing batch donation entry under the Donor, Batch Donation Entry menu option. As a reminder, the Flex Find is a bit like the, “Any Name Field” option of the regular Find, but it simultaneously searches across many fields (not just the name fields), and it is far more flexible in how it does so. You can enter partial names in any order (including partial words of an organization name), and combine bits and pieces of multiple fields in a single search. For example, if you are looking for, “The ABC Foundation For Exceptional Generosity”, with an address of “1234 Main Street”, and a main contact person of, “Elon Musk”, all of the following search keys would work:

ABC 123
Gen Excep
Foun ABC
Elon Foun

The Flex Find search field is always available at the top of the Main Information window, and now at the top of the batch donation entry form, as shown here:

You may enter a search term in the Flex Find blank and click the Flex Find button to begin a search, or just press the Return key on your keyboard.  You may also use the Tab and Shift-Tab key combinations to move between the Flex Find entry blank and the data fields of the Donation Batch Entry form.

Flex Find Extended To Extra Address

Extra Address records are now included in the Flex Find feature of the Main Information Window. Extra addresses provide a way of storing an unlimited number of extra email and mailing address records for each of your constituents.  Constituent records may now be found in the Main Information window by searching for name, address, and email entries which exist in the Extra Address form.

Email Address Field Added To Extra Addresses

The Extra Address form in DonorQuest now includes an email address field. This essentially allows an unlimited number of email addresses to be associated with each constituent. Furthermore, since the Extra Addresses are included in the new Flex-Find feature, you will be able to find a constituent account by searching on an email address, no matter where the email address is stored.

Main Information Form Wider With More Totals

All tabs of the Main Information Form have been widened for easier viewing and entry. Plus, the Totals tab now includes giving totals for the current and past ten years, best year ever, time since donor’s first gift, date of first gift, date of greatest gift, most recent gift amount, first gift amount, greatest gift amount, average gift amount, life total, soft total given & received, and the total of all outstanding pledges:

Conditional Update of Fields During Data Import

When importing data to DonorQuest, often you may be importing additional data for existing constituents. For example, you may be importing new online donations for existing donors. Since online information is entered by the donors themselves, you may wish to prevent information they provide from overwriting specific existing information in your DonorQuest database. If you have higher confidence in the existing address information in DonorQuest than what is in your import source, you can now tell DonorQuest to only update the address fields of an existing donor if they are blank in DonorQuest. This means that donors who are new will have their address information populated from what they enter in an online form, while existing donors will have their address information protected during an import. This is all controlled at the field level via the import mapping. Here’s an example of using the, “Update Only If Target Empty” mode for the Address field:

 
There’s also a new Field Update Mode of, “Update Only If Source Has Data.”  This is useful when you have high confidence that the data you’re importing is more up-to-date than what exists currently in your database, but you want to prevent existing data from being blanked out if a particular import record has no data for the field.  For example, if you are importing phone number updates to the main constituent phone number field and you use the, “Update Only If Source Has Data” mode, then the existing phone number for a given constituent will be preserved if the new phone number from the import file happens to be blank.  If the phone number from the import file is not blank, it will replace the existing phone number for the constituent.  DonorQuest will make this determination for each constituent record as the import proceeds.

Smart Address Matching During Import

When importing data, DonorQuest will normally try and find an existing constituent record to update before creating an entirely new constituent.  This matching attempt consists of looking for an exact Constituent ID match first, and failing that an email match next, and failing that a match with name and address.  Previously, the existing address had to match exactly with data from the import file to constitute a match.  Now DonorQuest will translate all address abbreviations to their full spellings before comparing existing addresses to addresses coming from the import file.  This translation is done “behind the scenes” and does not affect the imported address data if the address field is designated for update from the address in the import file.  For example, if an existing constituent record has an address of, “1234 First Avenue Northeast”, and an imported record has an address of, “1234 1st Ave NE”, the addresses will still match.  The imported abbreviated address will then conditionally replace the existing address, based on the Field Update Mode you have selected (see above).

Smart Address Matching During Duplicate Check

The Duplicate Check tab of the DonorQuest Selection dialog has been enhanced to take advantage of the new address processing capabilities in DonorQuest. When running a duplicate record check which includes the Address or Extra Address fields, DonorQuest will now translate all address abbreviations to their full spellings before comparing two addresses (this is done just for the purpose of comparison, without any changes to the database). So now suspected duplicate constituent records will be identified even if different address abbreviations (or none at all) were used in each of the constituent records being compared. Periods are also ignored, so it doesn’t matter whether one address may have abbreviations with periods, while the address it is being compared with does not.

Mass Address Updating For Standardization

The Replace feature of the Selection Results window in DonorQuest now has the ability to make sweeping changes to existing addresses in your database in order to standardize them. There are essentially three types of standardizations you may choose from – No Abbreviations, Abbreviations, and Abbreviations with periods. The No Abbreviations standardization would expand all addresses to have the full spellings of street suffixes and directionals, resulting in addresses such as, “1234 First Avenue Northeast.” Abbreviations would result in addresses such as, “1234 1st Ave NE”, and Abbreviations with periods would result in addresses such as, “1234 1st. Ave. N.E.”

USPS Address Standardization For Exports

DonorQuest is now capable of exporting address information in USPS standardized format, which consists of all uppercase with abbreviations and no periods. For example, addresses would appear as, “1234 1ST AVE NE” in the resulting export file. Note that standardizing addresses during export has no effect on the existing address information in your database – addresses are simply translated during export.

Remembering Your Favorite Export Groups

DonorQuest 7.4 introduced the ability to maintain a personalized list of the report layouts you use most often, so that you can get to them quickly. Now this same capability has been added to the export facility in DonorQuest. When the DonorQuest Export menu is open, you will see a new, “Favorite Field Groups” tab. Clicking the, “Add Favorite” button will add the currently highlighted field group to your personal list of favorite field groups.

