This would be great in query in fact. In an access query you can edit the data in the grid view. It would need to be something that can be locked down with security permissions but I can see this as being hugely beneficial.

Here is our situation. We have volunteer orientations in which large numbers of people come and fill out our volunteer info. To speed up the imput process, I have the volunteer coordinator entering that info through constituent batch. However, if the record already exists - she is not able to simply update the info the way you can in gift batch. She has to go out of batch, find the record and add the info - which slows down her process. It seems like there should be a way to link records the same way you do in gift batch.

Constituent Batching would be great. There are so many opportunities to utilize this type of record update. Also, attributes, notes, and various other group identifications could be updated through this process. Please implement this option.

Amanda - how do you mean "the same way you do in gift batch"? There is no current way to use a gift query to update an existing gift. While I agree that this would be great functionality - it would be completely new programming. None of the batch types currently update existing records of their types - only import new.

I just wish that you could query on records and use the output spreadsheet to make edits like you can in Access Query.

Melissa - what I mean by "the same way as gift" is that in gift batch - you can search a constituent and then it will add the gift to an existing record. You cannot change a specific gift - but you can update an existing record. This feature would expedite the work at my organization exponentially.

But in a gift batch you are linking a gift to an existing constituent record. Because you are adding that gift you can access the linked constituent record. You then have to open the full record and make your changes - how would that be different than just searching for the constituent and opening the full record and making the changes???

I'll try to give you a synopsis of my organization so that it will help everyone to understand why this is so important. We have a constituent database of about 25K - not too big - but good size. Out of these people who donate - many decide they also want to volunteer. Each month, we have a volunteer orientation, in which about 40+ people come every month. Out of those people - about 1/2 will be new to our organization and the other half will already be in our database. However - the volunteer module requires a whole new set of data from a regular constituent. There are about 20 different forms and clearances that must be completed. To make it easier for our one Volunteer Coordinator who is entering all this data - we have her set up in a constituent batch in which we have set up all the fields that map to the volunteer module. However, for those people who are already constituents - she is not able to open their record the way our financial manager does in gift batch and then link all the new volunteer module info from batch - rather than having to open each record every time a new doc comes in. Trust me - I have thought this through many times and being able to link a record in constituent batch makes a lot of sense for more than just this one issue.

If you could add, for example, the email address on a line item in a batch - when the batch is committed it would complete that field - a check box could be added to overwrite existing information the same way you do that in global change - that would make it easier than opening each record individually. You could just link records from batch - it would help the process - not hurt it. There is no reason not to consider this as another option to update a record. If someone is more comfortable just opening the record - then by all means - but for our organization - this type of process would be helpful.

I get the need for this - I just see it as wholely differen than being able to edit a constituent from a gift batch. The functionality would have to be completely new.

I would like to be able to put a bunch of people into a batch and add a note for example - or an action. They would not be all the same note or action (else I would use global change) but add them to existing records.

I gave this my votes - but I think it muddies the water to compare it to editing a constituent during a gift batch. It would be more like going to add a new gift and finding the gift was already in the system and wanting to make an edit to that gift. That is currently not possible so the functionality is completely new.

I see what you are saying - my only point to comparing it to the way it works in gift batching is the availability to search a constituent in gift batch, which is not available in constituent batch.

It wouldn't and couldn't be available in the current constituent batch - It's only functionality currently is to add new constituents. Just as Gift batch's only functionality with regards to gifts is to add new ones.

The functionality in gift batch is wholely different - you are editing a LINKED record - not the record in the batch. If you want to edit the record IN the batch - it is completely separate and the programming would have to be done from scratch. I know a bit about programming myself.

I agree that this would be useful. For example, I have email bounce backs that I would like to quickly go through and fix/delete/update incorrect email address. I can query those records. If I could change what I needed right there in a query or batch, it would really speed up the process.

It would be extremely helpful if we could use Constituent Batch to add actions, addresses, employment relationships, education relationships, individual relationships, constituent attributes and notes to existing constituent records. Also useful would be the ability to batch add email and phone to existing preferred addresses (business or personal).

Our organization operates in a similar manner as the OP's - lots of constituent records with numerous volunteer opportunities. Having this option (or a way to modify constituent records in the same visual reference - I realize that from a programming perspective, these aren't the same) would be hugely beneficial, and would help avoid a duplication of the work needed to bring in new constituents while avoiding duplicates (if you'll pardon the pun).

Incredibly disappointing to see no action taken on this idea - it's a frustrating limitation of The Raiser's Edge, and knowing the response would be helpful.

I have a similar problem. I wish I could have our student intern enter new parents of students into a Constituent Batch, but to be able to search for them to ensure they weren't already in the system. It would be handy if there were an automatic search (like when running a Gift Batch) and if you found them, it would pre-load all the constituent fields and then you could just add things like event attendance in the batch and instead of adding a new constituent, it would just update them. As it is, we use import-o-matic, which requires the data entry to be done in a separate spreadsheet, but it's far superior to RE Import, especially in finding the correct constituent to update.