Online Training

Blackbaud offers online training for Team Approach every Monday and Tuesday from 2:00-4:00 pm Eastern Time. The sessions are instructor-led classes where you view the trainer's desktop via the Internet. Click here to see the list of currently scheduled classes. NOTE: a few classes are 1.5 hours. These are marked with an asterisk (*) in the class list below.

If you are interested in a topic but cannot make one of the scheduled sessions, we encourage you to request the class and let us know your time frame. We will do our best to find other attendees to fill your requested time frame. This method also helps us determine interest in particular sessions.

To register: Please complete the form below, or email your first name, last name, title, organization, e-mail address, telephone number, and course/date selection to TATraining@targetsite.com.

Two or three days prior to your session you will receive the materials, conference call information, and instructions so that you can join the session. Please review these materials before the training session begins so that we can start and end on time. Please refer to our policy regarding cancellations.

Cost: Most clients have training included in one of 2 types of Team Approach contracts:

• A DMS (Data Management Services) contract that includes a set number of training hours per month or year
• A Support contract that provides for a number of Training Tickets.

For clients who wish to attend classes but do not have training included in their contract, the cost is as follows:

• $287.50 per session for one person
• $575 per session for 2-5 people

Please note that some courses are two sessions long. For example, the Introduction to Queries and Outputs course is a two-part course and therefore your organization will be billed for two sessions.

Please contact TATraining regarding your payment options.

Minimum hardware/software requirements: A high-speed Internet connection is required to join these sessions. We do not support dial-up connections during online training, as performance can be an issue in displaying the trainer's screen. If your users can access Team Approach on the computer that they will be using during the session, then all other hardware or software requirements should already be met.

Cancellation Policy: Cancellations or postponements of a class registration may be made with no penalty up to ten (10) business days prior to the start of the scheduled training class. Cancellations or postponements made within ten (10) business days prior to the start of the scheduled training class is assessed 50% of the fee for the class per attendee. Attendees who do not show up for a confirmed class will be assessed 100% of the fee for the class per attendee.

Please note that registrations must be received at least one business day prior to the start of the class. We will do our best to accommodate last-minute registrations (those received within one business day of the scheduled class), however we cannot guarantee that we will be able to accommodate any last-minute registrations.

General User Topics

• General Orientation for New Employees
• Updating Basic Account Information in TA
• Orientation to Reports*
• Introduction to Adjustment Transactions
• What's New in Version 6.0
• Interactions for Development Officers
• Major Gifts Overview (Part 1 and Part 2)
• Major Gifts Reports
• Interactions for Member or Donor Services
• Planned Giving Overview
• Events Module Discovery
• Working with Volunteers
• Customizing Your TA Environment*
• Marketing Codes
• Campaign Director/Appeal Segmentation Entry Screen
• Using Excel Pivot Tables to Work with TA Data
• Managing Pledge Drive Volunteers

Queries and Report Topics

• Introduction to Queries & Outputs (Part 1 and Part 2)
• Tips and Tricks for Writing Efficient Queries & Outputs
• Parameterized Queries*
• Introduction to Calculated Fields

System Administrator Topics

• Managing User Privileges
• Account Data Upload Reconciliation
• Customizing and Distributing Your Own Giving History Summary and Interaction History Screens
• Setting Up a Sustainer Program*

* Classes marked with an asterisk (*) are 1.5 hours long.

January - March 2010

All trainings are held from 2pm to 4pm Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted.

January Sessions
January 5 (Tuesday) General Orientation for New Employees
January 19 (Tuesday) Updating Basic Account Information in TA
January 25 (Monday) Working with Volunteers
January 26 (Tuesday) Interactions for Member or Donor Services

February Sessions
February 2 (Tuesday) Parameterized Queries
February 8 (Monday) Events Module Discovery
February 9 (Tuesday) Introduction to Queries & Outputs (Part 1)
February 16 (Tuesday) Introduction to Queries & Outputs (Part 2)
February 22 (Monday) General Orientation for New Employees
February 23 (Tuesday) Orientation to Reports