Title And Suffix Support In Salutation Auto-Fill

DonorQuest will now include both the Primary and Secondary title and suffix fields when auto-populating the Salutation1 field. Since both the title and suffix are coded fields, the code descriptions will actually be used, so be sure you have entered descriptions for all of your title and suffix codes (this can be done using the Configure, Edit/Print A Code Table option). As always, you may override DonorQuest auto-fill entries for Salutation1 and Salutation2 for a specific constituent by simply typing how you wish the Salutations to appear. DonorQuest will never auto-fill a field which already contains an entry. DonorQuest will also take care to never auto-fill using the name information of a partner marked as deceased via the deceased date fields of either the Primary or Secondary tabs.

Mass Email Feature Expanded

Previously, DonorQuest would allow you to do a mass email from a Selection Result to the email address entered on the Primary tab of each constituent. Now, DonorQuest will also optionally include the email address of the Secondary (spouse) tab, and/or the email address on any Extra Address records for each constituent account. When you highlight a specific Selection Result of constituents you wish to email and click on Selection, Do Mass Email From, you will now see this dialog:

 
You may also run a Selection for specific Extra Address records across all constituents, and only send to the email addresses of the selected extra address records. This can be very useful if you have, for example, a newsletter you only wish to send to some constituents. You could create an extra address record for this specific purpose and code it for Newsletter. Then you could run a selection of Extra Address records coded for your newsletter mailings. This also allows the use of alternate email addresses for your newsletter mailing as needed for each constituent.

New Archive Address Button For Main Address

The Primary tab of the Main Information window now contains a new Archive Address button which can be used to make a copy of the main address. The copy is saved as an Extra Address, which each constituent may have an unlimited number of. This provides an easy way to keep track of all previous addresses for each constituent if you wish to do so. If you are about to make an address change for a constituent and you wish to keep a copy of the old address, simply click the Archive Address button before saving the new main address, as shown here:

New Export Options For Campaign Summary

The DonorQuest Campaign Summary window has always been a great place to monitor how each of your campaigns is doing in real time, providing an up-to-the-minute composite display of all donations and pledges received, and percent of goal for the campaign achieved. This window is accessed by clicking on Reports, Campaign Detail, and then double-clicking on the campaign you wish to see detail for. Now the Campaign Summary window includes buttons for directly copying the information in the window to a new Excel spreadsheet, or to a csv file which has universal compatibility with other applications:

Updated Internal Zip Code Table

As with all updates, this release of DonorQuest also has an updated internal zip code table which contains all the City, State, Counties, and 5-digit zip code combinations in the United States. This is used to support the auto-entry of city, state, and county for you when adding a new constituent. Remember, to use this feature, all you have to do is enter the zip code for a new constituent and press the Tab key. Leave the city, state, and county fields blank, as they will be filled in for you automatically when you Tab out of the zip code field. This updated internal table also supports the System, Auto-Fill Empty Salutation And County Fields option. This feature searches your entire database, automatically filling in any missing Salutation and County fields.

New High Resolution Sample Screens In User’s Guide

In addition to being fully updated for the current release, the built-in User’s Guide now has high resolution sample screen images. We have also increased the font size of the User’s Guide by popular demand. The User’s Guide is available both on our website as a PDF, and from within DonorQuest itself by clicking the User’s Guide button on the DonorQuest Tool Bar.

All Stock Reports Streamlined

All of the built-in report layouts in DonorQuest have been streamlined to remove unneeded dollar signs in columns. Row spacing has also been increased slightly in all reports to improve readability where a lot of amounts are shown in adjacent columns.

New Standard Reports Added

DonorQuest 7.5 includes the following new standard report layouts:

Donations – Dollar Totals Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Calendar Year
Donations – Dollar Totals Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Calendar Year And Week
Donations – Dollar Totals Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Fiscal Year
Donations – Dollar Totals Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Fiscal Year And Week
Donations – Donation Detail Report – Ordered By Donation Date
Donations – Donor Name, Phone, Donation Amount And Stimulus, Ordered By Current Cal Year’s Total
Donations – Donor Name, Phone, Donation Amount And Stimulus, Ordered By Prev Cal Year’s Total Giving
Donations – For Mail Merge With Selected Donations Totalled By Donor
Donations – Grouped By Account, Ordered By Constituent Name Within Account
Donations – Grouped By Donor Name With Address, Donation Totals, Counts, And Averages
Donations – Grouped By Donor Name With Calendar Year Totals And Counts
Donations – Grouped By Donor Name With Donation Totals, Counts, And Averages
Donations – Grouped By Donor Name With Fiscal Year Totals And Counts
Donations – Grouped By Donor Type, Giving By Fiscal Year With Counts
Donations – Grouped By Stimulus, Subgrouped By Donation Type
Donations – Soft Credit Donations Only, Grouped By Soft Credit Recipient, Subsorted By Giver
Header – 3-Year Comparison Of Year-To-Year Calendar Year TY Amounts, With Totals
Header – Calendar Year Totals And Donation Counts For Previous Two Years
Header – Calendar Year Totals And Donor Counts For Previous Two Years
Header – Comparison Of Month-To-Month Giving, Current Calendar Year With Donor ID
Header – Fiscal Year Totals And Donation Counts For Previous Two Years
Header – Fiscal Year Totals And Donor Counts For Previous Two Years

