barcode

I’ve been experimenting with the Gift Barcode option in RE and I’m finding it increasingly cumbersome to make use of this option. What I would like to do is export a Gift Barcode within a constituent export into an Excel spreadsheet that can be sent to our Mail House so that the Mail House can print the Gift Barcode onto the direct mailing. But RE won’t let me export the Gift Barcode. So I have written a macro in MS Access that will take the individual elements that make up the Gift Barcode and generate it for me in a .csv file that I can send to the Mail House. However, RE also won’t allow me export the Package System Record ID. So now I have to export the Constituent System Record ID and the Fund System Record ID individually and then I have to manually enter the Package System Record ID into the spreadsheet prior to running the macro to generate the Gift Barcode. This is a lot of work to try and save a little bit of time and inaccuracy.

I would like Blackbaud to make the Gift Barcode available in Export and I would also like to be able to code the Campaign in the Gift Barcode as well.

  • Guest
  • Oct 10 2012
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  • Guest commented
    March 18, 2016 00:56

    I'm not a huge fan of the functionality of barcodes, but this is what I do:

    Use export for my mailing list. I need export because we always need to review additional information to double-check names, remove exceptions, etc. After the file is done, create a static query out of the IDs and then use the Appeal Cards function within Mail to generate the barcodes. I only output the constituent ID, barcode, and Primary Addressee. Once that file is generated, I use the VLOOKUP function in Excel to append the barcode to the "main" exported file.

    It sounds a little complicated to read, but it really isn't. Very simple, repetitive steps. You could technically skip the step of creating a static query out of the IDs and just use your original mailing list query.

    If your Campaign and Appeal are linked up, the Campaign should automatically load when you scan the barcode.

    Let me know if you have questions about anything I wrote. Never know how familiar people are with certain things, like creating the static query using IDs or VLOOKUP. Some people stare at me as if I've started speaking another language, but others get it right away.

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