March Sessions
March 8 (Monday) Introduction to Adjustment Transactions
March 15 (Monday) General Orientation for New Employees
March 22 (Monday) Updating Basic Account Information in TA
March 23 (Tuesday) Interactions for Development Officers

General Orientation for New Employees: This 2-hour session is ideal for anyone on your staff whom you want to have an understanding of how to start using Team Approach by looking up information. It is designed to orient new users to TA with an emphasis on navigation, finding accounts, and understanding how to 'read' these screens: Account Overview, Giving History Summary, and Interaction History. How to run the Account Profile Report is covered and these screens are also discussed: Account Activity, Classification Entry, Account Diary Entry. To minimize differences in business practices, special care is taken to point out when codes such as account activity and source codes are different in the demo database than in most production databases.

For limited access users, this session may be enough to get you up and running in your own database. Users who are permitted to update account information (name, address, telephone, email, and classifications) may continue on with Updating Basic Information in TA. Other related sessions that you might also be interested in are Customizing Your TA Environment and Orientation to Reports.

Updating Basic Account Information in TA: Prerequisite: General Orientation for New Employees.

This 2-hour session is ideal for anyone who will be permitted to update contact information in your database. We cover how to add and update names, addresses, telephone, emails, and classifications. To minimize differences in business practices, special care is taken to point out where organizations may use different codes.

Note that late arrival at this session is not permitted.

Orientation to Reports*: This 1.5-hour session covers the basic concepts on how to work with the Report Parameter window that TA displays when you select any report to run. The concepts that we cover are: break groups, column category and criteria, dates and date types, the additional where clause, and saving defaults. We use these reports as we learn the basic report concepts: Account Profile, Interaction Summary, Gift Summary, Transaction Summary, Account Statistics, Interaction Statistics, and Account Listing.

Introduction to Adjustment Transactions: This 2-hour session is for anyone who wants an understanding of how to create adjustment transactions. First we review the basic concepts of setting up the batch (Batch Summary Entry) and then the general principles around creating a record correction vs. other types of adjustments. We review these adjustment scenarios:

• How to enter refunds
• When to adjust the pledge transaction vs. the pledge payment, and when you have to adjust both
• The Refund vs. Refund and Re-bill adjustment types
• Handling returned checks or incorrect credit card numbers
• When to reverse a transaction
• Adjusting split transactions
• Applying a transaction to another account
• Adjustments and benefits
• Viewing adjusted transactions on Giving History and finding the date the transaction was adjusted
• What automatic adjustments are and when TA creates them
• When you might consider using the Create Adjustment Batch procedure

What's New in Version 6.0: This course provides users with an overview of the new features of version 6.0. The topics include:

• New contact management changes that include editing information directly on the Account Overview screen and improvements made with organization accounts.
• New interaction search capabilities and updates to the Interaction Summary Report
• New Dual Solicitation Feature
• An overview of the new sustainer functionality

An overview to using the new discount value features for pledge transactions

New processes for generating EFTs&Charge Download files

Interactions for Development Officers: This 2-hour session covers all of the details in using the Account Diary Entry screen to capture meetings, phone calls, letters, or email correspondences that development officers have with their prospects or donors. We review how to create new interaction records and the navigation tips and tricks when moving between different accounts and different screens and how to find any interaction. We also cover how to find any interaction using the Interaction History screen, how to run the Interaction Summary Report, and how to use the Next Step (Tickler) feature. The last 20 minutes of this session includes an overview to how Projects are used in Team Approach. This includes an overview to working with your list, moving the account to a different stage, capturing Ask Amount, and linking a project code with an interaction. You may opt-out of this last topic if your organization does not use projects.

Major Gifts Overview (Part 1 and Part 2): If you are thinking of expanding your use of Team Approach to Major Gifts, this course will give you the tools to get started. The course covers Major Gifts module functionality related to Interactions and Projects, but goes beyond basic user training to help you understand how to approach your configuration decisions and reporting needs. What is the best project configuration for your organization? How do you go about defining your interaction codes? What are reporting options beyond the suite of "canned reports"? How can you implement a few key user preferences to make the module as easy to use for your fundraisers as possible? Your instructor will guide you through the decisions you need to make and share best practices from clients who are successfully using Team Approach for Major Gift fundraising.

