It’s been almost two months since we emailed you about your
new charity account so we thought it was about time we gave you an update on
how it’s been received so far and the work that is going on at the moment as we
push towards a full release.
As you’ve no doubt noticed, the new Charity Account is
marked as BETA release at the moment, which means this is your first chance to
test it whilst we work on resolving some of the outstanding issues.
This is the phase of development in which you test out the
new system and give us feedback where things either don’t work as they should
or where they don’t work as you’d like them to. It is obviously in everyone’s
interest to ensure the accuracy the financial data and usability of the service.
So far over 500 charities have taken the opportunity to
create nearly 3,000 reports on the new system and on the whole the improvements
we’ve made have been well received.
Users have loved the added ability to search for a
fundraising page owner and donation and have also been impressed by the
improvements we have made in both quality and quantity of data that is now
available.
One good example of this is in the payment report, where
before you could export a spreadsheet with around 30 columns you can now create
a report with over 70 different pieces of data. These include not only the
details of the donor but also the details of the person they sponsored and the
event concerned.
From the feedback we have been receiving, people are also
taking a real interest in the different levels of reports we are able to
provide around event-based fundraising activity. Whilst the majority of you have
expressed delight that we can now provide a report that summarises donations to
a Fundraiser onto a single line, others such as Event’s managers within
fundraising departments are really taking to the Event’s report, which
summarises the details of the event onto a single line.
So what is happening now?
It is inevitable that with any new product, there are going
to be some creases that need ironing out and we would like to take this
opportunity to thank all those of you who have been so helpful to date in
reporting bugs and giving feedback.
Whilst we do as much as we can to check the accuracy of the
data, it is your work in comparing the data from the new system with that in
the old that helps us really capture and resolve a vast number of issues.
Our development team are currently working through the bugs
you are reported and evaluating the feedback you are sending us. Special
attention is being given to the speed of creating a report, which is something
a few people have reported issues with.
Whilst this was not entirely unexpected, as we initially
concentrate on accuracy of data and then move onto improving the performance,
rest assured we are working hard to speed things up a little bit for you. We
hope to release some performance enhancements in the coming days.