What’s New In DonorQuest 7.4

DonorQuest 7.4 includes some major enhancements such as the new Flex Find in the Main Information Window, and the Donor Demographics tab in selections, but it also has a lot of subtle, “nice to have” enhancements, such as the ability to remember your favorite report layouts making them easy to find when you’re in a hurry, and new application-wide vertical and horizontal scroll bars which let you arrange and scroll all DonorQuest content as if it were on a web page. If you are upgrading from a version of DonorQuest earlier than 7.3 (the previous release), you should also consult the various “What’s New…” documents, available on the DonorQuest website. The version of DonorQuest you are currently running is always shown in the upper-left corner of the main DonorQuest window.  Here’s an overview of the new features in DonorQuest 7.4:

Flex Find

Flex Find is an amazing new way to search for constituent records in the Main Information window. It is a bit like the, “Any Name Field” option of the regular Find, but it simultaneously searches across many fields (not just the name fields), and it is far more flexible in how it does it. You can enter partial names in any order (including partial words of an organization name), and combine bits and pieces of multiple fields in a single search. For example, if you are looking for, “The ABC Foundation For Exceptional Generosity”, with an address of “1234 Main Street”, and a main contact person of, “Elon Musk”, all of the following search keys would work:

ABC 123
Gen Excep
Foun ABC
Elon Foun

The Flex Find search field is always available at the top of the Main Information window, as shown here:

 
You may enter a search term in the Flex Find blank and click the Flex Find button to begin a search, or just press the Return key on your keyboard. You may also use the Tab and Shift-Tab key combinations to move between the Flex Find entry blank and the names of the Main Information data grid. To display all constituent names, leave the Flex Find search field blank and press Return.
 

Hiding Unneeded Columns

All of the data windows in DonorQuest will now remember which columns you wish to see. To turn on or off a column, position the mouse pointer within the title space for the columns on any data grid and do a right-mouse-click. You will see a pop-up menu which allows you to turn on or off display of any column in the window, like this:

 
This pop-up menu was present in previous versions of DonorQuest, but the changes were never saved between sessions until now.
 

Display of User-Defined Fields In Main Info Window

Previously, any user-defined fields you created under the Configure, Setup User-Defined Fields option in DonorQuest could only be viewed on-screen using the Main Information form. Now all user-defined fields also appear in the Main Information data grid. As with all built-in fields, columns with user-defined fields may be moved, resized, or hidden, and DonorQuest will remember your preferences between sessions.
 

Remembering Your Favorite Reports

DonorQuest now allows you to maintain a personalized list of the reports you use most often, so that you can get to them quickly. The list is user-specific, so your report preferences will not interfere with those of other users. When the DonorQuest Report menu is open, you will see a new, “Favorite Report Layouts” tab, as shown here:

 
There is also a new, “Add Favorite” button at the bottom of the DonorQuest Reports dialog which will copy the currently highlighted report to your personal Favorite Report Layouts tab:

 
For example, clicking on the Add Favorites button when the, “Donations – Campaign Summary” report is highlighted on the Pre-Defined Report Layouts tab will add this report to your personal favorites tab like this:

Scroll Bar Support In Main Application Window

DonorQuest now supports vertical and horizontal scroll bars in the main application window, which allow you to arrange multiple open windows in an area larger than your actual screen space, and quickly scroll or jump to any one of them. Mouse wheel support has also been added for scrolling all windows vertically within the main application window. Here’s how it works:

 
While the vertical scroll bars may be used in a traditional fashion to move all windows, the mouse wheel scrolling action is context-sensitive. When the mouse pointer is inside the scrollable data grid area of a specific window, only that data grid is scrolled. However, if the mouse pointer is outside of the scrollable area of a specific window, all windows are moved up or down.

Tile Vertically Maintaining Window Heights

Clicking on the Window menu and choosing Tile Vertically Maintaining Window Heights will arrange all open windows vertically without changing their heights. They will extend into an “infinite” vertical space, accessed by scrolling, or clicking the corresponding tool bar icons to immediately jump to a specific window.
 

Tile Vertically Maintaining Horizontal Positions

Clicking on the Window menu and choosing Tile Vertically Maintaining Horizontal Positions is very similar to the above tiling option, but any custom horizontal placement of your windows will remain intact. So for example, if you have the Donations and Pledges windows positioned side-by-side, they will remain side-by-side, but will both be moved up or down to fill in any gaps which may exist between the windows above and below them.
 

Replicate Condition Button On General Conditions Tab

The General Conditions tab of the Creating A Selection dialog now has a new Replicate Condition button. This is useful when you have a lot of different values you wish to search for in the same field. For example, if you wish to find all of the constituents in a number of specific zip codes, you only have to choose the Zip field and Is Equal To comparison once, then use the Replicate Condition button to make lots of copies of what would be the same choices were you to use the drop-down menus repeatedly while adding a new condition. You have only then to double-click in the Value space to enter each specific zip codes you wish to select constituents for.

You may now also order the conditions of the General Conditions tab by clicking on the title of the Field Name, Comparison, or Value columns. When you have a long list of conditions, it is often helpful to order the list by Value, so you can quickly see if you have left out anything you need (such as a specific zip code in a long list of zip codes). Here’s what the new dialog looks like:

Optional Database Encryption

DonorQuest is now capable of encrypting your entire database while still providing full multi-user access. This feature is intended mainly for those still using DonorQuest in-house on a local file server. The encryption is seamless, so that everything in DonorQuest works just as you would expect for all features. This adds a layer of protection for your sensitive donor data, making your data appear as unreadable gibberish to any would-be thieves which either hack into your main file server over the Internet, or perhaps even physically steal it from your office. Without knowing a DonorQuest User Name and Password, there is absolutely no way a hacker could decrypt your data if you are running DonorQuest with encryption on. To enable or disable encryption, from within DonorQuest click on Configure, Program Settings. You will find a checkbox there to encrypt your database. You may also uncheck the box to return to running in normal unencrypted mode. The only downside of running with encryption on is that it will slow DonorQuest performance slightly, but only by about 10% on average. The new performance enhancements in selections will typically more than make up for it.
 