Major Gifts Reports: This course covers the primary major gifts-related reports that are available in Team Approach. In this course, we discuss the purpose of each report, review the information available on each report and parameter settings that limit the data included on the report. The following reports are discussed during this training: Account Profile, Interaction Summary, Interaction Statistics, Open Tickler Listing, Project Progress, Requested Gifts Summary, Major Gifts Report, Related Donor Giving, and Prospect Ratings.

Interactions for Member or Donor Services: This 2-hour session covers all of the details in using the Customer Service Entry screen to capture phone calls, letters, or email correspondences that customer service department staff may have with members or donors. We review how to create new interaction records and the navigation tips and tricks when moving between different accounts and different screens and how to find any interaction. We also cover how to find any interaction using the Interaction History screen, how to run the Interaction Summary Report, and how to use the Next Step (Tickler) feature. The last 20 minutes of this session includes a demonstration of to how to merge duplicate accounts. This includes creating a merge record and when you need to map data between accounts (and when you don't). You may opt-out of this last topic if your organization does not provide user-privileges to Merge processing.

Planned Giving Overview: If you are thinking of expanding your use of Team Approach to Planned Gifts, this course will give you the tools to get started. The course covers Planned Giving module functionality: moves management for planned gift donors, setting up planned gift details, creating interactions with your planned gift donors & prospects, and tracking executors, attorneys, beneficiaries, & other advisors. This course goes beyond basic user training to help you understand how to approach your configuration decisions. What interaction codes should you use? How can you use projects to keep track of your planned gift cultivation? Should you use classifications for your planned gift prospects? Your instructor will guide you through the decisions you need to make and share best practices from clients who are successfully using Team Approach for Planned Gift fundraising.

Events Module Discovery: This 2-hour session covers the basic moving parts to using TA event-related features that permit you to track information such as registrations, budget information, prize or benefit delivery options. We cover your decision points so that you are clear at the end of the session of your next steps if you want to start using these newest features of Team Approach.

Working with Volunteers: This 2-hour session covers how to track information related to volunteers at your organization, whether they are volunteering to work at an event, to work for your organization in general, or both. We will review: tracking volunteer availability and volunteer skills, scheduling volunteers to work, tracking time actually worked vs. scheduled, querying and reporting on volunteer information.

Customizing Your TA Environment*: This is a 1.5-hour session for any user who wants to learn some tricks on creating your own favorites module, designating a 'home' screen, making copies of reports, and tweaking user-level defaults. While this session may be helpful to those who assign user privileges and defaults to other users, we recommend that system administrators consider taking Managing User Privileges and Customizing and Distributing Your Own Giving History Summary and Interaction History Screens as these sessions are geared toward managing the TA environment.

Marketing Codes: This 2-hour session covers why you use source codes in Team Approach, the components of the source code (aka the marketing codes), information you can associate with marketing codes, and how to create source codes (starting at the initiative level). This session is designed for any marketers who are new to using Team Approach source codes or anyone who needs to create source codes.

Campaign Director/Appeal Segmentation Entry Screen: This course provides an overview of the features of the Appeal Segmentation Entry screen and how it fits into the Campaign Management Suite. This course covers the following topics:

• Understanding the general process for using the Campaign Management module
• Creating the segmentation, based on an existing universe of records
• Executing the segmentation/Running segmentation and selecting accounts
• Creating the output/mail file(s)
• Creating interactions

Using Excel Pivot Tables to Work with TA Data: This 2-hour session explores using Microsoft Excel along with data you output from Team Approach in order to create custom reports in Excel. Pivot tables go beyond the standard Team Approach reports by allowing you to bring different data together, to sort the data with greater flexibility providing drag-and-drop functionality in order to analyze your data faster. Pivot tables also allow you to work with a data set that TA standard reports might not include. For example, you could use pivot tables to report on Cumulative Giving by Fiscal Year and choose to include soft credit transactions or not. You might then also report on transactions by quarter, average gift amount, and then sort so you can see the 5 top-performing source codes in terms of average gift for a particular time period.

