>My office currently uses Raiser's Edge v.6 to mangage all of our
>fundraising activities and that seems to be working fine. However,
>our program staff would prefer to use Ebase for our activism
>purposes, due to its ability to track activism issues that we are
>not able to do in Raiser's Edge. We have compiled the following list
>of features that would be necessary if we decide to use Ebase. Ebase
>experts could you please give your opinion as to whether or not
>these things are possible to accomplish in Ebase. Thanks!
Here's my input, from the point of view of a consultant providing
support to ebase users. I'm sure Tonnia would love to hear from users
as well, even if you have opinions about only some of the questions.
In addition, it would be worth your while to download ebase and its
associated manuals to discover in more detail how it will work with
your current setup and business practices.
>
>Database Requirements for Activism Purposes
>1. Ease of use
This is pretty subjective, and depends a lot on what you're used to.
I find that folks who are accustomed to Access,for example, or one of
the heavy-iron database engines, find FileMaker unusual. Others find
the very visual interface easy to get into.
> 2. Organize list by program staff (contact/list origin)
not sure what you mean by "organize". There are fields by which you
can flag and sort records by staff member assigned, and by the origin
of the record (how they first got on your list).
>
>3. Organize list by issues (Land, Water, Fish, Hogs, Forestry)
Again, there are two fields in the names table to assign issues values.
>
>4. Organize list by i.e., individual, organization, or political
>affiliation
Fields exist for these as well. Moreover, ebase is open source so any
revisions you need to the "as delivered" state, such as field
inventory, value lists, layouts, etc., can be made easily.
>
>5. Ability to email, fax, and track responses
email capability is built in. Faxing through ebase is by means of a
third-party subscription system, Faxaway. Tracking responses via
source coding solicitations and responses is built in.
>
>6. Ability to export to other applications (i.e., Word, Excel)
FileMaker can export directly to a number of common file formats such
as dbf and Excel, as well as the text-only formats that most other
applications can read.
>
>7. Availability of technical support
Technical support is available through this list, a list of FAQ and
email archives on the ebase web site, and private consultants in many
parts of the country.
>
>8. Ability to send HTML emails
Emails are assembled in ebase and then passed to your email client
for processing. It would be possible to send a bulk email, and do the
composing in your email client, so the capabilities would be limited
to what your email client can do.
>
>9. Ability to have remote connection from satellite office (accessing data)
> Any security issues
Yes, possible over local or wide area nets using TCP/IP. It's a
pretty complex system so remote operation can be slow for a dialup,
but is pretty good for DSL and faster connections.
>
>10. Ability to easily import and export between Ebase and Raisers Edge
Ebase can export and import text files as well as many database
formats such as .dbf. The ease of this connection would depend also
on what format Raisers Edge can read.
>
>11. Duplicate checking capabilities with imported information
>
The import process has the capability of checking duplicates within
the imported set and between the import set and the current file,
based on several criteria.
--
--
Dave Shaw H4 Consulting
tel: 206-954-7526 fax: 206-625-1338
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