Selection Performance Enhanced

The DonorQuest selection process now uses high speed index files for certain key fields. If your selection references one of the key fields, DonorQuest will automatically optimize the selection so that only the records matching the condition you use for the key field will be processed. Previously, DonorQuest would need to sequentially process each record in the source table for each selection.
 

New Demographics Tab In Selections

The new Demographics selection tab in DonorQuest allows you to find constituents based on demographic information publically available for the zip code in which the constituent lives. You can select constituents based on Zip Code Radius, Ethnicity, Age, Education Level, Median Household Income, Median Per Person Income, Average Home Value, etc. Since the demographic information is zip code based and statistical in nature, it does not violate a constituent’s privacy.
Here is an example of using the Demographics tab to find all of the constituents who live between ten and twenty miles from the center zip code of 98109:

 
You can think of the above selection as finding constituents in your database who live within a “ring” around a center zip code, with the inner circumference of the ring being 10 miles outside the center zip code, and the outer circumference of the ring being 20 miles outside the center zip code. This may of course be combined with any of the other selection tabs to ask questions such as, “Who has given $500 or more in the past six months, and lives within 15 miles of our main office?”

The Group Affiliation demographic conditions are expressed as ranges. The ranges will either be dollar amounts (for home values, median incomes, etc.) or percentages. When they are percentages, the percentage refers to the percentage of people within the constituent’s zip code who have a particular attribute. Following is an example of how to select all the constituents with home values of $250,000 or more, who live in a zip code for which 80% of the people have Bachelor Degrees:
Note that this is not a guarantee that the selected constituents have Bachelor Degrees, but there’s an 80% chance they do based on the zip code they live in. Likewise, there is no guarantee the value of their home is $250,000 or more, but it is likely given the median home value for the zip code in which they live.

New Standard Reports Added

DonorQuest 7.4 includes the following new standard reports:

Donations – Grouped By 5-Digit Zip Code
Donations – Grouped By 5-Digit Zip Code – Summary
Donations – Grouped By Year With Donor Name, Amount, Stimulus
Header – Constituent Name With Stored File List And Count
Header – Donor Name And Street Address With Most Recent Donation Stimulus
Header – Top 1000 Donor Report
Header – Top 5000 Donor Report

What’s New In DonorQuest 7.3

We had planned to release DonorQuest 7.3 next Spring, but as development proceeded more rapidly than expected, it became apparent that some really great new features were ready, and there’s no point in holding them back.  So we decided to do a release now, with another still planned for next Spring.  If you are upgrading from a version of DonorQuest earlier than 7.2 (the previous release), you should also consult the various “What’s New…” documents, available on the DonorQuest website.  The version of DonorQuest you are currently running is always shown in the upper-left corner of the main DonorQuest window.  Here’s an overview of the new features in DonorQuest 7.3:

Donor File Attachment

You may now store an unlimited number of files of any type (i.e. PDF, Word, Excel, Picture, Sound, Video, etc.) in each donor’s record.  The files are donor-specific and are shown in a standard DonorQuest data grid for each donor, just like donations, pledges, contacts, etc.  Stored files may be opened in place by double-clicking on them.  They may also be downloaded to any user’s workstation, provided the user has the download access right turned on for their account in DonorQuest.  There are five new user rights associated with stored files in DonorQuest – the ability to see the names of stored files, add to stored files, retrieve stored files, view/edit stored files in place (without having to extract and re-add them), and the right to delete stored files.  There’s a new blue folder icon on the DonorQuest toolbar for stored files which looks like this:

Just as the Donations icon shows the number of donations a donor has, the Files icon shows the number of stored files stored in each donor’s account.  This allows you to know at a glance whether there are any stored files for the current donor, even when Stored Files window is not visible.  When you click on the Files icon, the Stored Files window will open, which looks like this:

Double-clicking a file name will open it in place.  You may also use the Mark button to mark multiple files for retrieval to your workstation (or any folder you have access to), or for deletion, depending on how your user rights are set in DonorQuest.

Enhanced Contact Manager Form

Carrying forth from the major Contact Manager enhancements of 7.2, the contact form in DonorQuest 7.3 has been enlarged to have a much more generous space for entering contact notes, and includes a new horizontal slider control to change the font size of your contact notes.  As with all DonorQuest windows, any preference changes you make are stored under your user account, so that DonorQuest can maintain your preferences from session to session with affecting other users.  The new Contact Manager form looks like this:

Notice the new horizontal scroll bar.  There are also new Previous and Next navigation buttons, which will allow you to move between contact records without having to close the contact form.  These new buttons are especially handy when working your way through the day’s contacts, as you would simply perform the donor interaction (making a call, sending an email, etc.), enter your notes, then click Save followed by Next.  The navigation buttons are supported for every Contact view there is (i.e. all contacts for you, all contacts still open for you, all contacts for donor, all contacts for everyone), including any Contact-based selections you create.

Donation Form Navigation Buttons

Like the new Contact manager form, the donation form now has Previous and Next navigation buttons, which allow you to move between donation records while the donation form remains open.  The new buttons are supported both when editing donations for the current donor, and when viewing the donations of a Selection Result.  The donation form now looks like this:

The Previous and Next buttons also support keyboard shortcuts, so without having to take your hands off the keyboard, you can “press” the Previous and Next buttons with the Alt-P and Alt-N keyboard combinations (hold down the Alt key and type P or N).  If you hold down the Alt-P or Alt-N combination continuously, DonorQuest will begin automatically scrolling through donations, refreshing both the form and the underlying donation data grid as it goes.

