Agree with this. I don't want to Acknowledge them until I have ensured they are correct. Better yet, let me go back and look at them after Acknowledged.

This is a very needed addition - especially since we can't see/edit the letters until we have already marked them acknowledged. That pop-up should come after the export is completed and can be reviewed.

I agree! It takes a LOT of time to run the merges twice...every time I run a Mail function....because I need to double check things for accuracy before I want to mark it Acknowledged/Receipted.

HA! I can't tell you how many times we've had to manually change this back because someone has marked them acknowledged then had a problem with the mail printing. What a waste of time.

It seems that according to Blackbaud training instructors, the author of this knowledgebase article: http://www.blackbaud.com/kb/index?page=content&id=BB34920, my organization's staff, and plain old common sense that everyone thinks that the "would you like to mark gifts as receipted" prompt ought to FOLLOW the printing process, rather than PRECEDE it. I understand that this is "hard coded." but Blackbaud writes the code. They should consider modifying this process by rewriting the code in a future release.

I can't believe this suggestion has only 88 votes to date. I would give it 1000 votes, if I could. This is an embarrassing oversight in coding. The same problem exists for receipting. I don't know how many times we have either receipted a gift and not marked it as receipted (because we didn't run the whole process a second time after we actually printed the receipt) or had to go back and change the gift to not-receipted. Same goes for acknowledged. An embarrassment, Blackbaud, that this simple feature has gone overlooked and unsolved for this long.

I find that I have to run and re-run letters at least twice each month. Inevitably, something doesn't come out right and I have to make a change. So, my answer to this is to not click acknowledged until after I print them, but this means that I have to actually do the whole process twice. It's a waste of my time and I really wish it could be changed so that the letters could be reviewed before they are marked acknowledged.

Also, I hate that it marks people as "Acknowledged" who fall in the date range but did not receive a letter per my criteria (I don't send a letter to monthly credit card donors every month, but they are marked as "Acknowledged" when I run the process).

Why hasn't Blackbaud answered this?!

It is too easy to make a mistake and forget to go back! If someone forgets to save the letters in the shared drive then their is no way of telling if a letter went out...same with receipts.

I agree Christine and I have a couple of solutions with your second comment - .. I omit some gifts, say the monthly donors, by excluding some of the gift types (ex. the recurring gift pay-cash) and also include a query (gift letter code is not blank) to exclude the other blank letters!

Amen! That has been the official procedure at FOUR different organizations I've worked/consulted for that use Raiser's Edge: First run the letters and do not mark them acknowledged, review them to find out if there are more that should/should not be included, make any edits, etc., then run them again just to mark them acknowledged. Imagine the time that would have been saved over all these years if you could simply wait to mark them acknowledged until after you've at least seen them!

Christine that posted below:

I wonder if creating a query that restricts your gifts somehow when you are creating your letters would help with what you commented on about your monthly donors? You would then restrict your group that you are creating letters for.

I don't know your whole situation, and am new to using the mail module, but that is what we have to do since we have a different process for our monthly folks, our employees, and various levels of donors, and it's working well so far.

The Mail system is a serious pain in the neck! I never mark them acknowledged, and really do not have time to go back to rerun them acknowledged. Yet if I mark them acknowledged in the front, i never fail to have a problem that requires me to open the gift and mark it not acknowledged and then rerun. When someone asks me if they were acknowledged, I usually search for the name in the letter files. Very antiquated!

Has this really been out there for 2 years? Amazing. I know it has been a problem ever since I first started using RE. Please fix this process!!

I am on board with this one. Currently I run the letters and do not mark them Acknowledged. Once I've proofed, edited and printed them, then I go back and run it as an export just so I can mark them acknowledged. Then I have an export on my computer that if I don't immediately delete it and find it a few days later, I spend time wondering what it was, why did I run it and do I still need it.

I agree with all comments. Would like to proof before selecting acknowledge.