Important: This course applies only to using pivot tables that do not link to an OLAP data source (i.e., this course does NOT apply to using pivot tables in the analytic application products which include the Campaign Explorer, donorCentrics Explorer, or LTV Explorer).

Managing Pledge Drive Volunteers: This 2-hour session covers how to track information related to Public Broadcasting pledge drives. We cover configuring, creating, and copying pledge drives in Team Approach; establishing shifts and positions for volunteers to serve; scheduling volunteers to work; tracking volunteer availability and volunteer skills; tracking time worked vs. scheduled; and querying and reporting on volunteer information.

Introduction to Queries & Outputs (Part 1 and Part 2): This session is divided into two 2-hour sessions and covers the basics of the Query and Output tool in Team Approach. We cover the screensand concepts that you use if you want to write and run a basic query and view the records that were selected. We also cover how you can create customized outputs where you select the specific fields for which you want data. We will cover account-based queries that use Classifications and Account Activity fields that are handy to use in queries. In these sessions, you gain experience using these screens: Query Entry, Query Retrieved, Query and Output Schedule, and User-Defined Output Entry.

It is helpful (but not required) if attendees have a basic understanding of the types of information that your organization captures with Classifications. Previous attendance in Part 1 is required in order to attend Part 2.

Tips and Tricks for Writing Efficient Queries & Outputs: This 2-hour session is for those who want to learn some tricks for writing efficient queries and tips for writing outputs. In this course, we cover how to compare TA fields to one another in a query, the purpose of indexes and how to use them to improve your query's performance, limiting the data you get in your output and getting more than the standard data into your output and other query fine-tuning concepts.

Prerequisite: Prior experience with queries is required for this session.

Parameterized Queries*: Do you tend to copy or edit queries where all you do is change the same one or two lines of the criteria? This 1.5-hour session covers how you can create a set of standard queries and change the variables at run-time. For example, if you need to run a query that selects accounts by different counties, zip codes, or affiliation, you can choose these variables when you schedule the query to run, rather than maintaining three different queries. Attendees should have a basic understanding of queries before attending this session.

Introduction to Calculated Fields: Calculated fields are customized fields that permit you to query and output data that is not directly captured in Team Approach. Understanding commonly used calculated fields may be the edge you need to get the information that you want out of Team Approach. This 2-hour session reviews commonly used calculated fields that your organization can start using now and teaches you how to make simple modifications to existing calculated fields to create new ones.

Managing User Privileges: This 2-hour session is for those who set up Team Approach users and manage the matrix of user privileges. We will review strategies for setting up a new user, when it's helpful (or not) to assign users to groups, and strategies for setting up and distributing custom copies of reports. These procedures are also reviewed: Copy Favorites, Change Brief Names, and Transfer Brief Name Responsibilities.

Account Data Upload Reconciliation: This 2-hour session is for those who want to learn how to reconcile accounts that have been run using the Account Data Upload (ADU) procedure. This course is designed for users who either work at reconciling accounts imported from ADU or who will come across accounts they need to reconcile as a result of transactions being uploaded using ADU. The course covers: reviewing the information for un-reconciled accounts on the Upload Account Reconciliation screen, creating new accounts, matching the uploaded information to an existing account, and ignoring the uploaded information. Due to differences in business practices and parameter settings for Account Data Upload, this course does not cover how to run the Account Data Upload procedure.

Prerequisite: You need an understanding of how to create accounts and a general understanding of the information that can be associated with accounts such as transactions, interactions, addresses, phones, and e-mail records.

Customizing and Distributing Your Own Giving History Summary and Interaction History Screens: This 2-hour session is for System Administrators who are interested in learning how add or remove fields and adjust the layout of the default views of the Giving History Summary screen and the Interaction History screen. You may create several versions of these screens if your users have different needs.

Setting Up a Sustainer Program*: This 1.5-hour session demonstrates the features that your organization can use to set up perpetual giving or ongoing giving where the donor's credit card or bank account is automatically debited.

* Classes marked with an asterisk (*) are 1.5 hours long.

To register for any session, please complete the following form.

All fields are required, except for Address Line 2.