New Multi-Window View For Smaller Screens

DonorQuest 7.3 has a new display mode designed for smaller screens which still enables you to have multiple windows open (i.e. Donations, Pledges, Contacts, Stored Files, etc.), with convenient access to each.  To use this new display mode, first open all the windows you routinely use by clicking on the corresponding icon on the DonorQuest tool bar.  For example, click the Donations icon, followed by the Contacts icon.  Then click on the Window menu, and choose, Tile Vertically With Main Window Priority.  This will create a split screen view with the main name/address grid taking up the top half of your screen, and all other windows set to the same half-screen size, but placed on top of each other on the lower half of your screen.  Now, all you have to do is click the Donations or Contacts icons to switch between the Donation and Contact windows, with each window making optimal use of the available space on your screen when it is selected.  In this mode, the toolbar icons effectively become tabs for the lower windows.  You may also press the F6 key and the Shift-F6 key combination to move between open DonorQuest windows without having to take your hands off the keyboard.

Graphing A Donation-Based Selection

In DonorQuest 7.3 you may now graph any selection of donations using the standard DonorQuest donation graphs.  The graphs in turn allow you to visualize both cumulative giving and gift counts by years, months, or weeks.  Previously, you could only filter donations included in the graphs by the type of donation.  Now, you may apply any possible filter condition you can think of by first running a selection to capture the donations you wish to graph.  Then, click on the Selections menu and choose Donation Graphs From.  For example, you could select all of the donations from individual givers and graph total revenue by year, then do the same for corporations and compare the two.  If you have an annual campaign each year, you could select the donations for only your annual campaign for all years, then graph the result, seeing year-to-year revenue performance and gift counts for just your annual campaign.

New Standard Reports Added

DonorQuest 7.3 includes the following new standard reports:

Donations – Count Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Fiscal Year And Week
Donations – Grouped By 5-Digit Zip Code
Donations – Grouped By 5-Digit Zip Code – Summary
Header – Comparison Of Hard And Soft Year-To-Year Giving By Calendar Year
Header – Comparison Of Hard And Soft Year-To-Year Giving By Fiscal Year
Header – Constituent Name With Stored File List And Count
Pledges – Grouped By Fund

What’s New In DonorQuest 7.2

DonorQuest 7.2 is a significant upgrade, incorporating many requested features, including a new type of statistical reporting called Donor Metrics. If you are coming from a version of DonorQuest earlier than 7.12 (the previous release), you should also consult the various “What’s New…” documents, available on the DonorQuest website. The version of DonorQuest you are currently running is always shown in the upper-left corner of the main DonorQuest window. Here’s an overview of the new features in DonorQuest 7.2:

New Indicators On Contacts Button

DonorQuest now takes Constituent Relationship Management to the next level of convenience!  The scheduled Contacts button on the DonorQuest Tool Bar has been enhanced to show the number of open contacts you have scheduled for today. While DonorQuest will still remind you when you log in of how many open contacts you have for today and how many open contacts from the past there are which still need attention, it’s easy to forget that one reminder as you begin a busy day.  If you have enabled contact reminders in your personal settings, the new indicators are always present.  They are much like the reminder on an email icon that you have unread email. For example, if you have three open contacts which need attention today, the contacts button will look like this:

If a plus (+) symbol is also present, that indicates that you have one or more open contacts from the past which still need attention.

New View Menu For Contacts Button

The scheduled Contacts button now also features a pop-up menu of options to allow you quick access to the different ways of seeing your contacts. These options are also still available on the main Donor, Scheduled Contacts / Grant Tracking menu, but they are a lot easier to get to now being integrated with the contacts button. Simply click on the down pointing arrow on the right side of the Contacts icon to launch the contacts view menu.  This is how it looks in Windows 10:

New Reports Menu

The new DonorQuest Reports menu ushers in a new type of reporting in DonorQuest designed to do in-depth analysis of donor giving. Due to the many columns these reports typically have, their output is displayed in a DonorQuest datagrid, which may then be sent directly to an actual spreadsheet for further analysis. This menu also serves as the new home for some of the existing specialized DonorQuest reporting options previously spread across multiple menus, including the General Ledger, Donation/Pledge Statistics, Campaign Detail, and Donation Graphs. Here is what the new reports menu looks like:

The Database Table Status option will show you a broad overview of your entire database. The Main Reports option will close all open windows and active the standard DonorQuest reports menu you are used to seeing, but it will do so directly, allowing each report to be run outside of a Selection filter, and independently of any records you may have marked in the Main Information window.  Both the tool bar Print icon and the File, Print/Setup A Report menu retain their previous functionality of deferring to any highlighted Selection Result or Main Information record.  Note that the above example is also illustrating the new ability in Windows 10 to customize the font size in program menus, which DonorQuest fully supports.

Donor Metrics Reporting

The new Donor Metrics reporting is the first of this new breed of DonorQuest reporting. Essentially, it allows you to compare statistical changes in donor giving between multiple time periods. The metrics shown are Total Number of Donors, Number of New Donors, Number of Repeat Donors, Total Number of Donations, Dollar Total of Donations, Average Donation Amount, and Average Number of Gifts Per Donor, all with percent changes between periods. In addition to these metrics being shown in total for each period, the same metrics are also shown broken down by donation amount range. All aspects of the report are customizable, including the specific time periods compared, and the specific donation amount ranges shown. There are currently twelve predefined setups for the report, all of which can be copied and customized. The predefined setups included are:

10 Year Donor Metrics By Calendar Year

10 Year Donor Metrics By Calendar Year With Year-To-Year Percentage Change

10 Year Donor Metrics By Fiscal Year

10 Year Donor Metrics By Fiscal Year With Year-To-Year Percentage Change

Q1 Comparison Of Monthly Revenue, Current And Previous Calendar Year

Q2 Comparison Of Monthly Revenue, Current And Previous Calendar Year

Q3 Comparison Of Monthly Revenue, Current And Previous Calendar Year

Q4 Comparison Of Monthly Revenue, Current And Previous Calendar Year

Q1 Comparison Of Monthly Revenue, Current And Previous Fiscal Year

Q2 Comparison Of Monthly Revenue, Current And Previous Fiscal Year

Q3 Comparison Of Monthly Revenue, Current And Previous Fiscal Year

Q4 Comparison Of Monthly Revenue, Current And Previous Fiscal Year

Here is what the Donor Metrics reporting interface looks like:

The Setup drop-down allows you to choose from among the predefined setups, and any setups which you create. For example, you could modify any of the date or amount ranges in one of the predefined setups, then click on the Save button to create a new custom setup.  These date and amount ranges determine the actual columns and rows of the report.  The donations included can be additionally filtered by a specific Donor Type chosen directly on the Donor Metrics main dialog, or you can even drive a Donor Metrics session with a donation-based Selection Result to filter donations based on absolutely any condition you can think of.

Here is what running the Donor Metrics report with the, “10 Year Donor Metrics By Calendar Year” setting on a typical donor database looks like:

The above image only shows the first two years of the report, but of course the full report shows all years 2003 through 2015.  The predefined reporting options also automatically adjust themselves as the years go by, so when run in calendar 2016, the above report would automatically begin with 2004 and end with 2016.

Selection Mark Menu Expanded

The Selections Mark/Unmark menu has been expanded with two new options – Mark All With Dependencies, and Mark All With No Dependencies.  Selections have dependencies on other selections whenever you mark and combine multiple selections to form a final result.  That final result depends on the older results used to create it.  In the past these dependencies would make cleaning up old selections difficult, since DonorQuest will not let you delete a selection upon which another depends, since the older selection is still needed when refreshing any newer dependent selections.  Now DonorQuest will do the work for you of hunting down these “final result” selections built from others, so they may be deleted first, which then frees the component selections for deletion.  The option for marking all selection results with no dependencies also makes quick work of mass deleting older independent selections you no longer need.

Your Organization’s Name On Reports

The Program Settings dialog now has a new option for including your organization’s name on all DonorQuest reports which contain a standard report heading.  Click on Configure, Program Settings to access this dialog.  The name you entered for your organization under Configure, Your Organization’s Information is used for this purpose, so check there to be sure your organization name is entered correctly.

Auto-Fill On Donation/Pledge Payment Linking

Now when you apply a donation as a payment to an existing pledge, the Donation Type, Account, Stimulus, Fund, and Appeal codes will be automatically filled in for you from the pledge to which you are linking the donation as a payment.  Of course this is only done for blank donation fields – any codes you may have already entered before linking the donation are kept as you entered them.

User-Specific Auto-Exports

The ability of DonorQuest  to automatically query and export data at specific time intervals has been enhanced so that now the exports can be user-specific.  When you click on Configure, Setup Auto-Exports, and add or edit an export action, you can specify a user for the export action like this:

In the above example, the automated weekly export of all donations entered last week is only done when user Gabe is logged into DonorQuest.  This is important because the export path refers to a folder on user Gabe’s actual computer, which is only accessible when Gabe is using DonorQuest from his computer.  The Browse button next to the Export File Name shown above is also new in DonorQuest 7.2.

Duplicate Check For Donations, Pledges, Etc.

DonorQuest has long had the ability to check for duplicate donors based on any combination of constituency fields (last name, organization name, address, email, phone, etc.).  Now DonorQuest can also check for any duplicate donations based on any combination of donation fields including date, amount, stimulus, appeal, etc.  This can come in handle if you accidentally imported the same batch of donations twice.  Now you can select and mass delete the duplicates.  This also applies to pledges, memos, contacts, etc.  Additionally, you may search for duplicate donations across the entire database, or just within donor accounts.

Zip Code Table May Now Be Edited

DonorQuest speeds data entry by auto-filling the city, state, and county for you when you enter the zip code for a new donor and press the tab key.  DonorQuest uses an internal zip code table (provided by the USPS) to accomplish this.  On the rare occasion a city, state, zip, and county combination is not known to DonorQuest, you can optionally add the new combination so that DonorQuest will recognize it for future entries.  Up until now, it was not possible to correct an invalid combination you mistakenly added, but now you may click on File, Open, The Postal Table to gain full access to DonorQuest’s internal zip code table.  You may correct or delete entries you have made, and all of your custom city, state, zip, county combinations will also now be preserved even as the predefined combinations are updated during periodic DonorQuest upgrades.

Support For Windows 7, 8, and 10 Personalization

Windows versions 7 through 10 have advanced personalization options which allow you to adjust the appearance of program dialogs.  In particular, you can make dialog controls larger or smaller to suite your taste, and the change will apply to all programs.  DonorQuest 7.2 in now fully compatible with such changes, allowing you to customize at will without causing any control alignment issues for DonorQuest.  Also, the new look for the Windows 10 desktop is using color very sparingly, so if you would like DonorQuest to blend in more with that you can click on User, Change Your Personal Settings, and set you’re Background color to be Classic Grey.  This is a personal setting so it will not affect other DonorQuest users.  When Apple and Microsoft decide color is cool again, you can always switch it back.  Oh and for those of you who still prefer the much loved and amazingly efficient Windows XP, fear not.  DonorQuest is still fully XP-compatible.

New Standard Reports Added

DonorQuest 7.2 includes the following new standard reports:

Donations – Grouped By Donor And Fund – Summary

Header – Count Of Counties And States With Percentages

Donations – Count Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Calendar Year And Week

Donations – Donation Detail Report With Aggregated Soft Credit Donations

Donations – Count And Total Of Donations By Giving Entity With Percentages

Donations – Grouped By Account, Subtotalled by Stimulus, Totals Only

Donations – Comparison Of Year-To-Year Giving By Fiscal Year With Totals

Donations – Address Info And Aggregated Hard And Soft Credit Donation Total

Donations – Count Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Calendar Year

Donations – Count Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Fiscal Year

Donations – Count Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Fiscal Year And Week

Donations – Total Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Fiscal Year

Donations – Total Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Calendar Year

Donations – Total Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Calendar Year And Week

Donations – Total Of Gifts In Dollar Ranges By Fiscal Year And Week

Donations – Donor Name, Phone, Donation Amount And Stimulus

Contacts – User Counts

Donations – Grouped By Fund – Summary With Donation And Donor Counts

Want Some Freedom From The Office?

Then the cloud version of DonorQuest might be right for your organization.  It has the same look and feel as the installed version of DonorQuest you currently have so there is no learning curve, just a lot of freedom – the freedom to securely access your donor database from anywhere you are on any device including Apple Macs, iPads, iPhones, Traditional Windows PC’s, and even Google Chromebooks.  Oh and did we mention it’s fast – very fast.  It runs in a huge datacenter with multiple physical servers all on tap to get those Selections and Reports run before you can even reach for your cup of coffee, no matter how many donor records you have.  We’re currently offering a free two-month trial to all DonorQuest users so you can take it for a test drive before deciding if it’s right for you.

Version 7.12 of our DonorQuest Fundraising software has been posted and is available for immediate download.

What’s New In DonorQuest 7.12:
DonorQuest 7.12 is a maintenance release of DonorQuest, so it focuses mainly on correcting any problems reported with the previous release.  However, it also brings with it a few nice enhancements and performance fine tunings.

New Ability To Set Default Find Field:
Normally when using the Find feature of the Main Information Window, the cursor defaults to starting in the, “Any Name Field” blank.  However, some users may search by ID or Telephone number more often.  You may now set DonorQuest to position the entry cursor of the Find dialog to any of the fourteen search fields by default.  This setting is user-specific, so it will have no impact on the settings chosen by other users.  To set the default control for your account, click on User, Change Your Personal Settings.  You will see a dialog similar to this:

Simply click on the drop-down for Default Find Field and make your selection, then click Ok.

Auto Update Of Salutation Fields:
The salutation fields are very important in DonorQuest, as they are always used on correspondence with the donor.  DonorQuest has long auto-populated Salutation 1 and Salutation 2 for you automatically when one or more of the Salutation fields are blank and you are saving changes to the primary and or secondary name fields.  However, if the Salutation fields are not blank, in past versions DonorQuest would simply leave them as is, even if a change was made to the primary or secondary name fields which could possibly invalidate what’s already in the Salutation fields.  Now when you make any changes to the primary or secondary name fields for a donor, DonorQuest 7.12 will ask if it is ok to automatically update the Salutation fields.  Even if you choose to update them manually, this automatic message servers as a reminder to do so.  Note that the, “Auto-Fill Blank Salutations On Record Save” option must be checked on under Configure, Program Settings for this behavior.

View Option For Import Log:
DonorQuest has long maintained a data import log which contains detailed decisions DonorQuest makes about each imported record whenever you perform a data import.  This import log is stored in a simple text file in your \Dquest\ folder.  As a convenience, DonorQuest 7.12 now allows easy viewing of this file by clicking on File, Open, The Import Log.

Dynamic Font Size Adjustment In Data Grids:
All of the Main Information display grids now have a slider bar which allows you to dynamically adjust the size of the display font within the window, similar to the slider found in Word and Excel.  This is especially handy on large high resolution displays.

As with all other window settings in DonorQuest, any changes you make are specific to your DonorQuest user account, so they will not affect the preferences of other users.

Updated Internal Zip Code Table:
As with all updates, this release of DonorQuest also has an updated internal zip code table which contains all the City, State, Counties, and 5-digit zip code combinations in the United States. This is used to support the auto-entry of city, state, and county for you when adding a new donor. Remember, to use this feature, all you have to do is enter the zip code for a new donor and press the Tab key. Leave the city, state, and county fields blank, as they will be filled in for you automatically when you Tab out of the zip code field.  This updated internal table also supports the System, Auto-Fill Empty Salutation And County Fields option.  This feature searches your entire database, automatically filling in any missing Salutation and County fields.

Updated User’s Guide:
DonorQuest 7.12 includes an updated User’s Guide, which can be accessed by clicking on the User’s Guide icon of tool bar, as shown here circled in red:

Among other updates, the new User’s Guide features a new topic which explains what each of the DonorQuest menu options are for, complete with links within the User’s Guide where the corresponding features are discussed in detail.

The entire user’s guide is also available in PDF format so that you may view it in traditional book format, or even print a hard-copy manual if you wish.  To download the PDF version, go to the Support and Downloads page of www.DonorQuest.com.  There you will find a link to the manual in PDF format at the bottom of the downloads page. You can also download the PDF version directly by clicking on this link: www.DonorQuest.com/downloads/DQHelp.pdf

Thanks for using DonorQuest.

Version 7.1 of our DonorQuest Fundraising software has been posted and is available for immediate download.

What’s New In DonorQuest 7.1:

DonorQuest 7.1 brings a number of enhancements, including an often asked for feature – the
ability to print reports directly to Excel and Word, as well as to a PDF, TXT, or CSV file. In
previous versions of DonorQuest, raw data could be exported directly to Excel, but not the
very useful totals and computed values of the 400+ DonorQuest stock report layouts (as well
as any user-defined report layouts you may have created). There have also been performance
enhancements to the reporting engine, allowing reports to begin printing almost
immediately, even on a slow network.

Here are some details about the new features of DonorQuest 7.1:

Printing DonorQuest Reports Directly To Excel:
Now when printing any DonorQuest report, you can select the, “Print To Excel” option from
the Printing Options drop-down box:

This will result in Excel being opened automatically, and a new Excel sheet being populated with the contents of the selected report, like this:

If the report you need to export is quite large, you may also print it directly to a standard comma or tab-delimited text file. These text formats are universally compatible with other database applications. This is done by choosing the, “Print To File” option from the DonorQuest report menu. When a report is printed to Excel or one of the text file output options, there is no page numbering, and bands of columns which may have been arranged vertically on a printed report will instead be put end-to-end. This is to facilitate a simple left-to-right column layout which can be easily imported as orderly data records by other software programs.

Printing Reports Directly To Word or PDF Format:

The Word and PDF output options of the DonorQuest Report Preview are accessed by clicking on the corresponding icons in the tool bar of the report preview window, as shown here:

Fast Printing Even On Slow Networks:

If your organization has an active support agreement with us, you should have already received an upgrade email with directions and a password for downloading the DonorQuest 7.1 upgrade from our website.  If you do not have an active support agreement and would like to upgrade, please give us a call at 800 952-8228, or fill out our support request form and a representative will contact you.

Thanks for using DonorQuest.

Version 7.02 of our DonorQuest Fundraising software has been posted and is available for immediate download. This is a maintenance release which addresses the following issues:

After a FIND, the Main Information datagrid will now remain in the order it was last placed in by the user (i.e. alphabetized by Last Name, Address, Organization Name, etc.)

Turning off the user right to edit donations was also preventing a user from simply adding a new donation.

When the Add button was clicked and the Main Information form is already open, the cursor was not being automatically positioned at Last Name field.

Tabbing into State then trying to type a state abbreviation (instead of using the drop-down list) was only allowing one letter to be typed.

Converting an existing selection result to Header table orientation would sometimes alter the conditions of the selection.

Importing Import mappings repeatedly was creating duplicates mappings in some cases.

Deleting all columns in a custom report was causing the report writer to crash.

On very large databases in some cases the DonorQuest local Backup was not completing.

The DonorQuest Server Component now protects against itself being launched twice by accident (only one instance of the Server Component is required to satisfy all workstation requests).

Enhancement: When more than one city is valid for a specific zip code, DonorQuest will now allow the user to choose the correct city from a pop-up menu. Previously, DonorQuest would simply choose the city most commonly associated with the zip, sometimes requiring the user to manually type the city, state, and county to correct the automatic entry.

Enhancement: All form saves now take less than a second. Previously, when running on a network with a large database and two or more users logged in, DonorQuest could take several seconds to save a new Donor, donation, etc.

Enhancement: The progressive search of the Main Information window has been sped up considerably.  This is the feature which allows you to simply type the letters of a last name (or whichever column the display is ordered by) and the display will interactively update showing all names beginning with the letters you have typed so far.

The upgrade directions and password are the same for DonorQuest 7.02 as they were for 7.0. Please refer to the downloads page for installation instructions. Please contact DonorQuest support if you no longer have the installation password which was emailed to you previously.

Thanks for using DonorQuest Fundraising Software.

Version 7.01 of our DonorQuest Fundraising software has been posted and is available for immediate download. This is a maintenance release which addresses the following issues:

For the General Ledger Process, tab-delimited export was always being done for mail merge data files, regardless of settings in General Ledger options dialog.

When extended find is turned off, search fields for it in Find dialog were still being offered

User was not able to simply press Enter on selection name when copying to a new selection. Using Enter to effectively click the OK button has now been enabled on all forms with an OK button.

Program switch to turn off code checking was being ignored.

Default values for User Name, Next Contact, and Last Contact for mass contact add form were not being set.

Clicking on the Results button of the toolbar while the Selection Results window is open will now reset the window to the default view of chronological order, resets to first selection result, and clears all selection marks.

Copy feature of Main Information window was not defaulting to name of donor being copied.

When_Added date in donations, pledges, etc. is now set to current date during data import if nothing is assigned to When_Added date in import mapping.

When typing a drop-down code directly in Main Info form, description was not properly appended when pressing Tab.

Editing a field by which a selection has been ordered will cause reordering of data, making it difficult for a user to work their way through a list making edit changes. DQ 6922 behavior was to not shuffle the display when a key field is edited unless the user re-orders the selection by the field again (by clicking on the title for the field column). This behavior has now been restored in DonorQuest 7.01

After doing a Find any user-selected order is now maintained instead of reverting to Last Name order

Turning off the right to edit donations was also preventing a user from simply adding a new donation. This has been corrected.

Cursor was not going to last name when adding a new donor if main info form already open.

Clicking file, export donor data when Main Info Form is open with changes pending caused a crash

Enhancement: Added Rename buttons to Selection Definition dialog and Field Group dialog.

Enhancement: City menu will now appear if a particular zip code has territory in two or more cities when tabbing out of the zip code field (provided city field is blank). Previously, only the most likely city would be auto-filled. Internal zip code table has also been updated.

The upgrade directions and password are the same for DonorQuest 7.01 as they were for 7.0. Please refer to the downloads page for installation instructions. Please contact DonorQuest support if you no longer have the installation password which was emailed to you previously.

Thanks for using DonorQuest Fundraising Software.